 More than everybody. I'm going to keep you standing for a second. Petty Officer Kotherin, where are you? Come here. You think you're in trouble, don't you? Stand right there. Attention to award, please. This is a certify the Secretary of the Navy has awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Gold Star, and Louis II Award. To mass communication specialist, second-class surface warfare, aviation warfare, David J. Kotherin. For professional achievement while serving as assistant web developer for Navy production directorate in defense media activity Fort Meade from August to September 2013. Petty Officer Kotherin's outstanding initiative led to the development and launch of an all-hands magazine archive website featuring 10 decades of content. He worked tirelessly to make more than 1,000 digital magazine editions available to a worldwide audience. He personally wrote more than a hundred thousand lines of HTML code to construct a professional archive site that is easy to navigate and increased web traffic to Navy.mil by 450,000 hits. Petty Officer Kotherin's exceptional professionalism, unrelenting perseverance, and loyal devotion to duty reflected great credit upon him and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. Signed the sixth day of September 2013 by J. F. Kirby-Ramble, U.S. Navy. Round of applause, boys. All right, now you can sit down. That's the best way to start one of these things. And I think we surprised you, didn't we? You didn't know this was coming, did you? Good. Well, that little spot-nam speaks a lot about a lot of the covers. There's a thread you can pull through this through a lot of what I want to talk about today. And I'm essentially going to try to keep my yak in as short as I can. But there's sort of three things I want to hit on. One, I want to just give you a quick update on our community, the health of the community. Two, I want to talk about the budget outlook for next year, which is dominating a lot of my time and attention. And then I just want to talk a little bit about my own priorities. What I tried to focus on in year one, because I'm now just beginning year two, so I want to kind of go quickly through what I tried to do in year one and why and then get to year two and where my focus is going to be heading into this next phase of my time as Chinfo. And then I just want to take questions and hopefully we'll get lots. So let me go on the community update. I'll just start with the enlisted side. I think, well, actually, both on the officer and enlisted side, we're healthy. And the civilian side too. We're healthy. On the enlisted side, we're a 101 percent man. That's pretty good. We consider it as a relatively balanced community. And but we do have some trouble years in terms of reenlistment quotas performed to serve has gone away, but there are still some year groups in the enlisted side that have to get permission to reenlist. They still have to apply for that. That's 1999 2000 2002 and 2005. It's going to take us a little while to work through that. But by and large, we're manned pretty healthy. And the focus is as it is for all the enlisted communities on at sea manning. And that's where we're putting a lot of our energy and time and making sure that float units have the people that they need. Which means that there are some places ashore where we're taking some hits. One of them is at Denfos, for instance, and instructors are at Denfos. We're also not filling all our recruiter quotas as well. But we're we're trying to work through that advancement opportunities on the enlisted side are pretty good. Next year, we're going to have slightly lower advancement for E4 should stay steady at E5 slightly lower at E6 and just a little bit lower at E7. Although E7 advancement still looks very, very good. I don't want to cause any great alarm by that as we, you know, we made another master chief quota here. One more right for next year. So that means that in general, promotion to chief is still going to be pretty healthy. So that's good on the enlisted side. On the enlisted side, I'd also say we're pretty balanced and we're pretty healthy. We're at 96.3% mandate and the active component. Vic Beck is here. And if you get a chance, I'll just ask you to talk quickly about how you're doing on the reserve side. But on the active side, we're 96.3% and pretty looking pretty good. I think according to the to commander Nunley and commander Miller, we should be by this fall. We should actually get up to 100%. So that's a good thing. And we're working hard on the accession thing. As you know, in the officer community, we get very few opportunities to bring them in as ensigns. Usually three to five a year. So most of our officer's sessions are at the lieutenant rank and those are lateral transfers. And again, I think our outlook for next year looks pretty healthy. The only real cohort that bothers me as 05s were still undermanned at the commander level. We're down about eight to nine bodies given the requirements out there for 05s. That may not sound like a lot, but when your community is small as us, it does mean a lot. We're going to try to get at that and take a bite out of that wedge through promotion opportunities and the zones coming up in the next year or two. So more on that as I know it. And then on the civilian side, again, I think things are holding steady. We're looking for more training and education opportunities for our civilians. At DINFOs and other places of learning. And as you know, the furloughs are now over. I think we ended up with three furlough days. Was it, you know, six, but we cut them short from six. We didn't actually do six. Did it? Did six? That's right, 11 to six. Thank you. I'm sure you remembered each of those days. Anyway, it's over. That's a good thing. And I don't know what it's going to look like for next year. And I'll talk about that in a second. In fact, I'll just go to it right now, budget for next year. It's going to be a tough one. I said this the last time I was here and I'll say it again. I think in 14, we need to prepare for the very strong likelihood of sequestration in 14. I think it's also entirely likely that we'll be dealing with a continuing resolution in the first six months or so of next year. I mean, this is September 6th, right? Or is it, yeah. And October 1st is just around the corner. And I don't think it's very likely that we're going to get an appropriations