 Ladies and gentlemen, the 75th secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Ray Mabus. Ladies have a seat please. First, I want to take a moment to honor the memory of midship and third class, Justin Zimzer that we lost last night. And I know that the brigade and the Navy family is struggling with this and our thoughts, our prayers go out to family, friends, and to the entire brigade for losing such a crucial member of this institution. So to Vice Admiral Carter, to the Naval Academy faculty, and most importantly to you, the brigade of midshipmen, thank you for welcoming me during this busy and pretty exciting season on the yard. And I know that you're ready to do graduation next week and commissioning. I know that you're ready to get on to your summer activities. And I know that probably you weren't eager to come here. And so what's the secretary of the Navy doing here? And why should you care? Well, what I'm doing here is to talk about some things that are shared interest. And they're going to be things that will have an impact on you. If you're not getting commissioned next week, they're going to have an impact on you right away. And if you are getting commissioned next week, they're going to have an impact on the things that you do in the Navy and Marine Corps. Because that future begins with the policies that are being announced today. And I think that future is very bright. So whether you're just one year closer to graduation or whether you're about to be an ensign or a second lieutenant of the Class of 2015, you're all going to join the most formidable expeditionary fighting force the world has ever known. Our Navy and Marine Corps uniquely, uniquely provide presence around the globe, around the clock, ensuring stability, deterring adversaries, providing the nation's leaders with options in times of crisis. We're America's away team because sailors and Marines, equally in times of peace and war, are not just at the right place at the right time, they're at the right place all the time. We get on station faster, we stay longer, we bring everything we need with us, and we don't need anybody's permission to get done what needs to be done. And our ability to provide that presence is built on four fundamentals, people, our sailors and Marines, platforms, the numbers of ships and aircraft and systems, power, how we fuel those platforms and partnerships. Our strong relationships with industry, with international friends and allies, and with the American people. On that list, people come first for a reason. People are the Navy and Marine Corps' greatest edge. It's one of the reasons I've traveled more than a million miles in my six years as secretary to talk about, to talk with our forward deployed sailors and Marines, to talk with them where they are, on deck plates or deserts. And in these conversations, I've listened to their ideas and now I'm trying to turn those ideas into action. I'll give you one small example. During all hands calls, I started getting questions about why sailors couldn't wear their ball caps ashore. Well, I didn't know, so I asked to see you know. He didn't know either. So we sent out a two sentence order saying it's all right to wear your ball caps. It's a very small thing, but it's important. It's important to morale, it's important to unit cohesion. And I get thanked for that very simple thing just about every place I go. But too many times, ideas get entangled in this briar patch of bureaucracy. They never make it to a level where somebody can take action to get something done. So earlier this year, I established the Navy's Task Force Innovation. That's a group from across the department comprised of thinkers and experts and war fighters with diverse backgrounds and from every level. Along with the Chief of Naval Personnel, the task force has gone out to the fleet. They've sat down with sailors and Marines. They've listened to their input about how we can better manage the incredible talent of our people. What we've always known is that the way we recruit, develop, retain and promote sailors and Marines is crucial to our success. To fight and win in this century. We've got to have a force that draws from the broadest talent pools, that values health and fitness, that attracts and retains innovative thinkers, that provides flexible career paths and prioritizes merit over tenure. Whether we're talking about systems and tactics in the digital age, or we're talking about personnel management, we have to evolve to meet the needs of the future battle space and the needs of our people. Or we can and we will lose. The Chief of Naval Personnel and Task Force Innovation have responded to that call, but up till today we've talked about what ifs. Well today we're going to shift from what ifs to what's next. Some of the initiatives I'm going to announce today will take place at the speed of my pen and some will take place at the speed of Congress, but all of them, every one of them will impact you. Shortly after your commission or as your careers progress and as you lead sailors and Marines into the future. Now to talk through these initiatives I'm going to try to paint a picture of what you can expect in the years ahead. It's our goal that your careers will be defined by flexibility, by transparency, by choice, and that starts with service assignment. Our process has already evolved to prioritize best fit over class rank. Next year we're going to