 Welcome to the CNO's Navy birthday all hands call broadcasting live from the Defense Media Activity Studios. I'm Petty Officer Andrew Johnson and I'll be your host as we take questions from across the fleet and around the world. Joining me on stage is CNO Admiral Jonathan Greener and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Mike Stevens. Gentlemen thanks for spending some time with us we know these shows have a tendency to start slow so CNO you mind breaking the ice for us? You are well first of all I'm glad to be here with my good friend and shipmate Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy and can't believe it's already been a year and here we are back celebrating our 239th birthday at the Defense Media Activity in Fort Meade, Maryland. Now we're joined here in the studio audience from 10th Fleet, NIOC, Maryland, Navy District, Washington, the Ceremonial Guard, the U.S. Naval Academy, anybody I missed VX-1 of course I almost missed VX-1 but we're joined around the world from folks all around the globe the Navy writ large and the Navy globally which reminds me we are out there you are all out there where it matters when it matters again. So 239 years of legacy of tradition and every time when the year comes around we stop and we say what does it all mean so many people who went before us and made this all possible for us to serve with the kind of legacy with the kind of tradition that we have those that made us able to be the finest Navy in the world as we are today as you are today making it so. So where are we around the globe today can I put up that the first graphic if you might okay as you can see we have about 290 ships and tonight today we're because we're global it is night and day everywhere we're all over the world as the president indicated we are continuing operations and will be for a while against iso iso ISIS as you may if you may in the Arabian Gulf and we have the George Bush operating there with a host of ships out there but at the same time in the Mediterranean we are protecting Eastern Europe and Israel operating in the North Sea out in the of Africa and also in the in the Yukon area of responsibility we're in the Western Pacific assuring our allies and conducting operations with our allies and making sure that that freedom of navigation that keeps our economy going so strong is open and operating in the southern command area of responsibility we're conducting counter drug ops and counter terrorism operations as well counter smuggling around the world getting the job done where it matters when it matters and as you can see the centerpiece of what we do today and what we'll continue to do is see duty and we've we've recognized that recently we've made some changes accordingly it's arduous duty for many and see pays a center of gravity and that's why we increase see pay this year deployments have increased some and we should acknowledge that and we have recently with hardship duty pay tempo which we're providing for people who go beyond again that seven month issue that seven month period of time so make palm I should say a few words and we'll put up see what people have in their minds so you know it's hard to believe that a year as you just said that a year went by already I would just like to say thank you to our sailors shipmates family members around the world whether it's morning day or night for joining us here today for this all hands call and I'd also like to thank all the members here in the audience for being here with us and congratulations to our shipmates that just reenlisted not just to you but we reenlist the families as well so so thank you for giving them permission to reenlist so you know these all hands calls tend to run out on us pretty quick I know there's lots of questions to be asked and I look forward to with you to answer some of these questions so I think I've said about enough and I'm ready to get started before we do the first question I almost forgot the theme of our birthday the theme of our celebration is thanking those who support us which you absolutely just mentioned we just spoke to the families of course they're the primary the wind under our wings as we like to say but it's our friends its organizations such as the Navy League and others who take care of us but it's our communities who support our sailors out there all around the world and you know what makes seapower the technological piece of it so great our industrial partners so all of that this year we're going to take the moment and say thanks for but to your point let's get some questions we ready to go absolutely gentlemen all right well thank you much we do have a live studio audience we're also streaming live on Navy dot mill but we encourage you to join the conversation on social media and standing by in our social media studio MC 1 brandy wills hey Johnson I am standing by here with these four wonderful individuals we are waiting to take your questions we're actually already betting questions getting some answers out as quickly as we can but I got some questions in already via email which you can shoot us your questions email us at social media at Navy dot mill tweet us your questions using the hashtag all hands call or hit us up on Facebook on the US Navy's Facebook page and get your questions out there but on email I got a question from ABH one Dennis Delorama from USS Harry S Truman and he wants to know if the Navy is thinking about entertaining a 15 year retirement for those sailors who are willing to separate well we are not we are not entertaining a 15 year retirement as we think of retirement pay but periodically if we want to make what we call force shaping and this would be a voluntary if you will process or our voluntary authorization we sometimes enable people to to retire at the 15 year point but that wouldn't be a statutory long range kind of thing where instead of 20 years it's 15 years and we just fundamentally redo retirements make fun of any comments on it see what the retirement military pay compensation and retirement commission presents to the president to Congress and DoD with respects to future retirement and who knows what they're going to offer we'll just have to wait and see yeah good point all right well let's take it back to the fleet we're going to DDG 57 we've got a phone caller from USS Mitchell Mitchell go ahead with your question hi with the recent events in Syria have there been any thoughts on restoring