 Hello, I'm MC2 Domestico and welcome to a conversation with a shipmate. I'm here with the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenit and the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Mike Stevens. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks, Petty Officer Domestico. It's good to be here. Thank you. So you know, in your last conversation with the shipmate, you addressed the problem of sexual assault in the Navy. Today, however, I'd like to focus on your most recent position report in which you talked about where we are in the Navy today and the importance of presence and operating forward in the future. My first question for you is, we've heard you loud and clear when you said that presence is our mandate. Moving into 2014, what is the key to maintaining a global presence? In 2014 and really beyond, the key to forward presence is to have a rotational force forward such as carrier strike groups out of east-west coast, amphibious ready groups east-west coast, but there's another element that's very important and we need to develop it properly and that is non-rotational presence forward. And it's about places such as road to Spain where we'll have four destroyers by 2016, such as Singapore where we'll have four literal combat ships operating forward out of Singapore, continuing to develop our forces in the, we call the Forward Deployed Naval Force in Japan and the Darwin option. The government of Australia has offered us to forward deploy Marines and we'll provide the lift for that out of Darwin, Australia. These non-rotational places are really the key to getting the most out of our forward forces. Thank you, sir. Sir, how does the current budget situation in Washington affect the Navy's ability to operate forward? Well, it's a heck of a challenge. The key to this is to be able to plan properly and that's difficult when you have a continuing resolution and to have enough money and sequestration really limits our operating budget. But the deal is we have to get enough ships into maintenance so that they are ready to go when it's their turn to deploy forward and that's a real challenge. We've been able to work through it, but it hasn't been the most efficient effort. The second piece is to get our forces trained so that when they deploy they have all their skill sets, all their what we call essential task lists complete. So that maintenance and that training for deployment are the two key challenges. How will these realities of sequestration affect deployment lengths? Yeah, that's a good question and I understand that. Listen, the next three carrier strike group deployments are looking to be close to nine months and that's a factor of just how the sequencing of maintenance for carriers predominantly took place once sequestration went into effect in January of 2013. But after these next three deployments, which will take us through 2014 into 2015, we'll probably migrate to about eight months in our carriers for op-tempo length, for deployment length, if you will. Our amphibious ready groups, they'll be around seven and a half months. Our submarines about six months and so we'll be stabilized in a few years but it'll take those few years to get through this impact of sequestration. And so do you anticipate those deployment lengths changing after a few years? I do. I will migrate to about eight months for our carrier strike groups, about seven months, maybe a week, seven months a week with our amphibious ready groups, cruisers and destroyers, about seven months. Somewhere right in around there is where I think things will be. I think we have to keep in mind though, as they say, the world gets a vote and we're a responsive force and as the common Marine Corps and I like to say, we become the 9-1-1 force. So we'll just have to see how the stabilization of the world takes place here. Yes, sir. My next question is for you, McPon. How does all of this impact morale, not just for sailors but for their families as well? I'll tell you, our sailors and their families never cease to amaze us. Their ability to continue to deploy and go forward as we need them in this high op tempo has been nothing short of amazing. But we cannot fool ourselves. We have to understand that this has taken a toll and will continue to take a toll on our sailors and their families, which is why we need to take a hard look, a close look at how we're deploying and how often we're deploying. One of the things we're doing right now is we're engaged fully in tracking op tempo to find out how long are our sailors out there so that we have the big picture? So we can better understand what we need to do in the future and how we need to manage those deployments. Thank you, McPon. Thank you, Admiral. You've talked about the quality of service formula. Can you describe that for us a little and tell us what you'd like sailors to take away from that? Sure. You know, I think of our sailors' environment in two parts, like you mentioned. Their quality of life and their quality of work. And that defines, I think, the quality of the service that they provide. We do polls every two years to see how do our sailors feel about, for example, their quality of life, are they properly compensated, et cetera. And they say they are. They say we feel like we're being paid properly. Our benefits are effective. But where we need some work is quality of work. That's the predictability of their schedule. We've got to do better. That's having the right kind of leadership in place. We've got to do better. Get rid of gaps at sea. Make sure they have spare parts. Make sure their training is done professionally and personally, that they have those opportunities. That's an element that I think we need to work on. So we're better in balance with that quality of service in between quality of life and quality of work. Thank you, sir. Back to you, McPon. I'd like to talk a little about what's on the minds of sailors, both at sea and ashore. In regards to Navy advancement exams, with our Navy being as technologically advanced as it is, how do you explain that it still takes two to three months to get exam results? And is there any way that we could improve that process? That's a great question. You would think in the 21st century that we could streamline this and do it a lot faster, right? But the reality of it is the structure that we have in place requires both pencil and paper, data entry, and then computer generation. So it takes time to process all this data to get the results to our sailors. I have this, if you want to call it a dream, that one day a sailor will go to boot camp and we'll be able to issue them a smart tablet device. And on that smart tablet device, we can push things like advancement exams to them so they could log on and securely take that exam and then send it electronically to wherever it needs to go so that it can be electronically scored and then published. And who knows, within a matter of days or weeks, we can have the advancement exam results published for the whole Navy. We're working on things like that right now. I've submitted a proposal to our N8, our money people, and to our information folks in N2 and N6 to take a look at this and see what we can do. But I recognize that it's going to take time as we work through this and it may not happen on my watch, but I feel obligated to at least start that ball rolling and see where it takes us. Well, I look forward to seeing some of that progress in the future. Thank you, McPump. Back to you, CNO. In recent testimony to Congress, you mentioned the possibility of having to make changes to personnel