 Hi, I'm Juan Garcia, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower Reserve Affairs. Congratulations on your participation and attendance in the 41st NNOA Training and Development Conference. More than 11 years into the longest sustained combat operations in American history, the operational tempo that you and your family have operated under has been demanding and you've performed at every turn. And now with a new national defense strategy that looks to the West and rebalances towards the Pacific, we know that this is a defense strategy that will focus on the sea services. So it's very little reason to believe that the operational tempo for the Navy and the Marine Corps will change anytime soon. That's why we hope that you'll focus on and ensure that you and your families are availing yourselves of the programs available underneath the 21st Century Sailor and Marine Initiative to ensure that you have the tools you need to succeed and excel in the coming Navy decade. The work you're doing and the Sailors and Marines that follow your orders has never been more critical. I want to share with you a recent real-time example of the global impact that a 19-year-old Sailor can have on world events. A year ago, January, when the Stennis Battle Group outchopped through the Strait of Hormuz left the Persian Gulf, if you were following the news at the time, you'll know that elements of the Iranian leadership threatened that this would be the last U.S. Navy ship that goes through the Strait. World's leaders went into a heightened state of alert. A day later, an Iranian general doubled down and said, this is no joke. That's the last U.S. Navy ship that goes through. The Iranians threatened to bottle up the Persian Gulf, and with it, close to a quarter of the world's energy and oil supply, with all the implications that has for the world economy, for the American economy, for fuel prices, for employment, for the heating of the American Northeast. The world's leaders go into a heightened state of alert. While Stennis and its support ships were now outside the Strait, the Ghout, the Gulf of Oman, and they received intelligence that there was an Iranian fishing ship exhibiting some odd behavior, Stennis sent over one of its destroyers who interacted, reached the Iranian skipper on a bridge-to-bridge common frequency radio, and that Iranian skipper suggested there was no problem. They were transiting in accordance with normal operations. What we couldn't have known at the time was that that Iranian skipper had about 11 weapons trained on him from pirates who had hijacked his ship, and were using it as a mothership to conduct pirate operations in the Gulf of Oman. The destroyer skipper kept an eye on it. She knew something wasn't quite right, and she played a hunch. She called up a young 19-year-old snipe, an engineman, who she knew happened to be a native Urdu speaker. When he came up to the bridge, and they again established bridge-to-bridge radio comms with that Iranian skipper, he was able to convey that in fact they were hijacked and under distress. The Iranians speak Urdu, the pirates do not. Pirates didn't know what the message was he was sending out. Subsequently, Stennis sent over a VBBS boarding group. They secured the pirates, they rescued the Iranians, and saved the day. And with it, depressurized an enormous pressure-packed global geopolitical situation because it became very difficult and awkward for the Iranian leadership to threaten to torpedo a U.S. Navy ship when we were rescuing their own people. A 19-year-old sailor changed the course of a world of events. My favorite part of the story was after the pirates were transferred over to the carrier, Corman came aboard and did a medical check-up on all the Iranians, provided them with MREs and water, and sailors checked the sea worthiness of their ship. The Iranians were now ready to sail home. Keep in mind, the photo behind me is a photo of the Iranian skipper. Now, remember that all he's heard his entire adult life is anti-American propaganda, the great Satan, the great oppressor. Despite a lifetime of that indoctrination, this is the reception he gives the first U.S. Navy sailor he's ever met in his life. And the best part of the story to me is as the Iranians are getting ready to go home, their whole crew is on the bridge, they're waving, they're smiling, they're heading home, and they're all wearing U.S. Navy ball caps. I'm not sure what kind of reception they got when they got back to Iran. But the bigger story is this. The sailors you lead and the Marines you lead are changing the impact and the trend and the course of global events across the world every single day. They look to you, they look to your leadership. Take care of them, be responsible for them, be accountable to them, set the example. We're strongest when we draw from every sector and corner of the country. We're at our best when we take advantage of the entire American fabric and all everyone who can bring to it brings. That's what NNOA is about. Thanks for your work. Thanks for your leadership. Be safe and we'll see you in the fleet.