The Navy Reserve Strategic Plan, an interview with VADM Dirk Debbink

RDML Moon: Admiral, you are halfway through your fourth year as Chief of Navy Reserve. Let’s begin with some reflection on these four years. What accomplishment stands out as the one with which you are most pleased?

VADM Debbink: Without question. In a broad sense, just to reflect on all the things the Navy and Marine Corps team have done in the last four years and to find a time when they let either us or the nation down. I mean it’s been an incredible time. Reflect back on 2011 and the operations we’ve been involved with and the things we were able to do. The accomplishments are those of our Sailors: whether they are doing operational missions, are mobilized or are doing weekend duty. Literally, a day doesn’t go by when someone in this country isn’t telling me a story about some great thing that some Navy Reserve Sailor has done. I take a great deal of pride in that. They have never, ever let us down. And that’s to their credit. That is our greatest accomplishment.

RDML Moon: We have to ask—what is the one thing you most want to accomplish in your remaining time as Chief of Navy Reserve?

VADM Debbink: That’s really a pretty easy question since it has been on my list since the day I arrived in this office. But it won’t happen before I leave, I’m afraid and that is to get a single integrated pay and personnel system. It’s the one piece left in our continuum of service that will truly allow our Sailors to flow back and forth without barriers to service.

One of our biggest barriers today is the pay system. It amounts to having two different pay systems: one for Reserve and one for Active. As you shift back and forth, that seamless transition between the two is not there yet. It won’t be until we have a single pay system. Having said that, we knew that probably two years ago when DIMHRS (Defense Integrated Manpower Human Resource System) was terminated by the DOD and we started down the path of an integrated pay and personnel system for each service. The Navy has that effort underway, but it will probably take a number of years to get there, and even some of the little things that are really big annoyances. For example, a number of years ago we could not pay drills that were left over as you went on to Active Duty to mobilize. You know, you have these two drills that have not been paid and will not be paid until you come back over a year later. We have solved that one. Oh yes you can, you can open up that pay account and pay those drills. At the end of the day we’re paying our Sailor. We can pay travel claims in three days or less with Defense Travel System (DTS), or that half if we know about it and we can solve any pay problem in a day. The fact is I am very proud of the pay and assistance team down in Norfolk and what they are doing. That is within our circle of influence. So in the meantime what we have done is to step back, but I’d love to have that single integrated pay and personnel system.

RDML Moon: As you think back to the first day on the job, what surprised you most as you settled into the Pentagon?

VADM Debbink: The thing that surprised me the most was the question I got asked fairly often both in the building here meaning from the Chief of Naval Operations staff, and over on the other side of the river by the congress. And that question was “What do you need, Admiral?” I said, “What do you mean?” The reply was always “What do you need for your Sailors?” or “What do you need for their families?” There is a genuine concern for the wellbeing of Sailors and their families and, in particular, for Navy Reserve Sailors and their families. And I didn’t expect that when I got here. I expected to have to fight every step of the way and that has not been the case at all.

RDML Moon: What’s the most important thing you have learned during this tour of duty?

VADM Debbink: The most important lesson I’ve learned is that it does take a team. And again, I’m going back to my previous answer. It takes a very broad team. It takes a team in the OPNAV staff. It takes working closely with those. It takes working closely with the Congress, and even though we might think occasionally that we have these great ideas, it is amazing how an idea or an initiative will progress through the system. How different people look at it from a different direction. Frankly, it does improve what you’re trying to do, Tim. It’s very important that we realize that it is a team, and it takes all of us to support our Sailors.

RDML Moon: What are the top three issues for you as we enter 2012?

VADM Debbink: We have our Navy Reserve strategic plan and that’s been in place since 2008. And under that we have three main strategic focus areas: to deliver an accessible force, to provide our capabilities, and to enable a continuous service. So we will continue to focus on those three areas. We will break it down this year into nine initiatives. Several of them are very important. I would pick the top three, but they are all important, there are only nine of them. But we do need to continue working on trying to help the Navy, as a whole, as well as our own Navy Reserve understand the Active Component/Reserve Component mix, and how we go about deciding for each capability the Navy employs what is the optimum mix to deliver that as efficiently and effectively as possible. As there is no one right answer from a standpoint of each capability has a different answer. There is also a different answer as time goes on, and how those capabilities are employed so it’s a very complex question. What we are trying to do is get some modeling that will help us all come to the right answer. So that one’s very important.

