 Good morning ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the command officer welcome to second-network battalion change of command ceremony Where lieutenant colonel Carl W. Schlagel will relinquish command to lieutenant colonel Andrew S. Walker Today's ceremony is being executed by the officers and Marines of second-network battalion Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the invocation given by lieutenant elude and won't get chaplain United States Navy Let us pray Hello my dear old We salute you this morning for our CEO Was made a great impact in US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel His smart brain and strong muscles and made us even better in our warfare throughout the world since the year 2000 Lieutenant colonel Schlagel has been rising one rank after another and advancing in his knowledge and skills Surely this is an officer US Marine Corps does not easily leave from duty But as the Bible tells us There is time and the season for everything We're so thank you for his beautiful and the dependable wife and lovely children Who gave We're made him to accomplish his mission with honor college and the commitment for 20 years of faith for the dedicated service As he gets relieved from the watch We pray that you may continue to bless him in his next chapter of his life May this day mark the beginning of his joy and pride in his extraordinary personal awards and decorations Will you remind us that the mission is still on? As lieutenant colonel Henry Walker post is to assume the command We pray that he may continue building on the foundations That lieutenant schnavel has established May you prepare him to lead the second network battalion To continue providing an insurable security around the world for seven desires May you bless his amazing wife and adorable children to be a shooter to lean on when physically and emotional down Now as we commence We extend our invitation to you to join us in this celebration as a heavenly and hearty king All these we ask in your name Heming Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated Present-day parades in the Marine Corps have their bases in both history and tradition the mass formation of troops on One long line at close interval made possible the massing of firepower from muzzle-loaded muskets of yesterday In those early days the line of battle was just that a line of two or three Ranks and looked much like the parade formation you will see today The adjutant forms the line for battle The adjutant for today's ceremony is first lieutenant Joseph C. Benson sound action is called Attention Attention Ashes call ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the plane of the National Anthem Colors Detachment be all present or accounted for Detachment see all present or accounted for All present or accounted for For the touch all baby all present or accounted for sir Important attachment Blunt Island all present or accounted for ladies and gentlemen now taking his position in the reviewing area is the command officer of second Network Italian Lieutenant Colonel Carl W. Schlegel now taking his place in the reviewing area is Lieutenant Colonel Andrew S. Walker colors to the commanding officer The change of command ceremony you are witnessing is an honored product of the rich heritage of our core Designed to strengthen authority and respect Which is vital to any military organization Custom has established that this ceremony be formal and impressive The heart of the ceremony is the passing of the organizational color by the commander being relieved to the incoming commander Delivering the colors to the command officer is the battalion senior enlisted advisor Master gunnery sergeant eddy. W. Dowdell The passing of the color signifies the transfer of command Which entails the transfer of total accountability authority and responsibility from one individual to another Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the passing of the colors attention orders From common island marine corps to lieutenant colonel carl w. Schlegel effective 1009 june 2023 You will stand relieved from your duties as the command officer of second network battalion sign david h burger general united states marine corps attention orders From common island marine corps to lieutenant colonel andrew s. Walker effective 1009 june 2023 You are directed to assume the duties as command officer of second network battalion Sign david h burger general united states marine corps Thank you. Please be seated Ladies and gentlemen the command officer of marine corps cyber space operations group Colonel thomas j cleaver 100 Y'all don't mind. I'll uh forego the uh microphone here. I think we're small enough He'll oblige me. I'll try to take you to church here just for a few minutes. All right It is a good day today. It's a good day for a lot of reasons first We got these marines out here on information looking sharp We've got the mighty band here supporting this event Good job It's a good day to be here Because not only we're celebrating a change of command and retirement We are standing on the deck. So there's a warship right here Doing a marine corps ceremony a piece of machinery that was designed specifically to reign hate and discontent upon our adversaries Supported the glottal cow now campaign Don't even see you a jima campaign a lot of history on this deck And if I'm being here today doesn't give you chicken skin Then I would argue you're not a warm-blooded mammal in my humble opinion I don't know about you, but I kind of want to run