bill for FY 14 on October 1st. So we're looking at a CR, certainly looking at sequestration. And for us in the Navy, 14, if we're sequestered in 14, it's going to be, it's going to have a bigger impact than what we faced in 13. We're looking at probably instead of a normal 10% cut from sequestration. If you add on the complexities of 13 to 14, it's not just 10%. It comes out to about 14% a cut across the board for us in the Navy. And you can't touch the manpower accounts. So that means that you have to go after that money where you have it and that's where you can. And that's in the Omen accounts, the operating accounts and procurement, R&D and procurement acquisition, that kind of thing. And so the CNO and the staff are working really hard to figure this out. I got to attend a brief meeting the CNO had yesterday, getting ready for a hearing. He's got later this month in the House Armed Services Committee to talk about the Strategic Choices Management Review and sequestration and a hearing. And I think there'll be others, not just this HAAS caring. So he's working hard at this to try to figure it out. It's going to have an impact on the way we deploy, the way we train, the readiness levels that we're able to sustain out there. And it's also going to have an impact on virtually every program. I mean, if we get sequestered in 14, we could lose an LCS. We're likely to lose, I think it's a DDG. And then there's going to be an impact to the JSF program as well. So there's and that's just a few off the top. It's going to touch just about everything. So serious problems across the Navy and that will affect us. As I've said before, the budget isn't for us. It's not just a communication challenge. It is because we have an obligation to explain to our sailors and our families and the American people what this means for us. But it also is going to have a real impact on Chinfo, the PA community and our ability to do our jobs. And the biggest impact is on outreach. Now, you know, for 13, we basically we did all but shut down outreach in 13. And we did, and I hands off to Kim Marks and her team and Rob Noel for the work they did to try to get some outreach accomplished, mostly virtually through 13. And but in 14, it's still an unclear picture. That said, I am cautiously optimistic that we're going to be able to get to get out back on the road next year. Rob has done amazing work with Kim and her team. To come up with some proposals that we think will be acceptable to OSD leadership that could help us get back out there. It may, and I footstomp the word may here because Secretary Hagel gets to make the final decision, and I don't think he's been briefed on any of this. But it may include getting the blues back up in the air. Maybe some port visits to Conus ports. Not all of our Navy weeks, but about a half a dozen or so. And our participation in all five fleet weeks. That's a good thing. That's what we want. It represents that kind of a plan would represent about a 40%, maybe a little bit more than a 40% cut in what we did in 2012. So it's, I mean, it shows some pain, but I think it's doable. More importantly, Ms. Bardor for OSD community relations thinks it's doable. All the services are facing cuts in their outreach and are making similar accommodations. But this plan needs to be briefed up the chain of command and we don't, so we don't have approval yet. Bottom line is we're trying real hard to find innovative, creative solutions to get back out there because we believe, I know you know this, I believe it. But even the CNO, we've talked about this. He believes that outreach is a mission. It's not a luxury. It's not something you just do because you can. You really need to do it. And it's particularly acute for us in the Navy because unlike the other services, we don't have bases all around middle America. We need this outreach effort to communicate with Americans where they are and where we aren't. And because so many of our missions require us to be out and about. So it's really, really important for us. Again, Rob's done a great job teeing it up. We teed up several options. That's the one we prefer. There are, as you might imagine, other options that are more restrictive. And one or two that are less restrictive. But I think that's where we're probably going to end up going, I hope. So the budget's real. We also need to be braced for more pain next year. And then we'll see about 15 and beyond. I mean, there are planners here in the building that are certainly looking at FY 15 and beyond to see what sequestration looks like. It's pretty dire when you get out that way. I think if sequestration continues, you're going to see even more dramatic decisions being made in 15 and beyond to certain programs and initiatives across the Navy. But that's where we are. And I'm happy to take questions when we get to that point about the budget. I wish I had better news. But as I said, if there's a silver lining in here, it is that I think we're going to be able to get some outreach done. We're going to be able to get back out to America. And that's important. OK. Let me just talk a little bit about what I tried to do in year one. None of this should come as a surprise, but I want to just recap it. I had two major concerns coming into the job or two things I really wanted to work on. One was relationships. I'd been away from the community for a long time, and I wanted to take more time to get to know all of you, let you get to know me. So I've made some trips to fleet concentration areas. I'll continue to do that. But I really wanted to work on getting to know the community again and the issues inside the Navy. I also wanted to work on relationships here in the building. I mean, I have, because I've been in the building since 2005. I have a lot of relationships, but I didn't have any necessarily with the headquarters of the Navy. So I worked hard on building a good relationship with Secretary Mabus and with the CNO and the OPNAF staff and the SECNAF staff. And I still have work to do there. I mean, relationships, as I wrote about not long ago, are something that must be constantly nurtured and sustained. So you're never really going to get to the finish line on that, nor should you try. So I'm going to continue to do that. But that was a real big focus area for me. The other focus area for me was what I call blocking and tackling skills, fundamentals, back-to-basics kind of