Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It’s always and … · 2016-11-28 · future,...
Transcript of Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It’s always and … · 2016-11-28 · future,...
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Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus
The Commercial Club of Chicago
Chicago, IL
25 October 2016
Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It’s always
a pleasure to take the time to talk with community leaders, to
talk to you about the hard work your Sailors and Marines are
doing all over the world. The City of Chicago and the United
States Navy have a historically strong connection – and I’m not
just talking about the world-famous Navy Pier. The Navy has
woven itself into the fabric of this region - we’re your neighbors,
your customers and your friends. Every enlisted Sailor goes
through initial training just a few miles up the road at Great
Lakes – those Sailors and their families leave this city with an
appreciation for its dynamic nature, great food, generous
hospitality, and wonderful people. And that affection is returned
by the City of Chicago.
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With programs like your own Veterans Employment Initiative,
Chicago’s and the Commercial Club’s dedication to the military
and the Department of the Navy is very much appreciated.
Thank you for everything you do.
I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but there is an election
going on. This election will bring a new administration, so I
think that now is a very appropriate time to take measure of
what we in the current administration have accomplished in our
Navy and Marine Corps – institutions founded on tradition,
continuity and legacy, but also on change and adaptability.
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To quote a former CNO, “Our Navy has both a tradition and a
future, and we look with pride and confidence in both
directions.” So that is what I’m going to do today – give you the
“State of the Navy” – to demonstrate how the actions we’ve
taken over the past seven and a half years will ensure that the
future of our Navy and Marine Corps will be as bright as its
storied past.
In his poem, “The Laws of the Navy,” British Admiral Ronald
Hopwood wrote, “On the strength of one link in the cable,
dependeth the might of the chain. Who knows when thou
mayest be tested, so live that thou barest the strain.”
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And we’ve been tested. Among the challenges, when I came
into office, we had a shrinking fleet in a shrinking economy; we
had our hands tied by sequestration, which continues to hang
around and limit our ability to plan; oil dependency and
volatility threatened operations and training and it was costing
us lives; and bad laws and an antiquated personnel system
limited our ability to attract and keep America’s most talented
young people. All of this happened during rising threats, a far
more complicated world and an ever-increasing demand for
naval forces.
And yet, I am confident that when history looks back at our
tenure, it will find not only that we bore the strain, but that we
fixed the cable, and set the course for the addition of many
strong links in the years and decades ahead.
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Each of you has a handout that lists a small selection of the
many achievements we’ve made across a range of priorities –
and they are all important and meaningful. But today, I’m going
to focus on three of these priorities: shipbuilding, energy and
people.
There’s a saying that: “Eighty percent of success is showing
up.” Since I’ve shown up longer than any Secretary of the Navy
following World War I – seven and a half years now – I guess I
could claim some success just on longevity. But that shouldn’t
be the standard, and is not the standard, for me or for our Navy
and Marine Corps – the standard has to be and is much, much
higher.
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We’ve never just shown up. From when John Paul Jones
defeated the British in their own backyard in 1779, to when U.S.
Marines planted our flag atop Mt. Suribachi in 1945, to when
President Kennedy’s naval quarantine of Cuba averted nuclear
war in 1962, to when President Obama relied on carrier-based
naval aviation as his only strike option against ISIS for 54 days
in 2015, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, uniquely and without
lapse, have provided presence – around the globe, around the
clock.
And to take this one step farther, not don’t “just show up” –
we’re already there.
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That unrivaled advantage – on, above, beneath, and from the sea
ensures stability, reassures allies, deters adversaries, and gives
our nation’s leaders options in times of crisis. I call the Navy
and Marine Corps “America’s away team.” We are the away
team because never get a home game, and we don’t want a home
game. Sailors and Marines, equally in times of peace and war,
are not just in the right place at the right time, but in the right
place all the time. There is no next best thing to being there.