The second one is something that CNO Greenert has made a centerpiece for all of us as leaders and of course it ties in directly with the budget issues that we will have this year as we continue through the year. And that is to ensure that we are making judicious use of every asset that we have. Whether it is time, whether it is money, or whether it is people, we have to stop and question ourselves ask ourselves if we making the best use of whatever asset it is at this particular time. I think we are doing a pretty good job of that already, frankly, in the Navy Reserve. And so all the more reason to look at it closely because you want to focus on an issue that you think you do really well at because maybe there’s some things you can improve in it. That’s number two.
And then number three, we absolutely do need to maintain the high state of readiness that we have enjoyed for the last ten years in all the things that our Sailors have done. Although we’ve logged out of Iraq, the last service members left in December, there is still plenty to do and that does require us to be ready. And in our Navy Reserve our motto is “ready now, anytime, anywhere” and we need to keep living up to that motto. So that would be the third focus here, making sure we’re giving our Sailors whatever they need in order to be ready.

If there is a fourth area that we are also focusing on this fiscal year, it is to really take a hard look at the mobilization process. We have done this for ten years. We’ve learned a lot. It’s time to make sure that we institutionalize the mobilization process as we begin to wind things down. Perhaps we won’t put as much reliance on this, but someday we might, and so what have we learned and how can we improve the process? Are there ways we should be looking at to mobilize Sailors in an expeditionary manner. If they’re already deployed and then we need to mobilize them, how do we do that? Are there ways we should be looking at to do it virtually for example? Or what if there was a need again like back at 9/11 to mobilize a lot of people quickly. We struggled mightily back in 2001 if you can recall, and so if we can leave something behind as we begin to wind down for next time, if there is a next time, probably will, we have got to do it better.

RDML Moon: As we disengage from two lengthy ground wars in the next year, the debate will heighten over future use of National Guard and Reserve forces. One school will encourage continuation of routine and periodic use of highly-trained and, now proven, forces. Another school will suggest returning the Guard and Reserve to Strategic forces over concerns that we simply cannot sustain the current rate of deployment. It will be suggested that even the one year mobilized out of six is too much. Please tell our readers what you see as the most likely 10-year future for the use of the Navy Reserve Component.

VADM Debbink: I’ll start with the mission of Reserve Force, which is to provide strategic depth and deliver operational capabilities. To me, that means about two-thirds of our Navy Reserve is, and should remain, strategic. I loosely define that as 50 days of duty a year or less. The typical contract is 38, 24 inactive duty days and 14 days of active duty. The more operational parts of our Navy Reserve, probably about one-third of our Sailors or less, will do many more than 50 days a year, 90 days, 100 days, even to full-time duty. I think the most important thing we need to do is make sure we maintain a balance between those two for two reasons. One is for the sake of our Sailors. They want to serve, but not full time.. That’s why they have chosen the Navy Reserve. We need to honor that commitment to allow them to be strategic when they need to for personal or work or educational reasons. However, there are some wonderful opportunities to be more operational and again they can make that choice when they want to as well.

Also, from the standpoint when you look at it from the Navy’s point of view, our nation doesn’t need two navies. It needs one Navy with an Active and a Reserve component. And we need to mesh those two components together in order to achieve the best and most effective seagoing war fighting force that we can in a most efficient manner. So you pull it together, you definitely have to maintain the balance. And to maintain the balance that gives us then the opportunity for those who can be operational on a one to six rotation is your point about probably works out pretty well. I don’t think we will be calling it mobilization in the future. We will be activating Sailors to deploy with our Navy. Most deployments are six or seven months in length, and they would come back and be in dwell for five times that amount before they might be able to go again. Again, Sailors then have the opportunity to choose whether or not they can deploy so they will go to a unit that will deploy because they want to deploy if they can’t deploy they will go to a unit that’s more strategic. So it sounds kind of chaotic but I think there’s actually a beauty in chaos and we really can provide the support the Navy and the nation needs in an operational sense.

RDML Moon: I’ve thought for years that if we ever get to the point where billets are coded as operational or strategic and funded accordingly that we would get rid of a lot of churn and uncertainty.

VADM Debbink: We’re heading in exactly that direction. Where first with Apply , but I think later on, even with all of our tested abilities, the supporting command comments indicate whether or not there’s an expectation for service above the strategic level.