continue to refine the system to one that is talent and interest base. Now similar optimization models have been used at far lesser institutions like the one on the Hudson, but I have to say they have increased the likelihood that individuals received their first choice in service assignment from 80% to 99%. Let me say it another way. Our new process will all be guaranteed that midshipmen talents and interests are paired to their choice in service assignment here at the Academy and ultimately at ROTC and OCS. And the fleet will get the right officers in the right communities. But we can't stop at service assignment. We have to make big data analysis a permanent part of personnel management. So I'm establishing the Office of Talent Optimization here at the Naval Academy starting in September. This office is going to better identify ways to align our sailors and Marines talent getting out of the here and now and focusing on future warfighting requirements of our communities. They're going to pilot programs like the one created by Lieutenant Mike Maybury of the CNO's Rapid Innovation Cell that applied web-based LinkedIn style approaches to officer detailing. And they're going to report their findings directly to the Chief of Naval Personnel for implementation. Now we can't optimize performance until we optimize opportunity. You all deserve a service in which you can aspire to lead at the very highest levels, knowing that people like you make it to the top. One thing, we need more women. We need more women in the Navy and Marine Corps, not simply to have more women, but because a more diverse force is a stronger force. We need highly educated officers and women today represent 57 percent of the college graduates in America. The military at large lags society, but the Department of the Navy is making some rapid progress. And as usual, Naval Academy is leading the way. Female sessions will pass 27 percent for the class of 2019. And in the fleet this year, we're also increasing female enlisted sessions, emphasizing those ratings in which women are underrepresented. By the time you reach your second or third tour, your squadron, your ship, your unit will be much more demographically representative of the nation you serve. And that's critically important, both to the quality of our all volunteer force, but also important to fulfilling the principles of the democracy that we defend. Both our platforms and our career paths will allow for equal service opportunities. And that's why I'm personally committed to opening all operational billets to women. In the Navy, women wear every warfare pin except for the trident reserved for SEAL trigger pullers. In the Marine Corps, we're conducting the most comprehensive assessment of physical standards ever undertaken. And the results are going to enhance combat effectiveness and readiness in all military operational specialties. And they're going to do this independent of gender. But in all cases, I personally believe we ought to have one standard, a standard that's gender neutral, a standard that matches the demands of the job. And if you pass, you pass, regardless of which community you enter. Every woman and every man deserves a working environment respectful of all, completely intolerant of sexual assault and supported by programs of prevention, advocacy and accountability. And there's still work to be done, but we have instituted an increasingly effective sexual assault prevention and response program and a victims' legal counsel that has increased reporting and provided critical support to those who come forward. But we also have to make sure there's no retaliation, no ostracism of people who report, whether by the chain of command, or by their peers. Support to sailors and marines has to extend beyond the workplace. Our greater Navy and Marine Corps family is equally worthy of support. I know that none of you today is married and that you don't have legal dependence. I also know that's not going to be true for a lot of you over time. And it isn't true right now at NROTC and OCS. And in the near future, all of you are going to lead sailors and marines who are working parents. As a far deployed force, our op tempo is very high at sea and ashore. So we've got to take a more holistic approach to supporting families. To make sure you have time to spend with your newborn, we're proposing legislation that will double paid maternity leave from six weeks to 12 weeks starting next year. We've already established 24-7 childcare development centers in three fleet concentration areas. And we're beginning immediately to hire staff in numbers that will enable us to expand Navy and Marine Corps Child Development Center services by two hours on both ends. So they're going to start two hours earlier, they're going to end two hours later than happens right now. What that ought to mean is that sailors don't have to worry about childcare centers not opening early enough or closing too early. For dual military couples, those who doubly commit to service, we're updating our co-location policy, focusing on much improved opportunities for career progression, joint service co-location and active reserve integration. Our high op tempo also demands a year round culture of fitness. You've got it here. But what we've got in the fleet is a high stakes, twice a year crucible that often results in sailors resorting to drastic and unhealthy measures that serve no one. The Navy's