five miles and punch something right now Pretty excited But today's a good day. Not only is it the weather beautiful. We can't say the same up there in northern virginia It smoked from the wildfires is a real thing up there. It wasn't able to pt outside yesterday But I drove five hours south yesterday and was able to pt outside this morning here in mighty london north carolina It's a good day because we're on this Mighty battleship the sacred ground. It's a good day because we're going to acknowledge the technical andrew walker Board screen command selected battalion commander Just assume command a second network battalion and that is something certainly to celebrate We're also here to acknowledge Lieutenant colonel schlegel for successful tour and command as the first ceo at second network battalion and Mr. Gardner, sir I'd be remiss if I didn't Add some additional comments regarding a current colonel schlegel's 20 years of honorable service and I'll talk to his retirement Just for a little bit If you'll forgive me if I steal any of your thunder. I apologize ahead of time That's right. Yeah, so to that end I'm going to talk pretty fast here because it is pretty hot out here on the deck First thing I'd like to do is welcome the families. We have a lot of families here I'll start with the walkers andrew's joint by his wife christin and his children mckenzie and boyd And then we have the parents in from mighty alabama And what's interesting is not auger fans. They're not alabama fans, but the united states naval academy fans Which uh, I support that a hundred percent as andrew does as well. I'm sure so uh, sam and kathy welcome It's good to have you here. I'd also like to welcome team schlegel came in force today Carl's joined by his wife lora and his children precedent boy. I'm sorry precedent and allison. I'm sorry Good to see y'all here today And we also have the in-laws the caros from newport news virginia And then robert and miss helen in from mighty india We were talking earlier. That's a familiar ground for team cleaver as well. It's good to have y'all so uh families friends marines Our mighty fed shoes that are present here today. We lean on every day Any other marines so the teticurl tailor and others that are here today? It's good to have I've seen them maneuver quickly because i'm going to go a little bit out of order Just because we do have a retirement ceremony On the back end of this and so i'd like to do is start by acknowledging andrew andrew. Congratulations andrew christin Welcome aboard job. Well done when you look at uh andrew's bio you can see that he is Streamly well qualified to assume command a second network battalion and a theme i think throughout all our comments here today is that there are many Convergent points between andrew's career my career Carl's career and some others here in the audience which is pretty interesting But andrew and i we have a common background united states naval academy We're both instructors at the comm school And we were both in command of alpha company at eight com battalion and both operation officers at eight com battalion It's a lot of a common background there, but andrew also served eight marines in the early 2000s Those of us that remember That was a uh, that was a stressful time for all of us And andrew was the commo for eight marines and i believe first battalion eight marines i get that right Uh, i need deployed to iraq operation oif in the early 2000s like oef as well So he comes with a ton of credibility in front of operational experience And in the short time that i've known andrew there's no doubt in my military mind that he's the right god It takes second network battalion to the next level. He just came from ic4 and in my mind That's very significant. There's the type of work that we do understanding how to do enterprise operations network modernization understanding The language that we use when we're supporting an enterprise is extremely important. So andrew christin. I want to uh once again Say welcome aboard and we're really excited to have you on the team all right It's funny i was preparing for my rebar for carl and i was thinking to myself well, maybe i should say this uh A couple iterations We'll talk a little bit about second network battalion Two years ago there we were i just took command of cyber operations group and then carl used to command a second network battalion a couple months before me And carl came to me uh, he had a lot of questions, but i could sum them up in three big ones. He asked me Where's my gear? Where's my people? What's my mission? In summary my answer to him was carl. I don't know the answers of those questions right now But i'm gonna get back to you And so uh, we use an analogy. We say we build a plane while we're flying it and I think that's entirely appropriate for all the network battalion co's in particular second We gave carl a plane that had one wing Uh a broken motor no landing gear and we said go And uh, I tell you what carl has been incredibly aggressive Generating a value proposition Pursuing resources for his battalion and uh Getting second network battalion to a place that it needs to be And as a battalion commander, you're pressing hard right because you want things done tomorrow That's exactly how you should be as a battalion co It's hard to be patient But carl and I we've had several discussions here over the last few weeks When you look at incremental success over time In fact, what carl has done over the last two years has been incredibly significant Being a network