RDML Moon: But they are still funded as strategic billets.

VADM Debbink: The funding issue is also pretty fascinating. In the future, as we deploy Sailors around the world to do whatever missions they’re supposed to do, what kind of funding do we use? The Navy uses MPN (Manpower Personnel Navy) and MPN doesn’t care whether it’s being paid to an AC Sailor or an RC . It should be used though for operational missions. That’s where we’re going longer term. If we end up with about one-third of our Navy Reserve being operational and about a sixth of that being on active duty at any one time, you’re talking about maybe 1,500 - 2,000 Sailors a year that are going to be mobilized or deployed. Are there 2,000 Sailors out of about 54,000 selected Reserve Sailors that want to do something cool somewhere in the world today? Absolutely there are. In fact, the challenge we’ll face is that we will have probably more like 5,000 - 6,000 of our Sailors wanting to deploy and we are only going to be able to deploy 2,000.

RDML Moon: Is this the outcome that you favor or would you make adjustments if you had the authority?

VADM Debbink: The process I just described is where we need to be and it’s definitely the outcome that I favor. My fear is that there is still a lot of discussion here in the building and in DC using the term “operationalize” the Guard and Reserve. It is important that we don’t look at operationalizing the entire Guard or entire Reserve. Then it is no longer a Guard or Reserve. Plus, that is not what our Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guard signed up for. Now there is a lot of combat tested and combat hardened talent in all of the Reserve and guard components, so we need to continue to harness all of that as we move forward. But it needs to be kept in balance.

RDML Moon: I personally think we often talk about Operational Reserve and many Reserve and Guard members are actually doing staff support—is that really operationalizing? That’s some of the nuances I think need to be looked at in the future.

RDML Moon: I personally think that a lot of time we talk about operational Reserve and many Reserve and guard members are actually doing staff support and is that really operationalizing? That’s some of the nuances I think need to be looked at in the future.

VADM Debbink: Any service will come to a different answer, I realize that. But I think if we push too hard to do too much operational support with the Guard or the Reserve we are going to start getting that push back. That’s what we have an Active Component for.

RDML Moon: I’ve thought for years that if you go back 15 years the pendulum has swung all the way in the opposite direction and needs to come back to some sort of balance. That’s my opinion.

VADM Debbink: Well look at our own careers too. Back to the 80’s, had I been required to be operational, when we had a young family and I was trying to get my business going. Had I not been allowed to be strategic, I wouldn’t be here today. By the mid to late 90’s, the children got older, my business started going well, I started raising my hand more and more often saying if you need me I’m available. And look what happened

RDML Moon: Those who say we cannot stand operational Reserve point to the high unemployment rate for returning Guard and Reserve members who wish to continue serving in the Guard or Reserve. How do you address that?

VADM Debbink: Unemployment rate issues are being experienced, I believe, primarily by the Army Reserve, Army National Guard and Marine Corps Reserve. Those are the three that I hear it coming from the most. They have a much different demographic than we do in the Navy Reserve. Their average age is in the young 20s because they’ve been recruiting young men and women for the last 10 years to fight our nation’s wars.

Our Navy Reserve is much more of a veteran force. We are about 85% Navy veterans. Our average age is 35. Average age of an enlisted Sailor in the Navy Reserve is 32. The average age of an officer in the Navy Reserve is 42. We are more weighted toward enlisted as the backbone of our force so the average overall is 35which means many of them are mid-career. They’ve got established jobs. Those who’ve been mobilized more often maybe are either self-employed or employed by corporations that are very Guard and Reserve friendly, those kinds of things. So our anecdotes as well as our surveys, tell us that we don’t have that large of a problem with unemployment in our Navy Reserve. But we are also again trying to maintain that balance I talked about before which is very important. And I think going forward, provided that we give our Sailors the opportunity to be strategic or operational at their election, depending on what is going on in their life, and also provided that we maintain our commitment both to the families and the employers to only deploy our Sailors when we need them for real meaningful work and to get them back as soon as possible. If we keep all this working together I believe we’ll keep the support of both the families and the employers.

RDML Moon: I think it is important to understand the distinction you made regarding the demographic differences between the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy Guard and Reserve forces.