fitness culture should focus on producing war fighters capable of accomplishing any mission at any time and it should support healthy lifestyles that are going to reduce our overall medical cost. So we're going to completely revamp the physical fitness assessment. Our pass fail system that only and sometimes inaccurately assesses one aspect of overall physical fitness is going to end. We're going to instead focus on evaluating health, not shape. As junior officers, you're going to be responsible for the fitness of your sailors and Marines. In the Navy alone last year, we separated 1,500 people, 1,500 sailors for failing the PFA. That waste everybody's time and waste everybody's resources. That's more than we separate for drug use, for example. In our new culture of fitness, we're going to change the way we measure body fat. We're going to supplement PFA cycles with physical readiness spot check so you can't just get ready for the test. And we're going to document performance on fitness reports and evaluations. To set sailors up for success, we have to outfit them properly and increase opportunities for physical training. Now here at the Academy, you've got a full athletic sea bag and you have access to the best facilities whenever you need them. That's not the case in the fleet. So we're going to open a cat card, access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week gym on every Navy Marine Corps base worldwide. And we're going to issue the Navy fitness suit, the one that you all have tested here at the Academy, to the entire fleet. The Marines already have their version of these. Sailors and Marines can earn fitness suit patches for outstanding performance. And those who maintain that level of performance over three cycles will receive the Outstanding Fitness Award. Physical training is only part of the equation. You've got to eat right. Well balanced diet is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. So we've got to provide nutritious food options for sailors and Marines at sea and ashore. We've got a fuel to fight program and it was launched by the SEALs at Little Creek. And it increases the availability of lean proteins and vegetables and complex carbohydrates in our galleys. We're going to further develop this concept at one sea base to one shore base unit next year. We're going to pilot it for a year and then we're going to implement it fleet-wide in 2017. Now, the old saying goes, a compliment to a healthy body is a healthy mind. Innovators need stimulating environments and opportunities for intellectual advancement and development. Elementary, repetitious, time-consuming task of general military training just don't achieve that end. And they eat into a CO's ability to spend more precious time training to fight and to win. Therefore, beginning June 1st, I am ending GMT as we know it. We've had people that have had to go through it, haven't we? Let's stop all Department of the Navy-directed GMT on Navy knowledge online. What we're going to do is we're going to let the Command Triad, the CEO of the EXO and the Command Master Chief to determine if and when training is needed and to make relevant training more accessible and efficient. I've tasked the Chief of Naval Personnel and the Office of Naval Research to develop some mobile apps for fleet release in 2016. And we're going to continue other types of mandatory training like that against sexual assault. And you've experienced it and you've heard sea stories of the mundane, the arduous, seemingly pointless GMT, but starting June 1st, you're not going to have to experience it anymore. But education goes a long way beyond GMT. Peloponnesian general and philosopher Thucydides is credited with saying, a nation that draws too broad a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools to educate Navy and Marine Corps leaders. We now provide immediate and voluntary graduate education, war colleges, naval postgraduate school, academic fellowships, but we've got to have some more. There's a big divide between the civil and the military society in America. And we're missing too many opportunities to develop battle-proven warriors into strategic thinkers. For example, Lieutenant Joel Jacobs, who's here today, he's a top-gun graduate. He's assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 213. And he has deployed multiple times in support of operations enduring freedom and inherent resolve. His contributions to a 39-plane Alpha Strike on ISIS that involved five international partners that delivered 19 weapons on five separate targets earned him recognition as the Naval Air Force's Atlantic Naval Flight Officer of the Year. And yet, despite being accepted to Harvard, to Tufts, to Johns Hopkins, we couldn't find a way to send him to these types of schools. So to retain the strategic thinkers like Lieutenant Jacobs and to broaden their skills, starting in October, I'm going to expand fully-funded, in-resident graduate programs at civilian institutions by 30 billets. So if you learn your trade and you excel, we're going to send you to our nation's top institutions. And by the way, Lieutenant Jacobs, let me be the first to congratulate you. You've earned one of those billets, and you're going to go to Harvard. By the way, that's a pretty good choice since I went there. And they crush Yale just as often as we crush Army. As we invest in you, that was not in my speech, by the way, as we invest in you, we want