Farewell Pacific Fleet

As this will be my last blog post as the Pacific Fleet Commander, I'd like to take an opportunity to combine a couple things, if I may. First I'd like to say my farewells and then I'd like to talk a little bit about my successor here at Pacific Fleet.

For those Sailors that might read this blog I would offer you this: the opportunity to command the United States Pacific fleet has been a career opportunity for me. The legacy of Admiral Nimitz, the history associated with this fleet and the challenges that it faces as the largest fleet in the world are immensely satisfying in command, and it's really the efforts by the Third Fleet Commander and the Seventh Fleet Commander and all of you out there that make the Pacific Fleet what it is. The challenges won't stop into the future, but if you continue to be as professional and as committed and dedicated as you have been for the past two-and-a-half years the next Commander and the Commander after that, will be in good stead to command the United States Pacific Fleet.

My relief is Admiral Pat Walsh. He comes from us as the former Vice Chief of Naval Operations, with impeccable credentials to command this fleet. He's a fighter pilot by trade, formerly a Golden Dragon of Attack Squadron 192 aboard USS America, he was formerly a Blue Angel, commanded the Gunslingers of Strike Fighter Squadron 105, he's a combat veteran, he was an air wing commander in Air Wing One aboard USS John F. Kennedy, he commanded the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf region within Central Command where he was in charge of all of our naval forces that were supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom and Operations Enduring Freedom for nearly a year.

His experience in Washington, D.C., as the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, will serve Pacific Fleet well in the role that we play to help organize, train and equip the forces that we employ in the Pacific Fleet. I would ask that all of you provide Pat and Andy Walsh the same kind of support that you provided to the Willards over the past two-and-a-half years. He'll be a brilliant Fleet Commander for you and I'll look forward to reading his blog posts one day as he provides periodic messages to the Pacific Fleet.

From my wife and I, thank you all for two-and-a-half years of wonderful support and this wonderful opportunity to serve you. We'll miss the Pacific Fleet. We're going to move on to a joint command, so in that respect we will miss the Navy. Thank you for this opportunity to serve.

Pacific Partnership in Kiribati

Recently we had an opportunity to visit Kiribati, which is an island nation that's located near the equator. Believe it or not, it's as big an expanse as the continental United States. It includes islands like Tarawa, all the way to Christmas Island, which is not terribly far from Hawaii.

This island nation has a fairly recent history in that it's only about thirty years young, with only its second leader in the current president that is there. We had an opportunity to visit the island of Tarawa, which is the location of the government of Kiribati, and the USNS Richard E. Byrd was in port conducting our Pacific Partnership events of medical, dental, veterinary and engineering assistance to the people of Tarawa.

It was a great event. I had the opportunity to sit with President Tong and discuss the Pacific Partnership event. Of greatest significance to him was the building of a bridge that had been out of commission for many, many months, and as a consequence the people between South Tarawa and North Tarawa were waiting until low tide each day and then literally wading across the water to range over to the other island with their families and their bundles on their heads. And our Seabees along with some engineers from Australia were there to reconstruct the bridge between these two islands.

The president's concern was that we only had a couple of weeks to accomplish what he felt his engineers couldn't accomplish in a couple of months, and he asked me what we would do if we ran out of time. I assured him that I would leave the Seabees behind and they would complete the bridge. That night, in a reception that he and the First Lady held for my wife and I and the Pacific Partnership mission participants, he repeated my words in his speech and reminded everyone there that I was going to leave the engineers there as long as it took to rebuild their bridge. Amazingly, in visiting the bridge site the next morning, the Seabees already had it halfway to center span, and in two days the bridge was across. It was amazing to watch and it's indicative of just how skilled these engineers are. We should be immensely proud of them. It was very, very impressive.
I guess the other highlight in Kiribati was the medical site, held at a sports arena and overwhelming in terms of the response to the medical teams that were there. If you recall this year's Pacific Partnership, medical was going to be a little more expeditionary than in the past because we had to change ships at the last minute. In this instance we handled 5,000 medical cases in the period of time that we were in Kiribati, which is a new Pacific Partnership record. Very, very impressive on the part of all of the doctors and dentists that were participating at the site and wonderful to see young children who were badly in need of medical attention get it over the course of the days that we were there. They were obviously very grateful.