VADM Debbink: With that said, I applaud efforts within the building here in the Department of Defense as well as the White House and the Congress, really efforts across the country, to address the problem of unemployment of our veterans and our Guard and Reserve Sailors. It is amazing; the number of websites, the number of corporations and the commitment there is to hiring Guard and Reserve members and, frankly, their spouses as well. It is really refreshing to see some of the metrics as we move to the next year showing that it’s actually happening. We’re getting Reserve members jobs.

RDML Moon: When leader Pelosi held her veterans round table recently, unemployment and jobs for veterans was without question the number one issue.

VADM Debbink: The Chamber of Commerce is all over it. The White House is all over it. The Congress is all over it. We’ve made a lot of progress.

RDML Moon: Do you think we have achieved the right balance for Reservists among family, work and the Navy?

VADM Debbink: The three legged stool. I think what is important there is to encourage our Sailors to make sure that they are achieving the right balance in their lives. Because we have a lot of opportunities for Sailors to do a lot of cool things, they are raising their hands, obviously, and saying send me and we send them and they do a really great job. It is really up to our Sailors to make sure they maintain the balance in their lives.

And I really do believe that we have the ability and mechanisms for them to do that. I call myself the number one advocate of dwell for our Sailors. So if a Sailor is in dwell, and he or she is asked to mobilize again, the answer is up to you. If you want to say no, say no if you are in dwell. I think we have also done a really good job of providing our Sailors with the tools they need, both for their selves in their careers and also for their families. The challenge here is to make sure that the tool or the service or whatever they need is available to them in their hour of need which is sometimes a challenge to connect up a person or family in need with a provider to help them. I think the balance issue is really one that the most important thing we can do is help our Sailors achieve the balance they want by making sure there is enough flexibility in our program and our services and support centers.

RDML Moon: The concept I always pushed was managing expectations in all of those venues and that the more communication and dialogue you have with family, employer and the Navy the better you can balance the many competing demands.

VADM Debbink: The communication piece is so important, at home, at work and with your Reserve unit. Another important part that we have learned to understand is that it is ok to say “no.” We’ll find someone else to do the mission if you really can’t go right now or if you really can’t do this right now for family, work or personal reasons. Give our Sailors the ability, the power to say “no” when they need to, and they will say “yes” when they can. So there’s an important balance there too.

RDML Moon: There are still a significant number of people out there who think that saying “no” will hurt their career and also the Sailor who sees his buddy doing 180 days of duty and he’s only doing 50. They feel that their chance of promotion is a lot less. I try at all times to tell people that’s not taken into consideration.

VADM Debbink: These are some really important points actually. That if you say “yes” to a mobilization when in fact you really do not have to, we can find someone. But if you do say “yes,” when you really have challenges at home, health issues, or challenges at work, whatever it is may carry you so out of balance that we, the Navy Reserve, are probably going to lose you when you come back because it’ll just destroy your life in some way or another. So I think it’s really important that our Sailors know that they can say “no” when they have to.

Now, they will also know and we will know when no is not the right answer. Like if it’s a mass mobilization. We’ll tell you that it is not optional because the country really needs you right now but that’s just not the case where we’ve been in the past ten years and where we’ll be in the near future. You also made a great point about the Sailors who are more operational and the Sailors who are more strategic. How are the strategic Sailors going to compete against the more operational Sailors? And it is a challenge. It is something that our selection boards are going to have to focus on as we move forward. And again, I would also offer that if you take an operational assignment when you really aren’t able to do well at it, that is not going to be career enhancing. Be strategic when you need to. And when you are strategic there is some awesome work to be done. Some of the staff work, some of the things we get to do some of the concepts we get to advance like, for example, some of the work the Navy Reserve did on the Maritime Operations Center. The exercises you get to participate in. So there are a lot of great things you can do in the strategic world that’ll play out very well at selection boards and throughout your whole career.

RDML Moon: There is a lot of talk about post-Afghanistan and turning our attention in a more serious way to the Pacific. We read about establishing forces, perhaps permanently, in Australia. What do you see as potential new roles for the Navy Reserve in the Pacific?