to provide you more opportunities to apply your skill sets to the needs of the Navy Marine Corps on the broadest levels. So we're creating much more flexible career paths. The career intermission program, for example, allows sailors to pursue family or professional, academic, and other interests outside the service without damaging long-term potential. The concept was a success for a few officers you may have heard of, Porter, Nimitz, and Amos. Each one of those took leave from the service to broaden their leadership skills and to learn primarily from industry. Our pilot program in this was tremendously successful. So I've submitted a legislative proposal to increase career intermission program billets from 40 to 400. And we're submitting follow-on proposals that allow participants to consider a menu of compensation, healthcare, and timing options tailored to meet your needs. Having mastered your warfare specialty, there may come a time when you want to broaden your professional experience, which is why we will partner with Fortune 500 CEOs to create the Secretary of the Navy Industry Tour. Starting this fall, commanders will have the authority to send their best qualified officers to work at America's top firms. When these officers return to the fleet, they'll bring industry's best practices with them. But some lessons can't wait. And that's one of the reasons we're asking Congress to amend our current broad-based bonus system to make it look more like those used in the private sector. By granting department leaders the flexibility to match pay incentives with individual skillset and talent levels, we can better compensate and better retain officers and enlist it. Now, of course, the Navy Marine Corps team isn't about bonuses, it's about leadership. Leaders who consistently outperform their peers should be advanced at faster rates, not held back by tests or zones. So we're going to adjust the Navy Enlisted Advancements this year by replacing the Command Advancement Program, the CAP with a Meritorious Advancement Program, or MAP. And that allows commanding officers to petition for more advancements and need them or to give back unused ones. In October, we're going to expand the number of available MAP advancements to 5% of the force, and we're going to extend them to shore-based commands. In that same time period, we're going to further empower commanding officers under the oversight of their immediate seniors to separate sailors who aren't up to the task, reducing delays that can take more than a year without sacrificing due process for those sailors. So in other words, as you lead sailors and Marines, as division officers, as department heads, ultimately commanding officers, you'll have more control over who you advance and who you separate without being subjected to a really cumbersome administrative process. And for those here who are going to wear the Eagle Globe and anchor and earn the honor to lead Marines, we're revamping our manpower model to mature the force and address gaps in our noncom ranks. 60% of Marines are on their first tour, and 40% are E3 and below. So we've already implemented the squad leader development program to mature and further professionalize the force. What this does is it screens small unit infantry Marines. It selects candidates based on performance and provides them with opportunities for education, qualification, and assignment. Promoting our troops is important. And so is making sure we promote the best officers with the right skill sets for the future. So within the limits of the law, we will emphasize broader milestone achievement as the foundation for promotion eligibility. Doing this increases competition and opportunity, allowing the best to rise to the top, regardless of when they were commissioned. As a long-term solution, we're drafting a legislative proposal for fiscal year 17 to eliminate officer management by year group. This allows those who aren't ready for promotion to continue to serve in the same pay grade longer, or for those who are ready to advance through the system faster. A golden path of inflexible career wickets in year groups and promotion zones aren't going to determine your success any longer. Your performance will decide your timeline for promotion and for leadership assignment. These initiatives are aimed at getting the right people in the right jobs at the right time. They're about providing those who commit to defending the American dream an opportunity to live the American dream. They're about fixing our shortcomings so that our best people choose to stay in the Navy Marine Corps and by keeping our best people will be better warfighters. While we celebrate diversity of our people, we are uniform in purpose as a part of an organization that priorities service over self. We're uniform in mission as we protect sea lanes, deter adversaries, assist partners and strike enemies. We are uniform in our core values of honor, courage and commitment, but we also have to be uniform in how we present ourselves professionally to one another and to the public, at home and abroad. And uniformity is about ending the way we segregate women by requiring them to wear different uniforms rather than highlighting differences in our ranks. We're going to incorporate everyone as full participants. Take a look at the pictures on the screen behind me. These are from 2009. If you see the brigade of midshipmen, you see male and female