hazardous duty pay to say there's gonna just fleet or adjacent AOR yeah I would say hazardous duty pay and the need for it and the requisite the the art the issues that that require it are under review they'll do this about annually and they're definitely going to do it as a result of these operations but as it stands now it is not determined to be needed the folks who are steaming today out in the Arabian Gulf and conducting those operations are not viewed to be and if you will under the circumstances of hazardous duty pay but we'll continue to take a look at that year by year it's it's really conducted by central command in that regard all right and for some some pleasant duty we're going to sunny San Diego via satellite San Diego go ahead with your question good backdrop morning gentlemen I'm lieutenant junior grade Eccleston from Fibron three in San Diego I was wondering with the last year or so when we've done the SAP RAF and SAP RAL training and we had to have a hundred percent accountability from all commands across the Navy have we had a decrease at all in sexual assault cases and if not what is the plan to combat this across our Navy sure the the data that we're receiving right now with regards to sexual assault sexual assault prevention shows that we are moving in the right direction it's certainly not where we want to be but yes there has been an indication or the numbers are showing that the numbers of sexual assaults are decreasing but we should not take that as let's sit on our laurels we need to continue to work hard be diligent and ensure that our sailors are properly educated and the bystander intervention program is working well as we continue CNO to combat this crime of sexual assault yeah this is going to be a long effort it's it's going to be a campaign a year is not enough time here's what we do know more people are willing to come forward to support to excuse me to report sexual assault the events the assault the alleged assault we're finding has a legacy in other words folks these are happening well before the event of the date if you will and they're up to 90 days sometimes two years so people are coming forward the the proclivity to come forward is increasing and so we're finding that that that's a good step in the right direction we find that on surveys etc. of folks are willing to to discuss it folks and think the training is better and that the commands are taking it seriously these this is feedback we're getting from a whole number of sailors out there so the arrows are in the right director but we got direction we got a lot of work to do you know if I could add one piece to that because it's such an important topic I don't underestimate the value of the direct feedback that we get from our people in the fleet and those that are working to combat this that are wearing the cloth of our civilian sailors and I asked the question to our experts I said data aside do you believe that the numbers of sexual assaults that are occurring are going down and what I receive from them as they think about it deeply they share with me yes I believe that we are making improvements certainly we've got a lot of work to do they tell me but they believe that we're making improvements and that's not that's not something we see physically in numbers but we have to take serious I think the empirical feedback that we get from our experts yeah well you know we just completed a department of defense wide survey which is entitled to gender relations in the Department of Defense and it's really about what's the prevalence what's the proclivity are you willing to intercede and we'll get a lot from that but we've got to continue as you said to get as much empirical and objective data as possible absolutely that was a great question for our next one we're going to be using Skype we're headed out to old iron sides Constitution go ahead with your question good afternoon sir mcpawn I'm seaman Wesley Bishop from USS Constitution and my question is is any effort being made to redesign bootcamp specifically to refocus it on its traditional role of instilling in recruits the ideal of mission ship shipmates self and the subordination of the self to the unit I would say absolutely and I want you to talk about each day absolutely I mean that we review the curricula for bootcamp all the time and in fact the very very attributes that the sailor just brought in are being turned and put into bootcamp we look at other recruit training we look at what do we want in the character of the sailor of today what do we want in the ethical nature of the sailor today what are we missing in the fleet and we've got to strive to get that in there today so it's about unit not self the good news is those that joined today that's exactly resonates with what most of our kids that joined the military and especially kids that joined the navy today cno shares were never satisfied with where we're at and we're always looking for opportunities to get better as a matter of fact one of the things that we're doing at RTC right now in December we will start to issue a portable mobile wireless device to our new recruits we're going to start with about two hundred sailors they'll get these devices and all the paperwork if you will the manuals like the recruit training manual and then bluejackets manual those sorts of things are going to be downloaded onto this mobile device so that everything they need is ready and available all the time we're also working to provide them with a level of connectivity so that you'll have an option either write a letter and put it in an envelope during your letter writing time or you'll be able to shoot an email home and receive an email and we're going to take that feedback mind you this is just a beta test we'll take that feedback from our sailors and we'll make a decision on how to best go forward with this data that we receive but if you don't put your toe in the water it's going to be very difficult to swim in the future so we've got to start somewhere yeah all right thank you gentlemen let's start with our first prerecorded question coming to us from the fleet hello sir i'm seaman michael brine kelly station on the uss mcampel in yakuski japan and i'd like to know what the plans are for bringing back more port visits for forward deployed ships now he's talking our tune huh yeah see the world right good question uh good point what we want to do we want to get into more ports in