things. I was worried that in some ways we were sort of moving away from the very roots of good public relations. Not that the PA community was on the wrong track or going south. I didn't mean anything like that. Just that there were some basic skills that I wanted to make sure we were paying a lot more attention to. So I did that. And you guys have seen the team PAs that I write, and I do write them myself. And I think about them before I send them to you. They're all designed to sort of just remind us of some basic responsibilities that we have and skill sets that I want us to not only hone and master, but to sustain like writing and speaking and media relations and talking to people. So I worked on that. I think I'll continue to do that because I'm a simple guy. I don't think in very lofty terms and those things still matter to me. So you're going to continue to hear that from me as well. So again, two of my goals I'm going to take forward into the year number two. And then the third one was the program and the budget. And I made this a priority in year one because, A, it's a real priority to the Navy. I mean, you just heard me talk about the effect of sequestration in 13 and 14. It's what we're living with every day, but also because I didn't understand any of it. I had come from four years on the joint staff where almost all the work I did was operational or traveling around with Admiral Mullen, more geopolitical in nature. And then I spent a year as Secretary Panetta spokesman up at the podium. And again, that was largely driven by the news of the day. I did not have to worry about diesel generators on the littoral combat ship. Or the cost of the Ford-class carrier. Now I do. That's the life of the Chinfo, and I embrace that. And I've had to work hard on that and try to understand it. And it's important just for the sake of knowing it, but also because of the budget environment that we're living in. So again, I think I'll continue to focus on that as well, going into year number two. So when I think about this coming year and what I want to spend my time on, I kind of bend it along the lines of those three words that are on the back of my coin, content, context, and counsel. Those three words have guided me for 22 years as a PAO, and I'm going to use them to guide me here in year number two. So as I think about how I'm going to organize my efforts, it's going to be along those three lines. And I'll just hit them briefly with you. I'm actually doing pretty good on time, too. I'll just hit them briefly with you. On content, and content for me is the raw material. It's the words we choose, it's the things we write, it's what we say, and it's certainly the visual imagery that goes along with that. But it also is the material that's guiding our leaders. So you got the CNO's three tenants, which he has reaffirmed for this year, that he's going to maintain those. That's war fighting first, operate forward and be ready. And then it also relates to the secretaries, four P's that he calls them, his four P's and priorities. That's platforms, power, partnerships, and people. And I think you're going to see the secretary, in particular over the next few months, start to get out there in speaking venues and talk about those four P's. We're looking at perhaps a speech next week, as a matter of fact, at the National Defense University, where he's going to start to kind of unveil this strategy of his, starting with what he calls the overarching P and that's presence. That's the big thing that Naval forces provide the president and the country. And I think he's going to start to really kind of unravel that next week in a big speech. So we have an obligation at Chinfo because we don't just speak for the Navy, but I am also the Navy Department's spokesman to help the secretary articulate that vision. And then we're going to do that. So that's the raw material. It's the three tenants and it's the four P's that those are our bosses. That's what matters to them. So it's the first thing that matters to me. And so what we've got to do is, is translate those priorities into compelling content from our perspective. Number one, the number one goal in that are the number one thing we need to be focused on is good storytelling. And you've heard me talk about this. I'm not going to belabor that. And I wrote about this as well in a team PA, but we have to be better storytellers. Not saying we're not good storytellers, we are, but we can always get better and we need to do that. So we're working on some ideas to help us get a little bit better. What I what I want to make sure and I said this before, I'll say it again. But I want the MCs, particularly, because they're the ones who really in our community develop the content. When I think about content, that's who I think about mostly. I want them loosened up and freed up to do the kind of good storytelling we need. I hear wherever I go to the fleet concentration areas I visited, I hear repeatedly from MCs who feel constrained by the chain of command, whether it's their public affairs change, a chain of command or the operational chain of command at the unit they're in, not to not to be able to tell compelling stories. And it's not that they're told, hey, I don't want you to tell good stories. But what they're told is just put it in AP style, give me a news release, let's post at the Navy.mil and be done with it. Not good enough. We still need to do that, of course, there's going to be and we still have to know how to how to how to submit and and release a good press release. But that's just that's just a task. What I really want, I want skill and I want them to be able to let their skills go and and let them let them work on these things and come up with creative ideas. It's one of the reasons why I saved all hands magazine from the trash heap because I believe it's a great form to do that. And it is it's getting better and better every month. The submissions are getting sharper. I continue to be incredibly impressed by the talent out there when I go see MCs in the field, particularly on aircraft carriers because a lot of times they're given a lot of leeway to be creative out there. And the submissions coming from the fleet are increasing and they're getting better and better, but we still got to keep working at it. So we've got to do a better job telling stories. I'm dispatching Master Chief to where are you going? Pack Northwest, San Diego and Norfolk to start conducting some workshops on the waterfront with senior MCs in those areas on good storytelling. So if you're listening to me here, but out there, please show up to these workshops, contribute to them, speak up, make your ideas known and start contributing to this this much bigger and broader initiative about good storytelling. We've got to do a better job. I talked about you may have heard me talk about this book. I read not long ago called The Far Shore written by a guy named Max Miller. Mark Farham from Navy Times turned turned me on to this book. If you got 10 bucks, you don't make the book is not in in print anymore. But if you got 10 bucks, go on Amazon.com and buy this book. It's a little thin thing. 