VADM Debbink: You’re right, we have had a lot of focus the past 10 years, frankly, on the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. However, I would say that we have never really taken our focus off the Pacific. We have about half of our Navy Reservists focused on some aspect of the Pacific from PACOM to PACFLT to 7th Fleet to Seabees deploying to Operation Tomodachi, for example. We have had a number of Navy Reserve Sailors responding to the request for help there. So we’re already very much engaged and we’ll stay engaged out there. In fact, if anything I think what’s going to happen is there are many Reserve Sailors who have been out there, for example on the Korean peninsula working with exercises, in many cases who have been there for a decade or more and they have a lot of the expertise on the peninsula. Those Sailors will be called upon because we need your expertise because you have been there so long or longer than the rest of us and you know what is going on here so help us out. So we are going to be important. But there are also a number of new capabilities that are coming online for the Navy. Littoral Combat Ship as that starts to enter the fleet and we start to use the mission modules onboard. I think there’s a huge role for the Navy Reserve to play in both the ship itself and its mission modules. We are going to see more of that.

There is a lot of work on our unmanned aerial vehicles, our unmanned surface vehicles, our unmanned underwater vehicles; I think there are real opportunities for the Navy Reserve to be involved in that. And then I think as you look forward at the next 10 years, using the authority that are in the national defense authorization act this year, we will be able to deploy service members in unnamed missions, typical of routine and periodic deployments we will see a greater demand for our Navy Reserve Sailors to deploy with the Navy. And of course much of that will happen in the Pacific.

RDML Moon: Are there other areas where you foresee billet changes in the Navy Reserve post-Afghanistan?

VADM Debbink: The vision for the Navy Reserve calls for us to be innovative, ready and agile. Take those three and put them together and then focus on our stated goal of providing valued capabilities, and that is not just about what’s going on today, that’s what the Navy is going to value in the future. That’s exactly what’s happening. You look at some of the capabilities hitting our Navy and you find the Navy Reserve is in many ways leading those, including some of the high end things, like for example our P-8 coming into the fleet. Many of the pilots training the fleet pilots for the P-8 are Navy Reserve pilots. You look at fire scout deployments. The first several fire scout deployments will be Navy Reserve Sailors who have come together to form that unit to deploy that capability. So I am excited about the future because no matter what it looks like, and we don’t know today what it will look like. I am very confident that the Reserve Sailors will be involved because they are innovative, because they are agile, because they are ready. It’s a great news story.

RDML Moon: Feedback that we receive would indicate that we still have medical issues from time to time with returning demobilizing reservists. Are you satisfied that we have the right procedures in place across the Force to address this? What more can be done to ensure that we don’t send people home who need care first?

VADM Debbink: There’s no question there is no higher calling. There’s no higher purpose for those of us that lead this organization than to care for our injured Sailors. We put a great deal of focus on it these last couple of years, and I’m very pleased and proud with how the entire Navy and in fact beyond the Navy has focused on the process and the care, both the medical and non-medical care, that we give to our Sailors. The biggest challenge that we have, Tim, is communication once again, making sure our Sailors understand the process and understand the options that they have for care because there are a number of different ways that they can receive the care. And our goal needs to be to make sure that we are providing the individual care, both medical and non-medical, for each Sailor on an individual basis for whatever that Sailor’s particular needs are.

Of course, the centerpiece for our wounded, ill and injured Sailors who come back from mobilization or off active duty is our medical holding units both in Norfolk and San Diego, and I am very proud of the work that they do and the teams there and their focus on the Sailors. It is hard work and emotionally draining because it is a challenge to help these Sailors through a very difficult time in their lives, but that is what they are there to do. And I try to get to both these units at least once every six months to show them my support for their work as well as my support for the Sailors who are there. Today we have 113 Sailors total in our medical holding units. Three years ago that number was almost 300. We have about the same number of Sailors mobilized. What it shows is that we are focusing on the Sailors. We are trying to help them through the process and get them the care they need, but also I think most importantly what each of their Sailors wants and what I would want if I were there which is to get back home as soon as possible, as healthy as possible, and as whole as possible.

And so that is what we help our Sailors to do, meanwhile managing very closely the relationship with the Veterans Administration (VA), which has come a long way, and making sure it is a seamless hand-off there. So bring the VA in as a part of the process and then we also follow up with our Sailors even after they have left because they are probably still serving, just now back in a selected Reserve status so we still know where they are. So the process works, and we are actually very proud of the safety net out there for all the Sailors.

First and foremost are their shipmates literally at the NOSCs, in their units and at their supported commands. There is also the NOSC staff itself. There is our psychological help outreach program, those counselors are just awesome. There is military one source. There are the Fleet and Family Support Centers. So the safety net is out there. Once again the challenge is to make sure that the service member gets what they need. I know we can, it’s just making that connection.