the western pacific where the forward deployed naval force is especially this kid uh was talking about from the mcampel what we want to do is we want to get into ports in vietnam we want to get into ports uh in uh malaysia more in indonesia more and these govern in the philippines and these governments are in favor of that we have to do it in a deliberate manner there's a diplomatic aspect when you visit a port you have to make sure you have proper legal protection things called a status of force agreement where it applies so we want to do more of it it's a matter of budget time location mission but reassuring allies building new allies building new partners and having our sailors who are the best ambassadors we got going interface and show what real americans are like what the face of america is that always works out well for us is a mission a big mission especially in the western pacific as well as in the indian ocean through african well if hashtag all hands call wasn't trending already i think talking port visits might have sped us up a little bit let's take our first question from the studio audience go ahead good afternoon sir master chief i'm semenkirk johnson and i was wondering master chief if you could please explain the difference between uh pts and the c-way point and if you think it should be based more on a command level than big navy with the regulations well we have to understand that that both of those programs are designed we're designed to help ensure that we have the proper balance and that we're managing our communities correctly uh cno made a decision along with chief enable personnel some time ago to step away from pts and move into something that was a little bit more personal that afforded sailors and commands to interact in a greater way and to give npc our naval personnel command greater flexibility when it came to how we determine who's able to re-enlist and continue service i was just in millington tennessee getting a good brief an overview of the process not a general overview but an in-depth overview of the process we believe that where we're at right now with it is yielding good results that our sailors are overwhelmingly happy with it uh there are still a few of those rates out there that are slightly over man that we're trying to get to the proper size and and manage correctly for the good of our sailors and for our navy as a whole uh so i i think that um what you're seeing across the fleet again is general general satisfaction to a large degree and that commands do have the opportunity especially the sailors to be a part of the decision making process and we'll continue to work on it like we do everything as we talked about with boot camp we'll continue to work on it and help it to evolve and get better over time so we're not satisfied exactly with where we're at but we're pretty happy and we'll continue to make improvements okay you're welcome chair absolutely great question we're off to a wonderful start let's check back in with mc1 wills and social media thanks a lot petty officer johnson i am here with terino weather spoon she is monitoring the all hands magazine facebook page where questions are also coming in we got a question from walter canyones he wants to know is there a new mcpond guidance for the fiscal year 16 cpo 365 uh funny that you should ask that question i actually didn't plan it but uh i was talking with uh with master chief garrison my ea there in the mcpond's office and i said to him i said jeff i don't want to make any changes this year i said we're going to change the date and we're going to leave it just like it is because we believe one that it's pretty darn effective the way it is now and cno you've heard me share with the audiences before is that i want to give it some soak time get our let our sailors get used to the process because it is a new process but i will say i would like to share with our audience that that doesn't mean that i'm opposed to recommendations i'm not inclined to make changes but if someone comes to me with an aha type of recommendation then we'll certainly entertain that but other than that i want to leave it alone let our cheese first classes uh continue to move forward with what we consider to be a very successful process uh and let them get acclimated and used to it before we make any changes okay excellent all right let's move right along to another prerecorded question this one coming from uss gonzalez ctt sn kelly atwell uss gonzalez hometown i will park texas sir how will the events in the middle east affect upcoming deployments well for now and for the near future i don't think that events in the middle east and i think you're referring to operations in syria uh and uh and in iraq i don't think they will affect uh our deployments in the near term uh as recent as last friday we had a discussion will there be the need for more forces especially more naval forces uh in the central command the answer was no not at this time what we have is is just fine we come sort of self-contained we say we deploy where it matters when it matters uh ready to do a whole myriad of missions some of those missions were called upon a few weeks ago as we started this operation out we started it out with uh a cruiser and a destroyer and an air wing right after that we're already on deployment we're continuing those operations with the ships that are there today and i see that for the near future uh perhaps for the midterm we will be busy over there but i think uh additional forces extended deployments i don't see that right now absolutely another great question let's move on to a live satellite feed from norfolk virginia norfolk go ahead with your question good morning sir nick bond my name is 82 hul on board the uss harry s truman and my question for you is this throughout the fleet the relationship between officers and enlisted personnel is regarded as a high priority through the over the past few years there's been a push to reinforce the leadership qualities of the chief petty officers through the cpo 365 program sir i would like to know what programs do we have in place for officers to ensure that they receive the same type of training yeah that's a good question we've taken the lessons actually that we learned from cpo 365 we've put this into our nrotc units our officer candidate school and our naval academy and that lesson is right off the bat you know who your mentor is when you get there it's your