200 pages. You can read it in a weekend. Max Miller was a civilian journalist, just a reporter. And the Navy hired him in World War Two, gave him the rank of lieutenant commander and hired him to go tell the Navy story. And he wrote this book called The Far Shore, which was about the amphibious landings of World War Two in the Mediterranean. So he wrote about Solano and Normandy and Anzio and others. And he wrote it from the perspective, not of the grunts, but from the sailors, particularly the Coxons, the young sailors that had to bring these these Marines and these soldiers ashore and then get back and get another load. Pretty powerful stuff. He really puts you right in the time and the place. It's compelling writing because it's good storytelling. He's talking about the Navy's role in World War Two, but he's doing it through the eyes of sailors. And that's a skill we can all master and we all should because service in the Navy is not about the stuff. It's not about the ships or the submarines of the aircraft. We're a capital intensive service to be sure, but it's about us. It's about what made you come in. It's it's about the dedication. It's about loyalty. And it's it's about the things that matter to you that you can't measure that are inside here. We I'm getting off the topic here and I know now I am running out of time. But you may have heard of an effort that we we we launched recently with Gallup sending them down to Norfolk and San Diego to do some to do some focus groups about who we are as sailors. Now, there was a little piece of it, to be honest, that was about sort of test test running global force for good because the CNO asked me when I took the job. They let me know if that's really where we want to be in terms of a brand for the Navy. So that was one of the questions we asked sailors. We asked them a lot of other ones and they did great work for us. They did 19 focus groups in two fleet concentration areas. Seventeen with seventeen of the focus groups were with sailors ranking from E1 all the way to 06. Folks from shore commands, a flow commands, all kinds of diversity. And then in each concentration area, they also sat with a group of veterans. And really, what I wanted to know was what the service in the Navy mean to people. I won't bore you with the whole brief. We can give you the slides. It's pretty compelling stuff. I briefed it to the CNO and to the three stars a couple of weeks ago. Admiral Moran has it now and he's going to sort of take this issue of global force for good on and move forward. But when I asked Gallup, okay, bottom line, is it possible for a service as diverse as the Navy? Cut across so many skill sets to have a single idea. Call it a brand, a model. I don't care what you call it. But is it possible for us to have an idea, a one thread that everybody can sign up to and say, yeah, that speaks to me. That's who I am. Their answer was yes, you can. But there was a caveat. They said, you've got to pull at the emotional strings because it's clear from the focus group answers to the questions we asked that what matters to people about being in the Navy is what's in here. It's not the stuff they get to fly and drive and operate. It's what being in the Navy means to them. Many of them have family connections. I'm sure many of you do as well. So they said, if you were going to come up with something, Kirby, it's got to have something that pulls on the heart strings. So there's an intangible here to the content that I want us to develop. And the only way we're going to get there is if we tell good stories about who we are, the human experience about being in the Navy. Okay, that's content. I know I'm running out of time. I'll get to context. As you heard me talk about context is really more in my mind about, I've lost my cards here, here we go. This is getting a little bit beyond the blocking and tackling skills. I'm still going to focus on fundamentals in year two because I still think it's something you can never stop worrying about, the basic skills. But where I want us to get to is a higher plane of operation where we are really helping provide understanding, providing understanding and awareness to the American people in particular, but also to the press that we work with. This requires a little bit more dexterity in how we deal with reporters and how we deal with people. It's not just about producing talking points. And we've done that. We got the weekly playbook, which was another product I wanted to start doing here in year one, and we're going to continue that. But I want to take the level of discussion about the Navy to a higher level. It's particularly important now as we're facing these budget pressures. Now as we may not be able to get out amongst the American people as much as we want, this is the time to be up in the game in terms of what we're talking about and how we're talking about it. So what do you mean by that Kirby? Well, I mean, we got to get more comfortable in other settings than on the record interviews and speeches. We've got it, we as PAOs, but our leaders, the ones we work for, we got to get them on background. We got to get them off the record. We got to get them to engage more, to have more conversations out there. And again, it's even more important now if outreach comes back at all, that we get ourselves and our leaders comfortable with that. It's, I think the other thing we learned in this, because I had Gallup do some other polling for me too. One of the things I learned was the American people, they know why they have a Navy. Nothing drives me more baddy. And when I'm walking around and I hear other flagging general officers talk about, well, we