In every case, from high-end combat to irregular warfare to
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, our naval assets get
there faster, we stay on station longer, we bring what we need
with us, and, because our ships are sovereign U.S. territory, we
don’t have to ask any other country’s permission to get the job
done.
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To get that presence, we have to have grey hulls on the horizon.
Quantity has a quality all its own. To say that a Navy is too
focused on building ships is to admit an ignorance of its
purpose. We are the Navy. We need ships, and we need enough
ships to accomplish every mission we’re assigned. So I made
shipbuilding one of my top priorities, and we’ve dramatically
reversed the decline in our fleet.
On September 11th 2001 the Navy had 316 ships. Seven years
later, by 2008, despite one of the greatest military build-ups in
history, we were down to 278. During that seven years, only 41
ships were contracted – not enough to keep the fleet from
shrinking and not enough to keep our shipyards going.
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I’ve been in office over seven years now, so it’s an absolute
comparison. In the seven years since 2009, we’ve contracted for
86 ships, and we’ve done so while increasing aircraft purchases
by 35% - all with a smaller top line.
Our efforts, with the strong support of Congress, guarantee that
– just with the ships under contract today – we will get to 300
ships by 2019 and our currently assessed need of 308 ships by
2021. It takes a long time to build a fleet. It takes a long time to
reverse the consequences of a shrinking fleet. But, by
implementing basic business practices like firm, fixed-price
contracts, multi-year buys and stable requirements, we increased
the numbers while driving down costs on virtually every class of
ship.
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For example, the average construction cost of our Littoral
Combat Ship has decreased by nearly 50 percent relative to
those hulls contracted prior to 2009. While the costs have gone
down, the capabilities have gone up. We are upgrading the
design to significantly increase LCS lethality and survivability,
and because of their enhanced counter-surface and counter-
submarine capabilities, contributing to Strike Group operations,
we are re-designating future ships as frigates.
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The Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (DDG 51) program is
another one of the Navy’s most successful shipbuilding
programs. Sixty-two of these ships are currently operating in
the fleet. Today, we are in the fourth year of a multi-year
procurement, and thanks to competition and also thanks to the
hard work and the talent at our shipyards, the DDG 51
competitive multiyear contract is saving more than $2 billion
over its predecessors.
We’ve enjoyed similar success with our submarines. In April
2014, we awarded the largest contract in Navy history, $18
billion to build 10 Virginia-class attack submarines. These
submarines normally cost $2 billion apiece. This is doing math
in public, but we paid for 9 and we got 10. It’s like having one
of those punch cards: buy nine, get your 10th sub free.
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Finally, we’ve expanded unmanned systems in all domains and
put increased focus on these systems by establishing a Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for unmanned and an office of
unmanned warfare systems on the Navy staff, N99, designed
specifically to coordinate all unmanned programs. As both our
manned and unmanned platforms join the fleet, we are
equipping them with the most advanced technologies like laser
weapons and soon, electromagnetic railguns. We’ve protected
research and development and science and technology so that
we will continue to have our technological edge. I don’t ever
want to send Sailors and Marines into a fair fight.
Our efforts to rebuild the fleet have benefited more than just our
Navy and Marine Corps. From Marinette, Wisconsin to Mobile,
Alabama and from Bath Maine, to San Diego, California -
American workers build, maintain and repair our platforms.
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Tens of thousands of skilled laborers are employed by our public
shipyards. Four-hundred thousand U.S. jobs are directly or
indirectly supported by the maritime industry, and 41 million
jobs are linked to international seaborne trade. For every job
created in shipbuilding, almost 3 other jobs are created in other
parts of the economy, and since 2009, we’ve created 8,000 new
jobs in our shipyards – these are American manufacturing jobs
with an average salary of more $75 thousand. The overall
impact is so great that the shipbuilding industry produced more
than $25 billion in labor income and more than $37 billion in
GDP in 2015.
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And those ships are needed more than ever before - they protect
the sea lanes across the globe. And through these sea lanes,
90% of world trade, or $9 trillion of goods, travel annually,
sustaining the global economy.