chief how many i can't i can't imagine any officer in fact i've never come across certainly a flag officer who hasn't said you know why i'm here today you know why i was a successful officer because it was chief fill in the blank for me it was chief shellhammer you know i'll never forget chief bill shellhammer machinist mate chief who really embedded in me leadership traits so it's building a relationship between the cpo mess and the junior officer corps but it's also making sure that junior officer corps understands just how important they are to to your development and also to what you owe to them the covenant that you have that's also embedded in as we go to basic training basic surface warfare officer school naval aviation submarine for across the communities we're also looking at modules i call them modules because as we go from an officer an o1 to an o4 the expectations for that o4 different from the o1 just as you have different from an e7 to an e9 very much different to make sure they understand what kind of character do we expect you to develop what kind of ethical natures do you do you have to have ethical characteristics if you will and what do you now owe you've learned so much you've got to roll that back into that cpo quarters and then eventually if you're lucky enough to get command how you nurture and develop with your command master chief a cpo quarters in a ward room that operate together as a team to develop the sailors such as we have in this room and in the sound of my voice absolutely wonderful keeping with the live trend let's go to millington millington go ahead with your question good morning admiral good morning mcpon i'm it one dimple bimley cnrc millington my question is coming from your sailing directions navigational plan once the economy has been restored and the fiscal year has been recovered will you then increase the number of submarines which you have stated that you will decrease by 2028 absolutely if i if i have the money we will build more submarines but what you can't do is you can't overcome a momentum which is undergoing which we're undergoing right now which is we built in the 80s about 30 years ago mid 80s three to four submarines a year those three to four submarines that we built a year are now coming up on retirement at the rate of three to four submarines a year our industrial base that builds submarines their sweet spot is to build between two and two and a half submarines a year so if we continue to build at two to two and a half submarines a year and we we produce those we'll eventually catch up but what we can't stop is a dip if you will in the submarine force structure that's going to take place between about 2024 and about 2034 so you can't overcome that momentum regardless of how much money you have because you can only build submarines as fast as the industrial base can do it but we have to keep at it we have to build at least two a year two can two sweet spots two and a half to get to that point where we will recover from this slow this kind of a subtle degrade if you will as she mentioned till we build back up to the force we need which is 45 to 55 submarines absolutely all right so back to the west coast this time via skype to everett washington everett go ahead with your question good morning sir good morning mcconn i'm mm2 louis jewel enabler station everett washington i have heard some information about the female dress blue uniforms being put out soon my question is when and how will those be implemented to all hands as well as how will that affect the pregnancy female dress blue uniform sure the so right now with the dress blue uniform for our e6 and below for our women we're conducting a test i believe that test is being conducted down in the hampton roads area it's a small test and when we conclude that test and we're going to expand it we're going to take what we learn from that and then we're going to expand that test and once we've completed both of those tests then we'll assess the best way to proceed forward i will sit what we're trying to do is ensure that you know we would rather get this right late than wrong early so we want to make sure that we don't do something and then have to turn around and do something else because we didn't think through all the challenges and one of the things that we got to be mindful of is the maternity uniform and make sure that we have a uniform that fits those needs and those requirements so we do not have a date an exact date of when that uniform is going to roll out to the fleet because again it's more more important for us to get this right than to assign a date to it fit quality and good wear uniform is always a hot topic all right next question we'll go prerecorded to guam hello mcpon my name is it3 eric mcman for mentis ncts guam and i'd like to ask you a question for those of us looking to stay in the navy for 20 more years what's your advice well this so the the question is prerecorded but let's be clear i didn't know what he was going to ask me right but i have an answer for you i would like to share with you what i call the foundation to success it's about three things and it's about doing these three things with excellence number one it's working hard every single day regardless of the tasks that you're assigned it's about doing your very best every time you're assigned a task number two stay out of trouble you can work hard you can do the right thing for many many years you could get in trouble one time and you can compromise all that hard work so stay out of trouble number three and i believe to be the most important of all the foundation to success pieces that i talk about is be a good and decent person be a good and decent person to yourself to your family and to your shipmates and never to forget to always treat one another with dignity and respect work hard stay out of trouble be a good and decent person and shipmate you're well on your way to a successful 20 years thank you for the question by the way mcconnell that's what i tell the word is a pretty good set of principles set you up right there set you up so back to the west coast this time let's go live satellite feed from san diego san diego go ahead with your question good morning admiral good morning master chief my name is q and one poquel station on board the uss boxer here in san diego first of all i just want to thank you both for the visit on our last appointment we definitely appreciated the