mids. If you look at the Corps of Cadets, you see just that, a corps. In fact, for almost a decade, the only way West Point was able to do better than us on the football field was by presenting that United Front. We fixed that, and now we are truly undefeated on the field. In the Navy and Marine Corps, we're trending toward uniforms that don't divide us as male or female but rather unite us as sailors and Marines. We've conducted a thorough review and both services have already initiated the transition. As Marines continue to test and field a common choker blue blouse, that unmistakable Marine Corps dress uniform, it'll be worn next week at commencement here at the Academy along with a common cover. Same applies to Navy service dress white choker and combination cover. The Naval Academy is about leadership and commencements are about new beginnings. So there's no better venue to debut the future of the Navy and Marine Corps in multiple contexts, to the fleet, to the Corps, and to America. So I look forward to seeing next week not male and female officer candidates but new United States Naval and Marine Corps officers. So I'm getting close to 30 minutes. Your attention is going to, if it hadn't already, stray from me to what you're going to be doing in commissioning week. But I want to leave you with a few final thoughts. There's a high likelihood that a future CNO or commandant sits in this audience and that he or she may be you. The policies I set forth today are designed to enable all of you to achieve that level of success. All of you will not aspire to serve in the same capacity. Some will use service as a launch to another career and that's fine. Remember, the Naval Academy is about command and citizenship and government. If your career goes loutside of the Naval service you can move on for the right reasons and do so with the depth of your Navy and Marine Corps experience supporting you. Your heritage is one of war heroes and presidents, Olympians, astronauts, diplomats, CEOs, and the occasional Heisman Trophy winner or talk show host. Transition with pride and remember, I was a sailor once and was part of the Navy and the Navy will always be part of me. For those of you who commit to a career of 20 or 30 or 40 years, and I encourage you to do that. Take ownership of your Naval service. Make it better for future generations. Dismiss the faults and sort of toxic notion that the best officers are getting out because it simply isn't true. The best officers are the ones forward-deployed today, leading sailors and Marines. Being an officer is an enduring commitment. And while the Navy and Marine Corps are great, they're not perfect, which is why we have to have great officers to lead. If you know of ways to make our service better, don't just be the critic. Be the man or the woman in Teddy Roosevelt's words in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat, advocating for change, so that we all can experience the triumph of high achievement. It's because of that tradition of leadership and because of the promising future that I see before me sitting here today. I can invoke President Kennedy's words to the brigade for more than five decades ago and update them for today. Any man or woman who may be asked what they did to make their life worthwhile I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction. I served in the United States Navy or Marine Corps. So to our future insins, Semper Fortis, always courageous. To our future second lieutenants, Semper Fidelis, always faithful. Thank you, beat army. Who's got a question? 4,500 people. Who's got a question? Good morning, sir. First class Halgren. I support the initiative of uniting men and women under one uniform, but my question for you is, why are we proceeding about with the assumption that our uniform is the male uniform and making women look like men rather than uniting both in our common unisex uniform? First question gets a coin. Well, number one, I hope that's not the assumption that we're just making men, women look like men, we're trying to. We've completely redesigned the combination cover, for example, to make them actually fit your head of the ones we issue now. Choker whites and choker blacks for the Marine Corps are iconic uniforms, and that's why we're going that way. Now, the women's choker whites aren't like the men's choker whites. They don't have pockets, they're tailored differently, but they are choker whites. Now, we're not in everything. I mean, there's still skirt options on a bunch of women's uniforms. There's still formal uniforms that are sort of completely different, but for the day-to-day stuff, you're already in unisex uniforms most of the time. The ones you got on today, the blueberries that make men and women unfindable in the sea if you fall in are unisex. And as I said, we're not trying to make women look like men. What we're trying to do is make everybody look like a United States sailor, a Marine. Mr. Secretary, midshipman first-class Aldridge, you talked about expanding graduate education opportunities for people. I know of two first-class midshipmen that have been able to attain full funding to Stanford University and MIT that are not going to be able to go because they fall just outside of the 20-person quota for those specific billets. Do you have any plans to expand graduate education specifically here at the Naval Academy to midshipmen similar to these? Short answer, I think, is