These are facts. As Casey Stengel used to say, “You can look it
up.” The fact is that our focus on shipbuilding has undeniably
produced substantial and tangible results for our Navy and
Marine Corps, for American industry and American workers,
creating jobs across the Nation. It has advanced both our own
economy and the global economy and contributed to
international security in ways that benefit every American.
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Increasing the fleet size, however, is only part of the equation.
We have to have our ships in the right place at the right time, all
the time, to provide presence. And the way we do that with is
by the energy we use.
In 2009, oil had reached $140 a barrel, forcing us to prioritize
overseas operations at the expense of training here at home.
Worst of all, we were losing a Marine in every 50 fuel convoys
in Afghanistan, way too high a price to pay.
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Although the cost per barrel of oil has eased, the price of oil,
over time, is going in only one direction, and that is up. As
recently as the past few days, OPEC announced new
negotiations on supply restrictions to get prices back up. And
while the final outcome remains unknown, for the first time,
Russia has shown a willingness to cooperate. Speaking of
Russia, you only have to look at what Russia did to Ukraine and
in Crimea to see how energy can be used as a weapon.
That is why I took action to re-establish the Department of the
Navy as a world leader in energy innovation – and it was to
make us better warfighters. Our Navy and Marine Corps have
always been on the cutting edge of energy innovation.
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We led the transition from sail to coal, coal to oil, and pioneered
nuclear power for propulsion. In that tradition, it was clear that
we had to lead the transition to alternatives in order to maintain
our edge.
First and foremost, we’ve done this to be better at our jobs – to
be better warfighters – but, we cannot ignore the impacts of
climate change. As new routes open in the Artic, as sea levels
rise, as storms increase in intensity, the Navy and Marine Corps
are the first responders and our responsibilities increase. We
need to also lead in the response to climate change.
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So in 2009, I set a number of very specific, pretty ambitious
energy goals, the most ambitious of which was to have at least
half of naval energy – both ashore and afloat – come from non-
fossil fueled sources by 2020. President Obama reiterated the
shore part of that goal in his 2012 State of the Union Address
saying that Navy would get 50%, or 1 GW of power, from
alternatives by 2020.
So how are we doing? We surpassed our goal ashore last year –
five years early. Today, at our shore installations, we get more
than 1.2 GWs of energy out of our total 2GW requirement, from
alternative sources.
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Since we own a half million acres of land and 117,000 buildings
our accomplishments ashore are important – but we are the
Navy – so I’m happy to say that we are on pace to meet our
goals at sea and in the air too. In just seven years, we
envisioned, tested and deployed the “Great Green Fleet,” a
Strike Group steaming entirely on blended biofuels and nuclear
power.
Our biofuels are “drop-in” fuels, meaning we don’t change a
thing in our engines; they don’t take away land from food
production; and they are cost-competitive with traditional fuels.
Other countries are already following suit, and other industries
are following suit. In August, during our Rim of the Pacific
Exercise, nine other nations were refueled by blended biofuels
and regular fuels.
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In June, I was in the Med on a U.S. destroyer taking Italian
biofuel from an Italian oiler with an Italian frigate on the other
side of the oiler, also taking biofuel.
The geo-strategic example I use is that in Singapore, there is an
oil refinery owned by the Chinese, and right down the road there
is a biofuel refinery owned by the Finns. I don’t want to depend
on China for our fuel in the western Pacific. I want to have an
option, a choice. Biofuels make us more flexible, more agile.
The private sector understands this too. Jet Blue just signed a
10-year contract for biofuels and United, Alaska, Virgin, UPS,
and FedEx are all flying at least part of the time on biofuels.
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There were those who criticized us for the price we paid for a
small test amount of biofuel we purchased in 2012 for our first
demonstration. But these same folks were strangely silent after
we bought operational quantities this year as part of a regular
fuel purchase for less than $2.14 per gallon, a price that is
absolutely competitive with that of traditional fuel.