encouragement during the holiday season last year my question is for the cno sir with the navy's changing budget and personnel needs do you see an increase in programs like state 21 for the navy to develop that leadership within the enlisted ranks of the navy well i see an increase in that program commensurate with a change in on our personnel we have been growing frankly the the amount of people in the in the navy the officer corps as well as enlisted to where we are today at about 325 so that that's something that that really is set upon the force structure in the navy in other words we man equipment we buy the number of ships and aircraft and cb battalions any cc squadrons all of that we buy what we need and then we man that so we man equipment so again it's really commensurate with uh what is the size of the navy and so state 21 uh ratio wise it's about right now i don't see a big change in that so follow if you will the force structure the navy and you follow the changes in that program all right thank you gentlemen all right moving on to the fleet let's go to a prerecorded from japan hello icon hospital corpsman Christopher vera station in new hospital your coast in japan my question is will there be any incentives for people to score higher in the prt and also will the prt results weigh more in the evaluation and the advancement exam in the near future so good question ship maiden i enjoyed my visit out in your area in the spring and thanks thanks for thanks for bringing up this topic because there's some information floating around out in the fleet that's talking a lot about changes to the navy's prt program and what i'd like everybody to know is that right now there are no planned changes with our prt program and anyway doesn't mean that we're not looking at how to make improvements and then and that's something may come in the future but what we're not doing is making changes today we've got some important things that we need to be focused on this is obviously an important area but we don't believe that we need to make changes at this particular time so rest easy what's in the instruction will remain in the instruction for the foreseeable future and if we decide that there's changes that need to be made we'll vet that through the fleet and leadership properly and make sure that you have plenty of advance notice so you know there's a lot of angst about this discussion that's going on out there with changes to prt and we keep talking about it but they keep asking the question and i think this will this will go on forever as long as people are studying absolutely we're just getting started we've already hit half the good button topic so we'll just see what i'm sure we got some more for you moving next let's go to a live satellite feed from northfolk virginia northfolk go ahead with your question good afternoon sir good afternoon master chief this is the m3 yogurt from the uss harry s truman in light of the end of our recent 2014 deployment quite sailors on the uss harry s truman were wondering if there is any chance of the retroactive benefits that the george hw bush is enjoying for their extended deployment being transferred to the uss harry s truman if we're being considered for that well trust me if i could do that i would do that we've been working on the ability as i mentioned in my opening to be sure that we reward c duty appropriately and that we accommodate folks who are on longer deployments greater than seven months is a notional term but regrettably until we we have to only reward we're only authorized to award that period from when it goes into effect and forward which was just a few weeks ago so uh sorry about that but it's something that we would love to do if we could if we had the authority absolutely moving right along let's go check back in with mc1 wills over in our social media studio hey mc2 social media is just absolutely on fire in here we got questions coming in left and right and we got one that came in via twitter i am not even going to try to pronounce this name because i don't want to butcher it but he wants to know our cyber warriors to information dominance like battleships are to mayhem c power yes yes uh cyber people are our weapons in cyber uh cyber is alive today i mean is active today if we go on over we got nyok here right can i hear from nyok maryland you see these people are animals today uh there is a lot of activity uh our networks let me make it be simple our networks are under uh if you will attack they are being probed every day all of our networks official and unofficial are being probed every day attempted to be exploited and to extrapolate information from it's done by hackers it's done by national and there are people cyber warriors every day out there protecting those networks these networks are combat systems they are the means to command and to control they are the means to deliver information they are the means to deliver a sensor information to be able to deliver weapons if they are hacked into if they are contaminated if they are exploited we're in trouble we will not be able to do our job as i look into the future i am positive that he or she that controls information will control will have the upper hand if not control the outcome of future conflict cyber warriors uh are if not the battleships because remember battleships are replaced by carriers not long after mahan but for what is worth they are truly a major major part of our navy and of our navy capabilities offensive and defensive for the future all right our next question we've got a caller from quake at 11th middle our marine exponentially unit caller go ahead with your question uh good afternoon admiral mc punn hmc timothea wittaker 11th marine expeditionary unit 11 quake sir and uh mc punn my question pertains to the sapper program and i know that we made great great strides over the years to address um sexual harassment and sexual assault um but do you have anything in the works to better to better inform our junior and senior officer and enlisted on um the rules and regulations and possibly a training team that will help um to better um assist our sailors and marines and understanding the rules sure well first let me say that it's important for all of us to be familiar with the policies that are currently in existence and also i want you to know that um cno and i get an opportunity to sit on meetings and be a part of discussions uh on a regular basis where