 Elmo Bud Zumalt Jr., the Navy's youngest chief of naval operations, was born on November 29, 1920 in California. After leaving California, Bud Zumalt attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating early in 1942 because of World War II. At the end of World War II, his ship had captured a Japanese gunboat and my father and ten sailors were put as prized crew on that ship with about 200 Japanese prisoners. My father ended up commanding the first ship to come into Shanghai flying the American flag at the end of World War II. Bud served at a variety of commands during the Korean conflict and early Cold War, eventually working under Paul Nitsa, under Secretary of Defense for Foreign Affairs. Promoted to Vice Admiral, Zumalt moved on to command naval forces Vietnam. He was an extraordinary sailor, an extraordinary destroyer in his whole life, and then including obviously his time in a combat zone in Vietnam as a leader there. What he did was he consolidated the various forces into a new thing called Task Force 194, which was the Operation Sea Lords. To protect the riverine forces from being fired on from ashore, Admiral Zumalt ordered the use of a defoliant called Agent Orange that wiped out the trees and so forth along the banks and made it much harder for the enemy to have places of concealment. Got the attention of Richard Nixon among others through his efforts in Vietnam and ultimately wound up being jumped over I think 33 admirals to become the chief of naval operations, the youngest one ever at that point. But began his term as CNO by implementing Project 60, a plan to reduce ship numbers across the fleet. Out of Project 60 emerged the concept of the high-low mix, and a plan to quickly eliminate obsolete ships to counter the modernizing Soviet fleet. Zumalt also began issuing Z-grams, policy changes aimed at deck-plate sailors to improve conditions and quality of life. They covered a vast array of topics, increased opportunities for women in the Navy, increased opportunities for minorities. We're not trying to create a Navy in which any group, any segment, was anything other than an integral part. Bear in mind that at that time in the minority community we had the lowest number of minority officers and we had a tradition of segregation, the remnants that were still there all the way around. How could we quickly change it? The changes had to be made and we now have not only African-American at all ranks, but we also have Filipinos at all ranks. And in the enlisted categories the restriction of those ethnic groups to just the housekeeping rates was eliminated and they now are doing wonderfully in all the ratings. After his term as CNO, Bud retired from the Navy. His son, Elmo III, who had served under Bud in Vietnam, had come down with cancer. Bud Zumalt believed this to be directly related to the use of Agent Orange during the war. The tragedy of Agent Orange led Bud Zumalt to work tirelessly to get veterans benefits and compensation for those ill from its use in Vietnam. He also became a founder of the National Bone Marrow Directory. For this work, Elmo Zumalt was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in 1998. Elmo Bud Zumalt passed away on January 2, 2000. His legacy lives on in the ship that bears his name. I think it's going to be a transitional vessel. I think it's going to sort of be the vessel that takes us from the kind of ships that we build today into ships of the future. I think it's a great ship. It has a great future. And I think just like Admiral Zumalt when he was CNO, it will make a huge difference in the United States Navy for the 21st century. When our historians look back on the century we have just left, they may well record that Arleigh Burke was the spirit of the United States Navy. They will certainly recall that Bud Zumalt was its conscience.