 Good afternoon, I'm Commander Tim Wookie, the commanding officer of USS Freedom. This afternoon I'm standing on the starboard bridge wing of the USS Freedom as we're participating in Carrot Malaysia 2013 with the USS Tortuga and the landing force of Marines that are landing on the beaches over the horizon there just south of Quantan, Malaysia. Last week the Navy's Facebook account had posted several questions from viewers and fans of the USS Freedom and I would like to take a brief moment here to answer some of those questions. One of the first questions is, I noted that I noted the crew training when Freedom was in final days of construction. Could you briefly discuss how the crew is progressing and what you are particularly proud of concerning training a new crew on a new class of ship as well as a new style of fighting? First off, a new class of ship, a new training for this ship is very unique. We have a trained to qualify pipeline that is as we get a sailor into the program, the LCS program, they go through an extensive training program. That would be for school house training as well as synthetic training. So when they do show up on part of the crew and on the ship they are ready to stand their watch which is different than on other ships where they have to sit that watch as under instruction before they are qualified. But I'm extremely proud of this crew. This crew has been training not only in that training qualified pipeline but as we deployed across Pacific leaving on the 1st of March in San Diego and came across we've had several new sailors that have trained on different watch stations that they weren't necessarily trained for prior to coming on board. That shows the flexibility of our sailors and their ability to adjust and adapt to the different challenges that they face on board the ship here. They add flexibility to what we do out here. The second question, what challenges do you face commanding in LCS as opposed to any other ship? What milestones are expected on the ship's first deployment? First off, commanding officers of any ship in the US Navy face unique challenges and unique opportunities and experiences. The LCS and US's freedom are no different. Different here though on the freedom some of the unique experiences we have and the challenges I face are developing these lessons learned. How to best employ and operate this ship forward as we are operating this ship forward in the southeast Asia region. Developing those lessons learned so I can feed that back into different ways to train the crew, different ways to man this ship and different ways to equip the ship from a maintenance aspect, from a training aspect, as well as from an operating aspect. Those are some of the challenges we face. Unique challenges not hard challenges but something that we look forward to to provide feedback so the next crews and the next ships that come offline are even better than what we're facing here with the US's freedom. The third question, how does your ship mission differ from that of a destroyer frigate or other naval vessels? Well frigates, destroyers, cruisers, other surface combatants are multi-mission platforms. Those multi-missions could be anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-summary warfare, being able to conduct warfare across a wide spectrum of naval operations. The littoral command ship US's freedom is able to do various types of warfare but is more focused on one type at a time in the littorals where those other ships will operate mainly out in the blue waters which is in the deep ocean. We operate close in the shore with focused mission packages whether that be a surface mission package to conduct anti-surface warfare or a mine hunting package to hunt for mines or an anti-summary package to hunt for submarines in the littorals. So we operate close in the land an area that the US Navy really hasn't operated in in the recent past. The fourth question, some news reports indicate that you're undergunned, your opinion. Now different ships are built to handle different types of threats. Aegis cruisers, Aegis destroyers are built to handle the an anti-air threat. A lot of cruise missiles coming into the strike group and to be able to defend the strike group against those type of threats. Mine hunting ships are handled or built to hunt for mines and find the mines. Amphibious assault ships are built to land marines ashore and to assault the shores. Littoral combat ships are built to fight in the littorals, built to carry out those missions in the littorals in the shallow waters close in the land where destroyers and cruisers cannot operate. We can carry out those missions and we're built to be able to handle and defend ourselves in those areas with our 57 millimeter Bofors cannon which is part of the ship which is able to put out a high rate of fire with a gunnery fire at 220 rounds a minute. We also have a rolling airframe missile which provides point defense against an air attack against the ship. So the ship is built to operate in the littorals and is equipped to conduct that operation. The final question, what are some of the challenges and benefits of having a small crew? Having an optimally manned crew onboard the USS Freedom which numbers 53 core crew personnel and then with the surface mission package we have aboard they bring 19 personnel and then the aviation department brings another 19 personnel. So all in total to handle the operations of the ship for the ship, the mission package and the air department that's a total of 91 personnel on board. This size of ship is about the size of an Oliver Hazard Perry frigate which total is about 200 personnel. So we only have 91 personnel on board the ship. It is unique and that is a good way of putting it. We are well cross trained to do a lot of different jobs on board the ship. So that's what's really unique about having an optimally manned crew. The training that the crew goes into to be able to conduct a myriad of different jobs on board the ship. Whether that be a culinary specialist being able to cook the food and prepare the food for us at one moment and then being able to go up to the flight deck to land and take off a helicopter and then going on to a crew-serve weapons mount to handle the 50 cow or M240 machine guns or to go on the line handling to handle the lines. You can apply that concept across the board to any of the ratings or any of the personnel on board the ship. We are trained to do a lot of different jobs on board the ship. So we are cross trained, very high degree cross training on board the ship. So that's what really is unique about the manning of the ship. In closing I'd like to thank everybody for their questions. There were a lot more questions that were asked in the blog, but I picked about the top five questions to answer. I appreciate the enthusiasm and excitement about this ship and this class. USS Freedom is out here doing some very important work out in Southeast Asia. Right now we're off the coast of Malaysia doing current Malaysia 2013 doing a lot of good work out here. A lot of hard effort has been put into this ship and we're doing good things to support current Malaysia 2013. I appreciate the support and if there are any more questions I'm sure we're able to answer those. You can post those on the Navy Facebook website.