we're always looking at how to make improvements i've never heard anybody say we've we've reached a point where we believe we've got it right we're always saying what else can we do and how can we do it better one example is the new training that's being rolled out where we're doing more peer to peer and small group discussions i remember cno you and i talking about that in one of the meetings uh about what are sailors interested in and how they want to see this training and we talked about the small group you talked with leadership and leadership came back and provided you feedback and now here we are doing the small group training so everybody's open to suggestions and ideas because hey the fleet knows better than anybody what it is we need to do and how to get this right so please continue to provide us with with your feedback and understand and believe and know that we're going to continue to work on this as cno has told me many times it's the challenge of our time and we can never stop working on this and we will continue that effort i meet with my four stars once a quarter uh virtually we do a video teleconference vice chief of naval operations head lawyer chief of information and uh and uh fleet forces command compact fleet commander naval forces europe you get my point and we talk about so how are we doing what do we need to do at headquarters to make the situation better to enable our leaders out there to deal with this challenge better it's an uncomfortable topic and people are not as free to talk about it as we would like so we depend a lot on surveys we depend a lot on feedback from sapper representatives from training teams that go out into the fleet and frankly some say you know i'm kind of we're talking way too much about you're overwhelming me with all this i would tell you i'm happy to dial back any kind of policy changes any kind of other you know to and from back and forth whenever things sort of are proceeding along and there's nothing more we can do there's you know as you said before the that the dynamics slowed down and now we just get after this thing in a you know slow methodical manner but until that time we need to be listening we need to be willing and ready to help enable those who are trying cases we uh adjudicating cases to enable victims to be able to come forward to feel comfortable and to train folks out there to understand the significance of the challenge so the quality of the effort more than the quantity of the effort yes absolutely absolutely great question one that we probably could have done the entire show on well we're going to head back out to san diego san diego go ahead with your question uh good morning admiral uh mcpon my name is operation specialist third class nicholas mohon i'm on the uss russell ddg five nine based in san diego california and my question was for the chief of naval operations sir we understand that optempo has doubled in the past six years and at the same time the navy has continued to downsize and so we understand that puts a lot of stress on sailors maintaining their mental and physical preparedness as well as the family lives and we know there's a greater need for more ships to be in theater and we're just wondering sir with the ever-growing dire need to defend the nation here at home and the global front what exactly is being done to reciprocate those sacrifices made by the sailors who are doing their duties and having to work more hours and doing what is basically more demanded okay uh i would uh i need to understand the the facts and figures but optempo doubling is uh not what we're seeing right now but it is higher than it has been our optempo uh represented if you will by deployment life and deployment length excuse me and time away from home is actually grown from roughly uh home tempo in other words time home from about uh 63 64 percent it's down to somewhere like 51 52 percent and our our red line is 50 percent so we want to get that back up to 63 64 67 percent time at home in a 36 month that's our measuring 36 months of operations that's maintenance that's training that's preparation for deployment and deployment how much time are you in in your home should be uh in your home port for sure and uh and uh hopefully in your at home in uh in your home of residence so we want to increase that so we need to stabilize the process so i mentioned this a little bit as we start as we opened it make sure we have enough time for maintenance make sure we have enough time for training make sure the people who are going to get to the unit get to the unit not right before deployment but in time to work the team up so that you can cycle through and get to your get your schools done and then uh as we get through this period where we had sequestration where we had really unstable budgets the world always gets a vote uh and we are able to accommodate all that and get out into the late 15 and 16 and 17 time frame to lay those deployments in with this optimized fleet response plan to get a more predictable schedule we are laying that in we have the people numbers right we have to now distribute them and reduce the gaps at sea that's on track we have to make sure we got enough maintenance capacity in the shipyards public and private nuclear work and private work we have funded that we have to now sit down and make sure that our training is not duplicative we're not doing one inspection on top of another so that you're not doing pre-deployment underway time willy-nilly and needlessly we're on track to do that so all of these have to be in place but in the end as i mentioned at the opening sea duty has to be the center of gravity and folks have to be compensated for it they should be promoted for for sustained superior performance at sea and you've worked with that with uh with our uh our performance specifications and promotions and in seapay has recently been increased and then if there's the people on deployment beyond the national time of seven months they should be accommodated and that's hardship duty pay which we just recently put in fact he mentions uh i think he mentions what we're doing for families as well as sailors with these increased deployments the lengths of deployments in periodicity and you've mentioned cno on a number of a number of occasions that you're not willing to accept risk in the areas of family readiness those support programs given the budget that we receive you've always pushed to support