Biofuels aren’t the only alternatives we have pursued and our
pursuits aren’t exclusive to the Navy. The Marines – who most
of you wouldn’t necessarily think of as ardent environmentalists
– have led the way in other alternatives like kinetic knee-braces.
When they march or walk, which Marines tend to do, the
movement in their legs translates to energy, which they use to
power their radios and GPSs.
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In parallel with these efforts, we have pursued efficiencies –
changing the whole culture of energy consumption in the Navy
and Marine Corps. At the recommendation of a Navy Chief, we
are retrofitting ships with LED lights as they come through the
yards. Just by changing the lightbulbs, we save 20 thousand
gallons of fuel per year per destroyer.
We’ve also invested in technologies like hybrid-electric drives
that enable ships like our big deck amphib, USS Makin Island,
to not only increase on-station time by a third (44 days), but to
bring home about half of her fuel budget.
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Those combined efforts in alternatives and efficiencies have
produced what some considered unimaginable results when we
started. Ashore, we’ve achieved $90 million in savings, $60
million in energy upgrades and 22 million tons of abated CO2,
and along with our work at sea, our energy initiatives as a whole
have contributed to a reduction in oil use by 15% in the Navy
and 60% in the Marine Corps. To be fair, part of that drop for
the Marines is because we’re largely out of two land wars, but
that is clearly not the only reason.
As impressive as these statistics are, and I think they are pretty
impressive, it isn’t the statistics that matter, but rather, how
these statistics influence our ability to provide that presence.
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These efforts have made our SEAL teams stealthier, as they
approach net-zero with power and water consumption; our
Marines more agile, since just by using rollable solar blankets,
they’ve shed 700 pounds of batteries per company that they
don’t have to hump and they don’t have to re-supply; our ships
less vulnerable, due to decreased replenishment requirements,
and our bases more resilient in the face of attacks on our power
grids. These are the real impacts. They give our Navy and
Marine Corps operational flexibility, they make us better
warfighters and they give the United States a strategic
advantage.
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Finally, having the right number and type of ships, and the
means to have them wherever they are needed, whenever they
are needed, still falls short if you don’t have Sailors and Marines
who can offer the diverse perspectives required to solve today’s
complex problems - “perspective” and “diverse” being the
important words.
From one perspective, it is critically important to honor the
people and traditions that have sustained America’s Navy and
Marine Corps for 241 years. One of my great privileges and
responsibilities is to name Navy ships. That is why I’ve named
ships after 9 Medal of Honor Recipients and 2 recipients of the
Navy Cross – individuals who fought, and in many cases died,
in sacrifice for American values.
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From another perspective it is equally important to honor
American values themselves. Our founding fathers set out to
form a “more perfect union,” acknowledging the American
experiment that challenges us to live up to the principles
established in the Declaration of Independence and our
Constitution. That is why, in accordance with the longstanding
naval tradition of establishing new naming conventions for new
classes of ships, and for naming naval support ships for
civilians, I have also named 8 ships in honor of civil rights and
human rights heroes – people like Medgar Evers, Cesar Chavez,
John Louis, Harvey Milk, Earl Warren, Lucy Stone and
Sojourner Truth– Americans who also fought and – in some
cases – who also died pursuing our most sacred values of justice,
equality and freedom.
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One of those ships I named recently, the USNS Robert F.
Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, I was
reminded of a George Bernard Shaw quote that Robert Kennedy
often used, “There are those that look at things the way they are,
and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why
not?”
When I became Secretary of the Navy in 2009, there were a lot
of things I encountered that begged the question "why not?” At
that time, openly gay Americans were not allowed to serve in
the military. Why not? In the Navy, women were not permitted
to serve aboard submarines, or in riverine squadrons or in the
Navy SEALS. Why not? In the Marines, women were not
accepted in ground combat roles. Why not? On the campuses
of Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Yale, NROTC had not
been present for decades. Why not?