got to explain why the Navy, why the nation needs a Navy. They know why they have a Navy. They get it. They've always had a Navy. It's gone up in size and down. It's gone up in capability and down, but we've always had a Navy. We have to do a better job explaining what that Navy does. I've joked about it, but my mom still thinks we have battleships, but that's just a, and it's true. And that's just a statement about how much more education we have to do. And that's gonna require, again, a little bit more focus on a deeper level of understanding. It's also why I'm focusing on training and education a little bit more this year. We're gonna try to stand up a public affairs course at the Naval War College. This would be an elective taught by probably an 05 or an 06 PAO. Eventually the goal is that this individual is permanently detailed to Newport and is not the War College PAO. I don't know how long it's gonna take me to get there, but we're working with the War College faculty to kind of develop this, but I want it taught by a PAO and I'm gonna call it something other than public affairs because that's not what I want it to be about, but I want it to be about public communication. Again, I want us, we have to provide some context and awareness to our own Navy about what we bring to the effort into the fight. It's also one of the reasons why, and I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, internships, I want to look at informal internship relationships in Washington, Norfolk, San Diego, and out in Hawaii. Captain James is all over that. He was all excited about this and he's off and running as is Captain Campbell. She's already having conversations with the Virginia pilot about doing this sort of informal internship program. We're gonna do it here, as I said in DC. I don't want it, it doesn't have to be codified. I just want an opportunity for our junior officers and our MCs to get outside a little bit, to go be a part of a media outlet, even if it's just for a week, even if it's just for a day, just see what it's like out there, see what it takes to put a news package together for a cable network, see what an editorial board meeting looks like from the inside. How does the news get developed and disseminated on a daily basis? How does a paper get put together? That's a good context for us to have, because we're not gonna be able to convince our bosses, our commands about the importance of what we do if we don't understand the business of news gathering itself and how much that business is changing. You've heard me talk about my meeting with Al Jazeera, Josh Rushing, and Jeremy Young from Al Jazeera not long ago, and I'll just retell it quickly even though I know I'm over time now. But Jeremy asked me, he's a producer at Al Jazeera, asked me what is social media and technology done to the business of public relations? My one word answer was speed. It's just kind of sped everything up. And I turned the question around on Jeremy, and I said, what's it done to the business of news gathering? And his one word answer back to me was everything. It's changed everything. Because not only do we have to be ahead of it, but it itself becomes part of the news. So there is an enormous amount of change going on out there in the news media industry, and we gotta be a part of that. We gotta understand that. We have to walk in their shoes just a little bit because it'll make us better communicators on our part. Okay, and then that brings me to counsel the third C. And when I'm gonna focus on in this year, we're gonna, first of all, back to training education. We've asked DINFOs to add some tasks into their training that include advising the commander and staff as an actual training task in some of their curriculum. So that's a good thing. I'm going to, it's something I've been trying to do for a whole year, and I just haven't been able to get there, but I think I'm about there now. I'm really gonna develop OI-9 as a strategy shop. Capnike Skelton is on board now, thanks, Mike. And he's got a deputy now, so there's actually manpower applied to OI-9, and we're gonna get him some more help. But I sat Ike down when he reported, we were here just a few days ago, and I told him that I want him to be the brain. I want him to think out ahead. Where we get too often caught up in our community, and certainly at Chinfo, is in what's in front of me today. What are the headlines I gotta deal with? What are the media queries I'm chasing down? And that's important stuff. Reactivity is not a bad word in our profession. It's a good word. But where I wanna be is active, and I wanna be out ahead of the headlines. I wanna be out ahead of events. And so my task to Ike is, I want a strategy shop. I wanna think long-term. I wanna know what is going on six or eight months from now that I gotta care about, and how Chinfo's gonna have a role, how our community's gonna have a role in shaping those events. Not just communicating them, but shaping them, and shaping the decisions that our bosses don't even know right now they have to make. So it's no small task. I appreciate you taking that on. But it's a big job, and that's what I want. I wanna get out ahead. That's about me. I, not, it's not about me. That wasn't a good way to put it. When I look back at year one, I think, I've made a lot of mistakes, but one of the things I know I haven't done a good job of is giving good strategic counsel to the secretary and to the CNO. I'm building good relationships with both men, and I'm happy about where those are going. But I think I can do a better job helping them understand events and getting ahead of the tyranny of their time as well. And that's what I want OINI to do, and that's where I wanna get to. And that frankly, I think that's where we also try to get to as public affairs professionals. And I talked about the War College, and the last thing on here is just expanding networks. What I mean by that is, and I talked about this in my last TPA, this is about your own networks, your own Rolodexes. I want you to, and I know we don't use Rolodexes anymore, I still do. Well, you call it what you want, your contact list on your Outlook account, whatever, but take a look at it every now and then. And I mean, literally take a look at it and see who's on there, and ask yourself who isn't on there that ought to be on there, whether it's somebody inside the community or outside the community, whether