that to the highest degree possible to make sure that the families are taken care of as well when they're deployed it's a lot of money it's high payback uh those family support programs you're right absolutely incentives another one to help us get trending with that hashtag all hands call our next question is coming from millington tennessee millington go ahead with your question good morning admiral good morning mcpawn it3 denise ward from millington tennessee nrc i have a question that goes to the cno in recent years our allies in nato and the european union have been scaling down their defense spending do you think this is a move towards increased reliance on us military might and if so do you think that we can convince them to be more self-reliant in future conflicts well i don't know if it's it's been uh this reduced budget which is factual with our nato allies is purposeful to shift the burden over to the united states but it certainly has occurred that way uh recently there was a nato summit after the russian incursion into Crimea and into the ukraine the nato nations came together and had a summit they had it in wales and the united kingdom and coming out of that was a commitment by the nato nations to arrest the reduction in their defense budget and in many cases to increase uh we'll see how that transpires that's something that our nation that our president that our secretary of defense all of it try to encourage our nato partners to increase their defense budget to strengthen them and to show the resolve that is so important to make that alliance the nato the north atlantic treaty organization a strong and a good deterrent for future instability in both uh both in europe and in africa all right our next question is coming to us from uss arlington caller go ahead with your question is there any plan on the part of the navy to have an expanded presence in the middle east to counteract the efforts of isis and iraq now there's no plan right now to have an increase in presence uh the distribution of forces today is good uh we have uh just over a hundred ships deployed about 30 percent of those are that is about 30 32 i think is the number are in the middle east and that's about right we are where it matters when it matters we have the requisite forces but more important capabilities to answer the call for those capabilities that the central command commander uh says is needed for this isis campaign that is ongoing all right let's take another question from our studio audience go ahead with your question morning sir good morning master chief my name is uh semen brachi i'm with the ceremonial guard master chief this is a question for you um understand that the female uniforms are changing is there any thoughts about the male uniform we don't have any big changes in store for the uniforms that are our mail sailors are wearing i think it's important as i've mentioned throughout this uh this all hands call to understand that because there is no changes plan doesn't mean changes won't come because we have a responsibility to always be looking at how to improve the process uh there there is some work that's taken place right now um with the flame resistant coveralls we're trying to determine the best product to roll out with that particular uniform there's some minor changes that are going to be occurring with the the jumper the dress blue uniforms but i take your question more so as a you know significant uniform change new types of uniforms and that's not occurring but we're certainly looking at ways to make the uniforms you're currently in uh better to wear when i say better to wear i mean comfort and fit and ensure that it provides you with the safety that you deserve and frankly that we should be providing you okay all right headed back to norfolk for another live question norfolk go ahead good morning sir good morning mcpawn ellis three more from uss harry s truman my question for you is in regards to current world events what is the possibility of going to a two carrier presence in the central command aor well i don't think it's likely in the near term the uh the number of aircraft that that are air wing on a carrier one carrier provide has been adequate to meet all of the air support that is that the navy has requested to to provide um i would not be in favor of going to two carriers an iranian gulf uh that's that's hard on our ability to do sustained presence worldwide however we'll see what what portends out there but i don't see it right now we have a lot of the right forces in theater a lot of capability especially with one air wing there so for now one carrier strike group all right our next question is a caller from uss makin island makin island go ahead with your question good afternoon admiral mcpawn i'm cct one peter from uss makin island our ship is very proactive with the women at sea program and i feel as though the women on board including myself have benefited from the program in some way and i have however asked several women if they have seen this program active at other commands and the answer is usually no with retention rates low for women in the navy this program may be one way for us to boost those numbers by increasing advertisement and awareness and encouraging commands to take a more active role with this program what are your thoughts on the women at sea program it's a terrific program i frankly was not aware of it until about six months ago and it's a terrific way if you have to have sort of what some call the critical mass enough women to make it worthwhile such that they will come together they can come together there are enough of them periodically talk about what they want to do how how to interact deal with unique issues you have to have a decent rank structure experts tell me so that you can do nurturing you can do mentoring and make it worthwhile however the makin island is an example of it working correctly i've seen your logo i've seen your process i've seen your results makin island and congratulations on that it should be exported and we're working on that but again some of these attributes that i speak to to make it effective are not necessarily easily laid on a smaller unit but if you if you're talking about probably an amp an lpd kind of size that kind of size crew and better it's it's a good idea but how to develop that to a smaller unit we have to look at but the characteristics and the endeavors are definitely they speak for