entitlements. Can you describe for us what that means and tell us where you think we need to strike a balance between pay and services to sailors and their families? Sure. Well, I think we have a situation we just have to come to grips with. And I think we need to do it in the near term. And the next few years have not this year alone. And that is the fact is that this year, as we're here today, 50% of every Department of Defense dollar is spent on compensation. So we have to figure, can we continue this growth in compensation in a declining budget environment? And I think we have to come to grips with that. Is it the appropriate time to slow pay raises? Is it the appropriate time to look at BAH, to look at our health care predominantly for our retirees when I talk about health care? So no matter what, however we approach this, we have to be transparent. And we will in the Navy. We'll talk to our people and show them what we mean, why we mean that, and we'll get the feedback. But the fact of the matter is it's getting quite expensive, this compensation. And we have to balance that with what we buy to operate. And we're in charge of the security of our country. And we have to organize, train, equip, and man appropriately, in balance. Thank you, sir. Back to you, McPon. I know that the topic of uniforms is a big one for you. Can you give us an update? What can we expect in the near future in regards to changes to our uniforms? I think the goal right now is to not create a lot of uniform chaos or churn. We have a responsibility to always look at ways that we can make improvement to the uniforms that we have. Can we change the way they fit to make them more comfortable? Can we change the properties of those uniforms to make them more safe? And those sorts of things. What we have in work right now are a couple of big items that I'll share with you. We just recently approved and are beginning to release the fire-resistant or flame-resistant coveralls. We're going to release these coveralls to those units that are just now getting ready to deploy, because it takes time to manufacture them. And we've got to buy them and get them on the shelf so we can issue them to sailors. But we have a responsibility to ensure that we're providing a uniform, especially a work uniform, that allows our sailors to operate safely. So we're doing that. Also what we're doing right now is we're doing some wear testing, getting ready to do some wear testing on what we call the lightweight NWU type 1. We've got a lot of feedback from the fleet. They said that the type 1 uniform can be very hot in the summertime and warm climates. And they wanted to know if there's something we could do about it. So we were working with Uniform Matters Office and others to field this NWU type 1 lightweight. And we'll see what the fleet comes back and tells us, because really they're going to be the judge of what we do next. McPon, what is the new normal for receiving PCS orders? I understand that the Navy's goal is six months. However, in 2013, the average was about four months. And now we're looking at three months or less. How should sailors prepare themselves and their families to make these moves with significantly lower lead time? Well, let me start by saying, we don't like what sailors are calling the new normal. We don't like it any more than they do. But much of this is driven by our budget situation that we're in right now. What I'd like to share with sailors and families is work closely with fleet and family services, work closely with our folks that handle our PCS moves, with our career counselors, and other leaders within their command to take control of those things that they own that are not necessarily attached to the orders that don't cost money, but things that they can do to prepare themselves for what we are now seeing as quick turns on orders. And hopefully, in the very near future, we can get back to that five and six month advance notice for PCS orders. That's our goal. That's what we're shooting for, because we don't like these short term orders either. Sir, before we wrap, I'd like to go back to your recent position report. And in it, your focus areas are the Arctic, EM cyber, and in particular, Navy and Marine Corps integration. Can you tell us what we can expect in regards to Navy and Marine Corps integration in the coming year? Sure. Well, you can expect more collaboration, if you will, in synchronization with our Marine brothers and sisters. They're done being ashore as much. They're coming back to sea and being more expeditionary. So there's two really key elements, I think. Number one, the introduction of new platforms. The literal combat ship has an expedition capability to it. The joint high speed vessel, the mobile landing platform, and the afloat forward staging base. These are all kind of ship types, if you will. That will provide a good expeditionary capability. We need to synchronize and decide what concept of operations will take place in these. But I think the biggest challenge in the nearer term will be to understand our command and control together. While the Marines were involved in these land campaigns, they developed and adapted some improved command and control programs, bringing those into the amphibious ready group, into our amphibious ships, and then integrating them into those ship types that I just described. That'll be the key to the future. But we're ready to go. We both want to do this. We've had a great exercise called bold alligator that showed us our way ahead, and we'll take it from there. And Sino, can you tell us why is this integration between Marines and sailors so important to our Navy? Well, because in the future, I think, due to the instability of the world around the world, small skirmishes, instability, and all theaters, it's going to be fast response that'll be key. Nobody is more fast. Nobody is more effective than the Navy Marine Corps team in this regard. And it's not just about big deck amphibious ships. It's about smaller, hacky forces that can move quickly, get to the fight, be where it matters, when it matters. That's what the Navy Marine Corps brings, and nobody is better than that. Well, thank you, sir. You're welcome. Do either of you have anything you'd like to add? Well, I'd like to say thank you to all those that are serving at it. Here we are on the Truman on deployment with a Gettysburg behind us. These are folks that are getting it done on the front. We talked a little bit about longer deployments. This carrier strike group is on a nine-month deployment. And you wouldn't know it. These are the most motivated folks I've come across. And they know what they're doing. They are at the tip of the spear getting it done. And I thank them very much for that on this Thanksgiving day. Thank you, sir. Quick one? As well, I would like to echo what the Sino just said. Thank you to our sailors. Thank you to our families for the tremendous sacrifice they make in the service of our Navy and our nation for the great work that they're doing every single day. We think about them. We care about them. And every one of them matters. Thank you. Admiral McPawn, I want to thank you both for sitting down with us and talking to us today on our conversation with a shipmate. I look forward to hearing from both of you as we move ahead. I'd like to wish you both a happy holidays, and thank you for being with us. Thanks, Peter, for Domestico's great being here. Thank you, sir. And thank you. I'm MC2 Domestico, aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, currently deployed to the Middle East. Thanks for watching.