it's a reporter, a producer, a bureau chief, or another colleague that's not even in the military. Just take a look at who's on that contact list and scrub it. And if there's somebody on that contact list that you want to keep and you haven't talked to in a while, pick up the phone and call them. Walk down the hall and go see them. It really is about relationships, what we do. It all comes down to human interaction, and that's what we got to spend more time on. So with that as a great way to get off the stage here, I'm five minutes over, I want it to be, but with the goal of human interaction, I'll let you take any questions or comments you guys have. Yes. Sir, Lieutenant Bennington for I&I. Sir, if you could give a grade to the public affairs community and how we are doing in integrating our communication efforts, what would it be and what would it take to get us to either the next letter or the next plus? What do you mean by communicating our efforts? I just mean from the most important things to the CNO and the SECNAV and how that those strategies, those plans, those desires, those ideas get communicated all the way through, all the way to the lowest levels. If I was gonna swag, I'd just sit down and relax. I'd say B or B plus. I mean, I think we're doing good. It's not like we aren't performing out there. I think we are. We've got an amazing talent all across the community, but I don't want us to be patting ourselves on the back too much. Things are changing too fast. And the decision space that our leaders are working with is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Just look at what's going on in Syria right now. So we can do better. And I think the CNO is very good about talking about his three tenants, and he works that into almost every discussion he has publicly, and you're gonna start to see the same focus effort coming from Secretary Mabus now that he's got his four P's down and he's got the structure. And I just, so I think we got probably more work to do on the four P's just because it's sort of a new idea and he's just starting to launch this. But I think we do a good job. I mean, we do a good job explaining the Navy to people. I just think we can do a little bit better job. And we're two components to that. One is timeliness. It's just being faster. We still are sometimes a little slow on the uptake because we wanna staff everything and make sure it's all right. I'd rather get out there and into a story even with a holding statement that's not too specific, but at least we're in the discussion and then update it later with more information than not being it at all. So it's the timeliness thing. And I think it's just an effort of, it's just a matter of constant care and attention and feeding to this thing. The other thing about this information environment that we're living in is it's, there's no end to it. Even a story, stories are constantly updated. Even wire stories are constantly updated. And so you look at the early bird, that used to mean, or the chin full clips, that used to be that was the news of the day. You get it delivered on your desk, you read it, that's the news of the day. We all know that that's not the case anymore because an hour or so after the early bird hits the streets or the chin full clips are done, there's a whole rash of new stories. And sometimes those are the stories that are driving our day. Again, Siri is a great example of this. Not what's in the early bird. And what's in the early bird, a story by Kim Dozier, and Kim's a great reporter, but you'll see oftentimes and she'll update her stories throughout the day, adding new quotes, adding fresh data, removing old stuff. I mean, it's not just the news cycle that is this constant, ever-changing thing. A story itself is now a living, breathing thing that doesn't just lay on the desk and die after you've read it. Does that answer your question? We have a couple of questions coming from the WebEx here. This one comes in from Jason Kelly. Sir, you mentioned internship opportunities for junior officers and MCs. Will civilians be offered this opportunity? Absolutely, yeah, I neglected to say that. But absolutely, our civilians will be, should be and will be offered opportunities to do the internships. That's my bad, I should have said that. That's absolutely right. In fact, is Caroline here? Where's Caroline? Is she here? Is she? Yeah, I mean, she jumped at this as soon as I said it. She wants to be the first one. Absolutely, civilians will be a part of it. You bet. Ryan? Come in, Ryan Perry. So you mentioned Syria briefly. It's the issue kind of at the front of America's consciousness right now, the Navy's right in the middle of it. Can you discuss for everybody a little bit how you're able to balance your commitment to truth and transparency, while at the same time not getting ahead of national decision-making processes at the highest levels? No. I mean, this is a constant balance that we have to seek as public affairs professionals, particularly with a situation as dynamic right now as Syria is. There's two ways to look at this, or there's two things you gotta think about. One is the right of the American people to know what's being done with their military, the sons and daughters that they send out there to defend them and the equipment that they're buying and operational security. And you have to find the right balance there. Clearly, when you have a situation like Syria that's unfolding really before our eyes through the news, finding that balance becomes that much harder. And you can't divulge classified information and you don't wanna tell potentially bad actors where all your people are and what they're doing. On the other hand, you've gotta at least bound it and try to put some context to it so that at the very least, in our case, people know that the Navy's out there, that we're doing exactly what we've been paid to do, exactly what the Commander-in-Chief expects us to be able to do, which is to provide a force in being a presence that can be a deterrent or can be offensive in capability. And so we've tried to do that as the last couple of weeks have unfolded. And the other piece to Ryan's question is to try to coordinate that as much as you can so that you're not just doing this all under the table, that we're keeping the Joint Staff and OSD informed, not only of what the Navy's doing, but what we're gonna talk about what the Navy's