battalion co is the seemingly hard And what I thought was fascinating is when they did the report here, not only did the Folks from camp lejeune report in that the folks from cherry point Folks in bon island the folks from Bahrain Hampton roads there are seven Nodes that second network battalion supports up and down the eastern coast And just to make it a little more complicated. They also support Bahrain for reasons beyond my understanding. That's what they do So the span of control is immense The span of influence is immense The other aspect about uh second network battalion that I think is probably undersold Is their operational impact to the larger marine board Just citing a few examples hurricane ida we all remember that came up the east coast At the macaw we were tracking that closely because that was going to impact Almost every one of those seven nodes on the eastern coast that carl supports We're talking about data centers getting flooded, which means Marines up and down the enterprise there on the eastern coast But not able to conduct their day-to-day operation carl He commanded to control that entire effort Was tracking the status of the weather of the data centers And staying in touch with our marines up and down the east coast. We also send marines to norway We do an operation full response Two men sent a bunch of marines out there It's tangentially tides and the russian invasion of ukraine If you did some McSend operations the support of our users out there, which I thought was incredibly successful And also we did a mix and operations to support a wti Groundbreaking work a service level training exercise probably the highest visibility exercise that we have the united states marina or conas anyway and those are just three examples of things that carl did to uh Not only refine the mission of his battalion, but to generate a value proposition for our Carl Carl's retiring today mr. Gardner I failed to recognize him up front And sbs garden is going to be the retiring officer. So i'll try not to steal this thunder Real quickly mr. Gardner joined the air force in 1971 It was a tough time to come into the military As a part of army material command for a long time. This is before I was born And he also supported operation desert storm desert shield and supporting Our united states military for a long time So you're a great patriot Pivoting real quickly though to carl's retirement 20 years of faithful and audible service That says a lot You look quickly at carl's career Our convergence point was consquadron 18 I'm here to my heart Oversea on consquadron 18 carl's a company commander and a ceo out there in okinawa japan, right? So he served overseas He was also part of second marines in the early 2000s Appointed lif twice A ton of operational experience has been downrange in harm's way At least two of them And he was the moi at norwich university Exported six fleet in napal's italy and it was also the the s6 or the d6 i guess With that ties to is carl's got nautical roots We call ourselves fleet marine force We'd like to say we conduct maritime maneuver at sea And carl certainly pushed those efforts And here it is time to second network battalion To see what we can do from a macawg network battalion perspective At the sport maritime operation Carl you got a lot to be proud of You and your wife lora have been through an awful lot Like that of myself My family The marine force cyber operations group In our united states marine force I want to public the thank you for all your service over the last 20 years Job well done We'll assume the watch That said ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much Except for finals I'm gonna I actually have to because the ceremony's a little different We're gonna talk twice first one's gonna be a little bit short Mr. Gardner, thank you again for coming We'll talk more of course later Colonel cleaver, thank you for the open remarks and the comments that you made It really does mean a lot to me and my family And of course the marines that have been out here Have been rowing real hard with the conditions for Our federal civilian employees and our contractors that have been doing this for the last over 18 months There's a lot that really took place to make second hour of the time But before I go into it real quick marine to say you know kind of doing that easy thing Check it out. I don't want to pass it out. Do one of those things. It's all right Because I'm not in command so why not? But uh also give it up for the division band. Thank you very much For coming out here man of my own heart Starting with second marine division loved every bit of it. So having you all here today means a lot to me again in my family So thank you the ceremony is what it is without having to pay We got a lot of first for second hour of the time a lot of first Trying to figure out a morning report coming in from day one. How do I do this one-on-one? We're doing as they go To grow in the battalion to actually Have it not only our birthday ball where for the most of the formation This was their first birthday ball that they had attended due to cobin and other things But standing up a battalion in the mix of cobin This is the first ceremony that actually represented With second hour battalion Marines and this color guard is made up of Marines of second hour battalion for the first time today Here that means a lot to me because it shows how the battalion continues to grow In its capabilities not only in a visual perspective, but able to understand our capabilities