yes. The other part of that answer, though, is right now, things like the career and admission program, stuff like that, don't start until after your obligated service is over. We're going to be... and that's a law. It's like gravity. It's not just an idea. It's a law. And so we're drafting a legislative proposal to allow people that take time off right out of college or to go to Stanford, to go to MIT to do something that's not within those quotas that you won't be disadvantaged when you come back. And so whether it's freezing your lineal number, rolling it back so that you compete against people from two years later instead of your classmates who've been out getting their wings, getting their dolphins, getting their swolepins, going on deployment, you'll compete against people who have just graduated. So, yeah, we want to keep... we want to keep people who have that academic ability. We want to allow them to take those academic options and opportunities, but we also want them, when they come back, to not be at a competitive disadvantage in the fleet. It may be too late for this year. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. Garrett Murano, 18th Company. My question is concerning opening billets up to all females. Understandably, there's a lot of implications to this. As it stands now, not one female has passed the infantry officer course. What are you going to do about the standards for that? Are you going to be lowering them at some other bar? What do you think the reaction from the public is going to be for opening up these billets? And as it stands now, if you're going to open up the infantry to officers and enlisted females, what's going to happen to the draft? Because of now only males are required to sign up for the draft. And also with this new reform for... and also for this new reformed fitness culture, what is going to happen to the PRT standards and the tests? I didn't hear the last part. PRT? With the new reform for the fitness culture, what's going to happen with the... Are there going to be new PRT tests or newer PRT standards since we're going to be opening up all billets to females? Okay. Number one, one of the things the Marine Corps is doing today is getting the absolute best benchmark in terms of what the physical standards are. Do the physical standards have something to do with the job or not? Making sure that they do. Now, and I put there personally, my personal opinion, and we're going to be making recommendations to the Secretary of Defense and the President later this year to meet the timeline of by the end of this year, the working assumption is all billets are going to be opened by the end of this year. You're going to have to ask for a waiver, an exception to policy to do that. My notion is you set up gender neutral standards. If you pass, you pass. I don't care what shape you are. I don't care what gender you are. I don't care what color you are. If you come from, if you pass the standards, if you meet the standards, you can do whatever job that is. Now, for seals, for example, 80% of men can't pass. And keep the standards. Do not lower standards in any regard. Do not lower readiness. Do not lower fighting ability. And since I don't see the draft coming back anytime soon, I'm just going to tell you I don't have any idea about what that would do. And on the PRT, we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about standards to do a specific job. We're talking about overall fitness day in and day out. For the PRT right now, all we do is we, first we take BMI, body mass index, measure your neck, measure your waist. And if you're out of spec there, you don't get to take the PRT. That doesn't seem to make much sense. We're going to go to, we're going to try to extend what we can. And we may have to ask for a waiver on some of this. The Air Force has already gotten a waiver on a lot of this. But we're going to go to measuring your waist first. Because that's a much better determinant than the body mass index, the ratio. But even if you don't meet it, you're still going to take the PRT. You may lose points in terms of what your waist size is or you may gain points if your waist size is smaller. And we're also going to do spot checks. I don't want people training for the test. You ought to see the Pentagon right before PRT's. I mean, people are out running a whole lot more than they are the rest of the time. We're going to do some spot checks. We're just going to show up and say, you know, today's your day. Go do PRT. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Sir. Mr. Chairman, first class, Chris Kent. I had a question about platform, sir. With the aging cruiser and the Zumwalt destroyer cut to three, what plans does the Navy have to replace that cruiser capability in our fleet? Well, number one, I'm all about growing the size of the fleet. On 9-11, 2001, we had 316 ships. By 2008, after one of the great military build-ups in our history, we were down to 278 ships. In the five years before I became Secretary, we only put 27 ships under contract. That wasn't enough to stop the fleet from getting smaller, and it wasn't enough to keep our shipyards in business. My first five years as Secretary, we put 70 ships under contract with a smaller top line. By the end of this decade, we will get to 304 ships. Now, we would be at 314 ships. Our PCs in the Arabian Gulf right now that we've upgunned, that we send on some of our most