doing. And again, we've thread that needle pretty carefully and I think we're gonna have to continue to do that. I don't know what the plans are. I don't get to look at those. I don't know what the Commander-in-Chief's ultimately gonna decide to do. And I don't know how the vote's gonna come out in Congress. I mean, I'm reading the news, same as you on the debates over there. But this is the topic of national conversation right now. And primarily, whatever response is being considered will be a Navy response. We're gonna, if there's a response, we're gonna play. We're gonna be involved in that. So we have to continue to try to find that, find balance and walk that very thin line about transparency to the very limit that we can go. And I don't wanna go over that limit but I wanna be right at that limit because it's important. Again, back to what I talked about before about the American people not really understanding what we do, this is an opportunity and I'm not, I don't wanna come across as crass or like I'm trying to take advantage of a crisis here. But it does provide us an opportunity to educate people about what capabilities the Navy brings to an effort like this. And so we're doing that. Again, it's just gonna be, I think every day, Ryan and I are both learning every day that striking that balance gets harder and harder as events seem to be moving faster and faster in Syria. The thing that I think people have, we've tried hard to correct but I think the thing that bothers me the most about the narrative out there on the Eastern Med is this idea that we surged four or five destroyers to the Eastern Med and we moved all this effort, this manpower and this machinery to the Eastern Med and that's just not true. We know that. I mean, the truth is we keep two to three destroyers in the Eastern Med all the time anyway. And the fourth one that we're talking about was simply on the way over anyway to relieve one of those three. And that's something we do need to work on and we do need to improve, I think, awareness of that it isn't, yet we are a surge capable force but we are also present in a lot of parts of the world already. The time, we talked about the decision space for our leaders to make, the time that they have to make decisions and how short it is and getting shorter. One of the things that we do for the Commander-in-Chief is help him with that time. We actually give time back to the President because we're already there. So he and our nation's leaders don't have to worry about, well, geez, where's the nearest carrier and how fast is it gonna take to get there? Because oftentimes, particularly in the hot spots of the world, we are already there in some form or fashion. Did I answer a question? Thanks. Admiral, we have another question coming in from the Webex here. This one comes from Captain Kirchner. What are your thoughts on how the Navy Reserve PA community is organized to support the active component's mission? I'm gonna ask Vic to come up. I'll just say broadly, and we get this question from time to time, Vic and I. For my view, I'm not aware of any organizational changes that need to occur. I'm very pleased with the reserve support that we get and I'll say it again, I've said this a billion times, there is no way, no way, that we could have gotten through the last 10 to 12 years of war. Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly, without our reserve component, impossible. Can't be done, there's no way we could have done it with the active component. It's our reservists. You go look at the service jackets of our reserves and you'll see a lot of time on the ground. Lots of bronze stars. And these guys, and I'd say guys, to me the whole group, men and women, they have fought and they have deployed again and again and there's no way that we could have done it without them. So I'm very static about the support we get from the reserve community. Again, I'm not aware of any organizational changes that need to occur or appending, but I'll pass it over to you, Vic. Just real quick, one of the things, let me put on my businessman hat for a minute. One of the things I did as Vice-Chinfo I call it a business efficiency review. And we didn't, it wasn't a wholesale change at all, but we looked at billets. And we need to do that, really, and by relief, Admiral Select Davis, he needs to do it too, once in their tour. And it's something we always have to do. We constantly look at the business of our Navy. And so there wasn't any wholesale change. I don't see any wholesale changes, but you have to study it. At least every three years, take a hard look at where our billets are, where we're located, and a little bit of mostly just restructure a little bit. But restructure is a tough work. It's not the right word here. It's really look, tweaks, but I think we're structured correctly in support of the active force. And so you guys can easily tap us with Nebe. Thanks. Yes, ma'am. Lieutenant Hutchison on the news desk. I apologize if my question is a bit news desk or even programming specific, but hopefully it can apply to... If it's about the program, you should answer it, not me. Hopefully it can apply to folks with multiple number one priorities. On the news desk, our job is to communicate your intent while also working for multiple principles who under a normal budget environment kind of shape or create our undersea surface and aviation force. But the reality is that in this environment, they become conflicting priorities or at least lines of funding. So how do we balance being good PAOs to our principles, but also being thoughtful and realistic and not just doing a blog on LCS and then a blog on a higher replacement and then a blog on JSF because they're all important to each or individual folks, but there's a reality there. How are we strategic in that? Yeah, there's reality there. Yeah. Yes, there is. You know what? It's about picking and choosing your battles. That's what it really comes down to. I mean, when I think about what your question really gets to, it's about deciding what hills you want to die on and which ones you're willing to just bypass. And so it's a good thing that principles want to communicate and want to write and want to blog and want to be out there. And my predilection would be to tell you to allow them to do that, allow them that space, encourage that, help them get it right. But not be afraid if the timing's wrong. It's