themselves so you know i'd like to ask a question with a question or answer a question with a question sort for our shipmate on the makin island in in 10 seconds or less 15 seconds or less uh since you have you're a part of an active program and it's working well for your ship uh what is something that you would recommend to our audience uh during this period of time i would recommend um women definitely meeting um regularly um on on board makin island we meet regularly as a group um we discussed topics that we think that would benefit women um at sea or on shore um i really think just the advertisement getting women involved um is where it starts and so if you have a productive team they are willing to do that i really think that's where where it starts so get the team together start a discussion and see where that takes you and get command support get command support see i believe makin island you my understanding is you've got pretty terrific command support commanding officer on downs that sound right yes it's very very much so so let your cmc know that i'd like to give him a call maybe and uh get some pearls from him i will do that all right thank you shipmates love it great conversation let's see how that conversation is transitioning into social media mc one how's it going in there it's awesome and that was a great question from makin island and i actually have one that can almost relate to it it came from mandy hadley ecklin and she wants to know why can't we start a program for dual military parents who aren't married for co-location that's almost hard to understand dual dual military dual military two people together with a child married not married with a child right okay with a child without a child child with the child with a child so a couple with a child on there a program right so we have the the co-location spouse colo programs to help the detailers better assign them together for duty right now if you're married and you say yeah that hey i'm going here can my spouse right the detailers work that out but we don't have that for unmarried couples i don't know i guess we take them back next million yep okay good point thank you all right it it is the playoffs we started with the softballs we're throwing some heat now we're a little different all right our next question is coming to us from a naval aviator who's seen the world from a view that most of us have just just dreamed about i'm navy commander read wiseman and crew member of expedition 41 on the international space station orbiting 260 miles above the earth my heartfelt greetings to admiral greenard and a master chief pediast for the davie stevens and of course to all of my shipmates currently deployed around the world first and foremost i want to wish everyone back on earth a very happy 239th birthday of our navy i can assure you that our pride and traditions are living strong here in space where i am conducting research with my crewmates including fellow fighter fighter pilot navy captain butch wilmore over the past five months in orbit i've had time to reflect on my good fortune and i am grateful more than ever for my experience of the navy and what it has done to prepare me for this most unique opportunity as us naval aviators we have continued to reach new heights and have paved the way for generations to come i am very honored and proud to be part of our unique naval heritage i will close today with a question as the naval aviator currently stationed furthest from where you are located what is your vision for the future on mad aviation platforms and how will that impact flight officers well i think the simplest way to describe that is to go to the highest altitude and work our way down for unmanned aerial so today we are building and and testing we have built and testing an unmanned aerial vehicle called the triton which has about a 70-foot wingspan flies very high 50 000 feet and thereabouts broad broad aperture out and around looking predominantly on the ocean front to find various and sundry things so it's a it's a tune it looks kind of like a global hawk which has been out there for years and years but it has more capability can fly high can fly no low and it looks broadly out there and has a lot of different sensors so that's your higher altitude then you move down we have tested off of our off the theater of roosevelt and the george hobert walker bush an unmanned unmanned aerial vehicle launch and recovery so it's a carrier launch so imagine you go anywhere in the world and launch this thing out there if you don't have a person in there if it's unmanned that's a lot of weight saving you can put fuel you can put ordinance you can put sensors in there so that is out there and we are looking at that follow-on and then lastly we have out there today rotary wing unmanned there it's called the the fire scout and we have two versions of it one that goes about a hundred miles one that goes about 200 miles those are in production we have lastly a smaller scale it's called the the surface tactical unmanned aerial system stew ass and and our navy seals use it our special forces we're running about out of time but i'm finished perfect perfect time and if you got a couple closing marks before we get to the celebration ceremony yeah i want to say happy birthday i want to say thank you for making your navy the greatest navy in the world we will continue to be where it matters when it matters and what makes it all come together are the families friends organizations communities and our industrial base all right well other than re-enlisting everyone i know you this is a special ceremony bringing out the cake and something that we enjoyed doing with the navy it's personally one of my favorite parts of the navy birthday celebration and in order to to meet the the great guests we have in the live studio audience this year we're going to be doing it a little bit different cutting the cake will be using a cutlass that belongs to the naval history and heritage command it's been attributed to admiral ferrigate this naval officer's sword from the early 1800s has a gold covered metal hilt forming the shape of an eagle's head the handle is made of ivory bone with carved decorations and the blade displays an anchor and a ship on stormy seas that's pretty good all right well gentlemen thank you very much on behalf of the defense media activity i'm petty officer andrew johnson thanks for watching now which section is mine