dangerous missions. Like, they were the ones around Merced Tigris when the Iranians seized it. They were the ones that do a lot of escort duty through the Straits Formuse. Congress decided last year we can't count them as a part of our battle fleet. It wasn't a military decision. Our COCOMs count them. The Navy Council, I guarantee you the Iranians count them. Congress said we can't count them. And the only reason they did that was because it goes against their narrative that somehow the fleet's getting smaller. And it's not. Our fleet is growing. So that's a big general answer. I'll get to your question. We have put in a proposal that Congress has not accepted yet to put 11 cruisers into modernization. We've got 22 out there today. We need 11 at a time. If we can modernize all 11, we can keep them going into the middle 2040s. That's a long time with cruiser, with those cruiser capabilities. Congress has come up with a 246 plan that you can only induct two a year for no more than four years, no more than four at a time for no more than six years. I think I may have gotten the four and the six backwards. But if we do that, we're going to keep the other cruisers that we're not putting into modernization. We're going to keep them sailing. We're going to keep them completely manned. We're going to run out of money to modernize the rest of the cruisers. So I think basically Congress doesn't trust us. They think we're going to lay up these ships. We're going to take them out of service or something. But I think that's the furthest thing from the truth. As I said, I'm all about having it. The way we're trying to do it is to keep them going as long as possible with the entire 11 complement that we need at any given time. And if we've got 11 in modernization, if something really bad happens, and we need those cruisers, except for the ones under in deep modernization or deep maintenance, we could remand them and get them to sail pretty fast. Thank you, sir. All right, one more? Sir, good morning. Midshipman, third class, good ale, over to you. Where am I looking? There I am. Hi, good morning, sir. It was reported that last month you made a statement that the F-35 would be the last strike fighter that the Navy would ever buy or fly, the last man strike fighter. And it was made in the context of the Navy's shift from manned to unmanned platforms and aviation. As junior officers who may be considering a career in aviation as pilots or NFOs, what mid-career effects would that shift from manned to unmanned platforms have? And should we be concerned at all about choosing naval aviation as a career path? If you're in the Academy today, it'll have no effect on you, none. If you're 10 years old today, it probably won't have much of an effect on you. Now, if you're two years old today, maybe. I mean, we're going to have the F-18 in the fleet for more than another decade. When the F-35s are completely bought, they're going to be in the fleet for several decades. What we're talking about, though, is we've got to move to unmanned. I mean, what I said was the F-35 ought to be and almost certainly will be the last man strike fighter. And we have got to move to unmanned. That's the future. We've got to move to unmanned not just ISR, not just refueling and things, but strike capabilities and autonomous strike capabilities. That's the future. You can put different G-forces on. You can have way more endurance and you don't lose a pilot when one of them goes down. But I'm not just talking about the strike fighter stuff. Same speech I held up a little UAV that was about this big. It cost $200. You can print it on board ship on a 3D printer. One of the things that if we get into a fight you would do is go out and seed about 2,000 of those. They set up their own network. They can be a defensive network to make paths for ships or aircraft, manned aircraft today, to get through, to block the jamming or the electronic warfare that's coming from the other side. Or it can be offensive. It can be the jammer. It can be the electronic warfare going against the other side. They're one-way things. They don't come back and if you lose, somebody shoots down 500 of the 2,000, you still got a network and it's really hard to defeat. So we're the only service that does unmanned above the sea, on the sea and under the sea. And we've got to continue and accelerate those things or we're going to risk falling behind. If we fall behind in this area, it's really a seriously bad thing. Thanks, sir. Did I have somebody else standing up? I don't want to cut anybody off. But did you have a question? Good morning, Secretary Mavis. First Class Stephen Arseneau. Will junior officers, particularly my class graduating now, have a more involved role in the enlisted promotion process? You'll have a, yes, a more involved role in terms of picking out meritorious sailors. Now the CO will be the one that makes the final decision on who to promote. But, you know, CO's has been my experience. I've almost always listened to the division officers and department heads on who to meritoriously promote. So, yes, you should have a much, you should have a larger say in which one you're saying, and you also should have a larger say in which ones you separate that aren't doing the job. All right. Thank you all again and good luck to you all that are going to be commissioned next week and to the rest of you, have a great summer. See you in the fall and beat Army.