to slow them down a little bit or maybe next week's a better week for this. But don't turn off that creativity. Don't, you don't want to discourage them from being out there and talking. That's what the CNO wants. And I think we all benefit when they're out there. It's about helping them get that message right and then work in the timing and the placement. Sometimes it is a blog, sometimes it's a speech, sometimes it's an op-ed piece or whatever. But you as the account holder there in three, you've got a bigger picture in many ways than the principles do because you have multiple accounts and you can see how they are all interconnected, particularly around budget time. And so your job is to be okay, just to say I know you want to write this. I know it's really important, but let's hang out for a little bit. The GAO reports coming out in three weeks and that's a better time to do this. So it's about picking and choosing the battles. And sometimes it's just easier and gets you more credibility down the road if you just let something go. Maybe you really don't like it or you don't think it's necessary. But if it's not going to hurt anything and it allows your principles a chance to talk and to communicate, my advice would be to let it go. And then that way when there's a time that comes and it really is matters to you that not to have this out there or to have it set a different way and it's significant that your concerns are significant. Then you can, you'll have more credibility when you go in there and say, okay, look, this time, no, this time you need to wait or this time you need to say it this way. So it's really about, and I make these judgments every day myself. It's what battles do you really want to fight and which ones are just not worth it. And that requires a level of self-awareness and maturity too. I mean, we get everybody, and you see this happening in American society in general, it's very polarizing. Everybody gets wedded to their view of you picket, the world, the economy, healthcare, whatever it is. Everybody has a very staunch view. And any lurker like me on Facebook can see that. I mean, it's pretty rabid out there. You know what people believe and think about all kinds of things. And I think what, and we wrote about this or we tried to get about in the canon of ethics. I mean, I think what we've got, we have to rise above that. We have to rise above our own passions. And realize it's okay to be disinterested. Disinterested is not a bad word. I don't mean uninterested, disinterested. Disassociate yourself, your own views and your own predilections from the professional concerns and look at them objectively. And when you're able to do that, when you're able to walk away mentally from a situation, you can find yourself given your boss advice that a little bit more sound. And when you want to object, when you really believe you've got a case, you'll have more credibility when you go after it. Did that answer your question? Is it a good one? And we have another question coming in here from Lieutenant Sean Eglund. Fast file transfer was brought to the fleet by photo officers. And there's been very little effort beyond that to figure out how we're gonna push video and still imagery from the sea. As time ticks by, we're seeing our networks at sea are changing, but we are not changing with them. Is there a plan for getting imagery off our ships in the next two to five years? Is there a Chris? Test. Remind me to thank Sean when I get a chance, sir. Actually, it's a good question. And we're dealing with this right now with the Eastern Med and the challenges of should those ships be called into action? We've got MCs aboard them, which is very good. And we've tested the capability, but this was a concern of mine as well. Are we gonna be able to get imagery off those ships should we need to? I mean, I'm comfortable we're there, but as to the future of it to Sean's question, which I think is a really good one. I don't know. And maybe that's something I need to spend more time focusing on. Yes, sir. As you recall, I brought this issue up or in a recent director's board meeting indicating that FFT while it's still viable today, it has a periodicity of about 18 months or so before the information assurance side of the house is gonna shut it down unless certain things take place. And all those things are being worked on. Fleet forces has been in touch with me. I've been talking to them about sort of the revising the VIOP order to help strengthen that requirement so that we can go to NAVSEE and present this requirement in terms of finding a follow on solution to FFT or maybe even going so far as to buy the technology from the vendor and then developing it internally so that we can keep up to in pace with some of these ship comm suites that are so radically different from other classes of ship. So right now today, we do a pretty good job of getting FFT to work on 90% of the platforms. It does require a lot of staff work. The NSICs at Fleet Forces is encouraging the NSICs is on the ships to take the risk to use the application. The application is in a new revision so that it's authority to operate or it's authority to be on ship is being recertified. The folks at DMA have a certified server so the information assurance area is being addressed so that we can maintain our current capability but the discussion is really quite new as to how and what the follow on will look like. So we're really in the requirement stage there. Okay, all right, that's good. I mean, so I'm just glad to know we are looking at this and how to get it at Sean's concern. And it's again, Syria has brought anew to me the concern and I didn't even know I needed to have until I faced the situation where we were really concerned about being able to get imagery off quickly. So that's good to know, thanks. Well, look, I'm about four minutes shy so I'm gonna wrap up here. This is the fifth one I've done. I try to do these once a quarter and my plan, my intention is to keep doing them and I'm gonna continue to keep writing to you as well. But if you have any feedback, let me know what it is. If these are not helpful anymore, we don't have to do them. I find it useful for me to get to know what's on your minds and again, my intention is to keep doing it. But thanks very much for your time. I know it's valuable. I'll give the rest of the morning back to you, I appreciate it very much. See ya.