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In every case – as is always the case with such questions – there
was no good answer.
So I strongly supported the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and
I led the implementation of open service in the Navy and Marine
Corps. I also, in 2010, opened service on submarines and in
riverine squadrons to women, I called for an increase in female
mids at the Naval Academy, and I advocated for opening all
combat specialties to women across the Navy and the Marine
Corps, which happened this past January.
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Working with the presidents of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and
Columbia we brought Naval ROTC back to their campuses. At
the same time, we established Naval ROTC units at Rutgers and
Arizona State, our country’s two the most diverse campuses in
our country.
We are doing this not to have diversity for diversity’s sake. But
because a diverse force is a stronger force. It’s a dangerous
thing for a military force to become too predictable. A
predictable force is a defeatable force. Every time we’ve
opened the services, every time – from the time the de-
segregated the military in the late 40’s to opening up ground
combat this year – every time, we’ve become stronger.
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It is also dangerous when there is too wide a gap between the
protected and those doing the protecting. Our pursuit of
diversity in thinking, diversity in experience, and diversity in
background gives us strength and guarantees our Navy and
Marine Corps are both reflective and representative of the nation
we defend.
But, as we have opened up opportunities for everyone to serve,
in no case are we lowering standards. Lowering standards is
unacceptable – unacceptable under the law, unacceptable to me,
and unacceptable to every military leader because it would
endanger not only the safety of Sailors and Marines, but the
security of our nation. But while there is no good argument to
lower standards, there is also no good argument to bar anyone
who has met those standards from serving alongside his or her
fellow Sailors and Marines – in every clime and place.
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If a person qualifies in every way for service, how can we
possibly say that they cannot share in the honor of defending
this country because of the shape of their skin, the color their
skin of their skin or because of who they love? We can’t. We
shouldn’t. And now, we don’t.
The experience that brought this home for me: I’ve been to
Afghanistan twelve times. On one of those trips I went through
Manaus, Kurdistan where we had a big base. Everybody
coming into or out of Afghanistan usually transited through
there. And I spoke to about 800 Sailors and Marines – about
half coming in and half going home. After the all hands call, a
First Class Petty Officer came up to me and said, “I just want to
thank you and everyone who was involved in repealing Don’t
Ask Don’t Tell.” He said, “I’ve been in the Navy for twelve
years.”
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He had just finished his third combat tour in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Three combat tours and yet his biggest fear was that he
was going to be found out as gay and made to leave the service.
How wrong is that? How wrong?
Recruiting a diverse force must be followed by retaining,
developing and advancing that force. So we implemented the
most sweeping reforms to personnel policies since Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, my CNO and the namesake of America’s
newest Commissioned Destroyer, transformed our Navy in the
late 60’s and early 70’s.
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Seven years ago we were losing too many people, especially
women, because we weren’t doing all we could to uphold a
healthy working environment, Sailors and Marines often had to
choose between service and family, rigid career paths stifled
professional development, time in service was the primary
determinant of advancement, and our op-tempo was very high
and very unpredictable.
So we’ve taken deliberate steps under my 21st Century Sailor
and Marine Initiative to foster a professional, supportive and
inclusive workplace. We are absolutely committed, from the
deckplates to senior leadership, to combating the crime of sexual
assault, which is why I created the only Secretariat-level Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Officer, who reports directly
to me.
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We’ve increased protections for Sailors and Marines suffering
from Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD and other mental health
conditions. Too many times they were administratively
discharged for some bad act and the bad act took precedence
over whether they had PTSD or TBI. As a result, they got bad
paperwork. We reversed that. We are going to test these Sailors
and Marines, and if we find they had a condition that contributed
to the bad act, they may still get discharged, but they will have
access to VA care and other benefits they earned. We are also
addressing the tragedy of suicide – both in the service and with
our veterans.