And I'll be honest And now we're battalion a lot of people are like What the world does that do? You start thinking of cyberspace and start trying to figure out what that is. What does that mean? You have three layers You get the physical stuff logical stuff and the persona layer Ms. Colonel Cleaver talked a little bit about the history of this particular platform this ship itself the battleship 15 battle stars As you leave the ship and you go out there a little bit more You're going to notice there's a little placard on the wall that talks about Iwo Jima The role that this ship played during that battle was to provide able gunfire support For a landing craft of of Marines and forces to take that island That overwatch that capability that this ship provided during that early portions of that battle Is what we face in today's world in cyberspace These marines and our civilians and our contractors are there to provide that early warning capability That early aspect within cyberspace to ensure that we are blocking and fighting for that next advancing force on the battlefield That is what we do It has been very been a wonderful experience And I have loved every minute of the challenges I saw and even for the marines They heard me talk yesterday, and I know you're worried about them being hot I'm not because yesterday we were in the pool and they drank a lot of water. So it was just fun Um again, thank you Thank you One other aspect that Colonel Cleaver talked about is how our Our paths across what was interesting is not only operationally side on the comms squadron and throughout our our careers Um, but there I was normally second lieutenant checking into comm school I wouldn't you know my fact ad happened to be captain cleaver at that time friend Guess who the course director was Mr. Or at that time major do you? So my deputy commander for a second hour of Italian was the course director That I and I'll tell you what as lieutenant I stood in front of that desk My rear-end chute left and right being on academic probation. Everything else you can imagine Uh But it's very interesting come 19 years later and both these two gentlemen stand here today with us, uh, in wonderful Uh, uh, capabilities and positions to tom. Thank you again for everything that you've done your successful career And then continuing to carry that torch Time That thing and all your guys For andrew tentacle walker you your family enjoy It's gonna go fast It's gonna be a lot of long hours a lot of time on the road Uh They've been here almost about they've been to camp lejeune plenty of times, but been here about three weeks I think he's been home. Maybe three days Uh, we've been out and around traveling around trying to make sure that we're carrying that water carrying that weight carrying the message Of what it is what we do and what we're able to deliver looking forward So thank you Friends family marines everybody appreciates you coming out appreciate you making the making the trip make the opportunity make the event special Same same slag a little girl a band thanks great opportunity knowledge band appreciate y'all being out here So we've had a couple times a couple times talk. I appreciate you and trust me with all your battalions I really appreciate all the work y'all put in here Now taking his position the reviewing area is the honorable christopher gardener And retire ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the reading of the award This is the certified that the president of the united states of america has awarded the meritorious service medal gold star in lieu of second award to Lieutenant colonel carl w. Schlagel united states marine corps for his services set forth in the following citation for understanding meritorious achievement While serving as the command officer of second ever battalion marine corps cyberspace operation group camp lejeune north carolina Form june 2021 to june 2023 Throughout this period lieutenant colonel schlegel's energetic leadership and tireless devotion to duty enabled delivery of defense Of the marine corps enterprise network supporting over 40,000 personnel Operating across two strategic geographic locations and the eastern region of the united states His insight and End of fatigable drive as he assumed command and activated the second network battalion or instrumental and the mission and opera is it opera operationalization virologies the marine corps enterprise network at the war As the war fighting support network of choice Lieutenant colonel schlegel provided key guidance and oversight for network modernization and the growth and expansion Of defensive cyberspace capabilities He created a synthesis of existing support elements that integrated communication network across a wide geographic area In support of many discrete commands With a variety of operational support requirements his efforts strengthened command and control and communication to new levels While upholding the same high standard of support to all customers Lieutenant colonel schlegel's superior performance of duty culminated in his 20 years of honorable and dedicated military service His exceptional professionalism dynamic direction and loyal dedication to duty Lieutenant colonel schlegel's reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest tradition of the marine corps and the united states naval service sign rp heritage Major general us marine corps commander us marine corps forces cyberspace command Please gentlemen, please be seated and please rise for anchors away and the marine's him