Casey Coane posted on April 01, 2011 00:19
It has been an amazingly busy first quarter here in Washington, partly because we have no budget for 2011 while testimony is being given on the 2012 budget. Also, the 2012 Defense Department budget contains contentious proposals for TRICARE changes which have necessitated numerous meetings and will continue to drive a busy schedule. The Association is working on written testimony that we will submit on this thorny medical issue. CAPT Puzon has sent out more than a couple legislative alerts and we are paying close attention to the feedback that we receive. There isn’t space here to address the entire issue but keep an eye on our Web site.
It is mid March as I am writing this and I just attended a briefing on the Navy’s budget. Here are a few things to think about: If, by the time you are reading this, there is not a Defense Authorization for 2011, the Navy may have postponed five ship maintenance availabilities, including one for the large deck amphib Pelilu. We have written about the CNO’s speeches concerning shipbuilding before. Continuing resolutions severely restrict both planning and execution. We have been living on OCO (Outconus contingency operations), read that war supplemental $, and those $ are coming down. As we are developing POM 13 right now, no uniformed personnel in Navy Pentagon below the senior Admirals have ever done a budget without a wartime supplemental. We are doing POM 13 without any idea of what the impact on the 2012 budget will ultimately be because there is no 2011 budget. Of the five major accounts – Personnel, Operations & Maintenance, Installations, R&D, and Procurement, the latter is where the big adjustments will be made.
In early March, President Moon, CAPT Puzon and I had a very nice visit with Senator John McCain in his Senate office. We presented him with his legislative award and discussed a number of personnel and equipment concerns. I have written previously that the Navy angered some in Congress when it suddenly switched from one LCS hull form to building both types. Well, we just met one of the most upset. It comes down to this, the Navy thinks that both bidders reduced their cost to the point that the Navy could afford to buy both and get more ships faster. The Senator seems to think that both AUSTEL America and Lockheed low balled their bid and will not actually be able to deliver at those prices. As Senator McCain said to the CNO during SASC testimony – “We’ll see, we’ll see.”
Hopefully, you have noticed that our “Senior Enlisted Voice” column is now a regular with the most senior enlisted leadership in our Navy contributing on a schedule. Katherine Serbin is doing a great job with our health column! ISCS Jon Altmann, LCDR Marc Soss, LCDR Steven Rogers, and CDR Aaron Bresnahan all work to make this magazine possible. Thanks, shipmates. We are planning some changes to the magazine beginning with the June issue so stay tuned.
Our feature this month is Information Dominance. In 2001, the Navy’s Network Warfare Command was stood up. That was a deliberate decision to put networks and fighting via networks on a par with the traditional platform disciplines – Air, Surface, and Subsurface. At that time, the Commander NETWARCOM became the community manager for some of the network personnel. In 2009, the CNO realigned the Pentagon staff combining N2 and N6. About the same time, Cyber Command/TENTH Fleet was stood up and NETWARCOM was split into two commands. In November 2009, five personnel disciplines were combined into Information Dominance and a new warfare pin was authorized. Learn more on page 16. We are extremely pleased to present an interview with Mr. Dave Weddel, ADCNO Information Dominance. Mr. Weddel is a retired Surface Warfare officer and a member of the Senior Executive Service. Our guest column, this month, is by Ms. Terry Roberts who is a retired Senior Executive Service member and former ADCNO N2.
As always enjoy the read.