Taking a bigger view on health, we’ve revamped physical
assessments, making them more realistically aligned with the
jobs we do, and we have promoted healthier lifestyles through
better nutrition and a culture of fitness.
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Part of taking care of Sailors and Marines is making it easier for
them to take care of themselves and their families, so we’ve
made career paths more flexible. One example, which has been
dramatically expanded, is the Career Intermission Program – a
program that allows Sailors and Marines to take up to three
years off to raise a child or care for an ailing family member or
for many other reasons. When they return, they owe us 2 years
for every year they were gone, but their careers aren’t penalized,
but rather, they compete with others who are similarly qualified
and experienced.
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For others, we’ve extended child care availability by two-hours
on both ends of the work day at all Navy and Marine Corps
facilities, and we now provide 24-hour care at three fleet
concentration areas. I also tripled paid maternity leave from 6 to
18 weeks, although DoD later reduced all services to 12 weeks,
and I expanded co-location policies to provide more stability to
dual-military couples.
Increased stability and career path predictability enables Sailors
and Marines to pursue the types of professional development
opportunities we need to drive innovation.
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Athenian General, Thucydides, is attributed for having said, “A
nation that draws too broad a distinction between it's scholars
and it's warriors will have it's thinking done by cowards, and it's
fighting done by fools.” To guarantee we don’t suffer that fate,
we added 30 graduate school slots through our Fleet Scholars
Education Program and we are sending high-performing Sailors
on SECNAV Industry Tours to great American companies like
FedEx and Amazon. There, they learn private sector best
practices that can be applied when they return, and as
representatives of our Navy and Marine Corps, they help bridge
the growing civil-military divide.
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To tap into that innovative culture and to revitalize the creativity
inherent in our Navy and Marine Corps, we established Task
Force Innovation, an initiative focused on drawing good ideas
from deckplate Sailors and field Marines through our online
crowdsourcing platform and then funding and rapidly moving
those ideas throughout the fleet. And we are better able to
recognize those who contribute because we have removed “zone
stamps” from officer promotion boards and our Commanding
Officers are now empowered to meritoriously promote up to 5%
of their Sailors and Marines. And if they don’t use their whole
5%, another CO can.
All of this is aimed at one thing – attracting, developing,
retaining, and advancing the most talented Sailors and Marines
America has to offer and getting them out to lead at sea and
overseas where we need them most.
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So my time is coming to an end. I am taking the opportunity to
visit our shipbuilding facilities and Fleet concentration areas –
I’ve already been to Groton, Norfolk, San Diego, Washington
state, and Wisconsin. I was just up the road at Naval Station
Great Lakes visiting with the future – the strength - of our Navy
– its people. I’ll soon travel to Mayport, Florida and continue on
overseas. This is to see the people who have done the work,
made the changes, built the ships – to give them a BZ, a “well
done.”
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I do this and I will depart in a few months, knowing that this
Administration has taken the necessary steps to assure that our
Navy has never been stronger. We are getting the right number
of the right kind of platforms to meet our mission; our
disciplined and deliberate use of energy has made us better
warfighters; we represent the greatest people America has to
offer, the absolute best in the world; and we continue to provide
presence - around the globe, around the clock.
A foreign head of Navy once told me that the difference
between Soldiers and Sailors is that Soldiers, by necessity, focus
on boundaries and obstacles. They are constantly looking down
at the ground. Sailors, on the other hand, look out. They look to
the open sea and see no boundaries. Sailors look to the horizon
and see only possibilities.
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So looking to the horizon, looking ahead, I am confident that the
policies we’ve enacted, the decisions we’ve made and the
priorities we’ve set guarantee that our Navy and our Marine
Corps will remain the greatest expeditionary fighting force the
world has ever known – for as far into the future as the eye can
see.
That is the strength of our link in the cable, and it will bear any
strain that tests it.
From the Navy, Semper Fortis, Always Courageous. And from
the Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful. Thank you.