RDML Moon: Can you bring our readers up to date on the initiatives to capture Active Component personnel after they leave the Navy and encourage them to join the Reserve Component?

VADM Debbink: Certainly. The Career Transition Office (CTO) in Millington has done a fantastic job. Originally, we were focused on Active Component to Reserve Component officer transitions. We expanded to enlisted transitions from Active Component to Reserve Component. Now, we are also using it to handle transitions from Reserve Component back to the Active Component.

We have managed to, by focusing on the process, reduce the time it takes to make those transitions from literally months down to days. Our goal was 72 hours or less. Until we get a single integrated pay and personnel system, we are probably at about five days or less. Frankly, five days or less works fine and our numbers show it.

The question I proposed is what is the right percentage to capture as we transition from the Active Component to the Reserve Component? Probably not 100 percent. There are a few Sailors who probably do not want to, or should not be, in the Navy Reserve as they leave the Navy. But I am sure we have some more room for improvement, though the numbers have come up a long way. Some designators are more difficult to recruit than others. Pilots are a great example. We invest billions of dollars to train a pilot and we are just going to let them walk out the door without at least giving them the opportunity to hear about the Navy Reserve?

RDML Moon: I’m going to ask you two things that are not on the script because you have not mentioned them and I know they are important to you. The first is families. I know you have done tremendous things to consider them more in the total readiness factor. Is there anything you would like to say to our Navy families?

VADM Debbink: We talked earlier about this, the three legged stool and the support that we have and certainly families are the main, the strongest one of those. Hard to argue that any of the other two would be stronger and I do believe that the reason that many of our Sailors serve is because of their families. They serve on behalf of their families. And certainly the families have sacrificed a lot, especially those families who have been mobilized or deployed. Maybe not once or twice but maybe five or six times and the families are still standing by us. They are amazingly resilient.

I think the main message I would like to give our families is a twofold one. First, thank you for their support, for all their sacrifice. And then secondly, to let them know that we are there for them. That I do believe that our Navy and the Department of Defense and even with the White House initiatives and things like that we will provide whatever they need, whatever support they need. We just have to first of all find out about the needs and get the Navy to provide them. And we do that through things like Military One Source and their initiatives. But if a family member is in need, they need to speak up.

I also have a belief that we have an advantage in the Navy Reserve and probably the entire Guard and Reserve, in that most of our families are in general more geographically stationary than the Active Component that moves every two years. There is a lot of great support from the communities and one of the things that I think we should try to do is to get out into the communities to let them know that there are families, maybe living down the block or around the corner or maybe right next door, with a mobilized or deployed family member. And when you find that family, it is great to call them up and say how can I help or let me know if you need anything. It is even better to just go over on a Saturday morning and knock on their door and say, “do you mind if I mow your lawn? I have my mower right here and it will only take me a half hour, I apologize for the noise, but I will get your lawn cut for you.” Just do something for the family instead of asking if you can help. I think there is an important distinction. How many times in our careers have we had someone do just a random act of kindness for our families when we’ve been gone? Just think how much that has meant to us.

RDML Moon: One other thing that is not on the script. Admiral Greenert has placed an emphasis on Navy ethos. Is there anything you’d like to say about that?

VADM Debbink: I think there are two very important statements that every Sailor should be very familiar with. One is the Sailor’s Creed and most of our Sailors know that by heart. The Navy Ethos is a much longer statement and not one that I think that we should memorize. It is posted here in my office. It is posted on the quarterdeck. Have it where people can read it and look at it because it is a statement about who we are and what we believe as a Navy as a collective body of Navy Sailors—Active and Reserve, officer and enlisted, Navy civilians and retired. We are the United States Navy, our nation’s sea power, great guardians of peace, victorious in war, we are professionals and it goes on. I think there is a lot of pride. You can take a lot of pride in each one of those statements. We are the United States Navy. America’s Navy, A Global Force for Good. And that’s what I think has been happening the last couple of years. The messaging has come together in a way that at least is very meaningful to me as I think about it now. Maybe this is because I am getting close to the end of my career, perhaps. But we are the United States Navy. The Navy Ethos. I am a United States Sailor. The Sailor’s Creed. America’s Navy, a Global Force for Good. I get to be part of a global force for good. For all of us and Sailors, for our Navy Reserve—Ready Now, Anytime, Anywhere—you put all together and I just take a great deal of pride being part of that Navy.