The ship was leaving Kiribati, heading to the Marshall Islands as its final stop in this year's Pacific Partnership. It's the second time that we've visited the Marshalls since Pacific Partnership began and ironically it was my first visit to Oceania in conjunction with the Pacific Partnership two years ago. And this was, in turn, my last Pacific Partnership in this capacity as the Pacific Fleet Commander. Very proud of the mission, very proud of our young Sailors, the NGOs and the foreign militaries that help us participate in these very important humanitarian assistance missions.

Our Relationship With China's PLA Navy

The United States Navy has many partners in this region of the world, many allies and close navies. There are some that we're seeking to improve our relations with. One of those is China.

There has been great interest as China has emerged over the past decades in seeking ways and means to engage with China at all levels of government, to include the military. This has sometimes been difficult for us. On occasion our military-to-military engagement has been suspended as a result of political issues that have arisen between the U.S. and China, and at times our encounters with Chinese military forces have been less than constructive in nature.

That said, it's incumbent on us and on our counterparts in the PLA Navy, to seek to leverage areas of common interest and we have many. We are both interested in humanitarian assistance, we're interested in search and rescue or submarine rescue, and we're interested in countering piracy and other illegal activities that might occur on the high seas. Those are areas in which we can enter into dialogue and advance one another's perspectives and, perhaps, capabilities.

We also have to seek to find the forums to engage and discuss our differences. There are a number of those. We meet in forums throughout the Asian region including the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, and others, where we have opportunities to engage with our Chinese counterparts. And, in those I think it's important that some of these areas of difference, or differences in interpretation in international law, come out and be discussed openly.

Thirdly, we need to engage personally. At a point we need to understand who our counterparts are. In a country in which we seek to engage, on an increasing basis, military to military, and we have to get to know one another.

Uniquely, the 7th Fleet Commander is seeking ways to engage with the PLA Navy on the high seas in a friendly way. He's actually looking for opportunities as our ships pass in proximity to one another, to communicate bridge to bridge with the Chinese Navy combatants and engage them in forms of communication or in maneuver that we've agreed to in past maritime dialogue such that we're conducting signals with flags or signals with flashing lights or signals across via radio and having friendly encounters at sea as just another dimension of very important engagement, military to military, between the U.S. and China.

Welcome Fleet Master Chief John Minyard

I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Fleet Master Chief John Minyard, who has taken over as the 15th Fleet Master Chief for the Pacific Fleet. Master Chief Tom Howard moved on to Fleet Forces Command, where he's now assumed the Fleet Master Chief job in a second fleet now, on the East Coast, and he served us very, very well, I think, as I've mentioned in the past.

Master Chief John Minyard comes from Third Fleet where he served as the Command Master Chief there. He's got a background in various fighter squadrons. He has served aboard the aircraft carriers Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. He was the lead enlisted AICS instructor at Navy Fighter Weapon School, "Top Gun," where he earned the call sign, "Flash"; he doesn't like me to say that.

His sea assignments have included USS Gridley, USS California and USS Howard. He has, to date, given me unvarnished advice from the deck plates and he communicates in the same frank manner to MCPON. He will serve this fleet extremely well. He's a great gentleman, but he means what he says. And, on the occasions you can get him into a forum and listen to him speak I think you'll see what I see in him, and that is a Sailor with a great deal of experience and a man that is committed to standards and the values that we place on our Navy and on our Sailors.

We'd like to welcome aboard Fleet Master Chief John Minyard, his wife Mechele and their family. They're, once again, a welcome addition to the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

HAWAII ~ 50 YEARS AS THE 50th STATE

Fifty years ago, August 21st, 1959, Hawaii became our 50th state. I'm very pleased and thankful that the Pacific Fleet headquarters is located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and we congratulate the state of Hawaii on their semicentennial anniversary.

Ninety years ago, in 1919, Prince Kuhio introduced the first Hawaiian statehood bill to Congress. And, in subsequent years there were numerous other bills that were vying for statehood for Hawaii, and it wasn't until 1959 that it was accepted.

Nearly 70 years ago, in 1940, the U.S. Pacific Fleet moved from San Pedro, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and as you know in 1941 came under attack here. It was in 1948 that President Truman called for statehood in his State of the Union message.

I think Hawaii is regarded as a very special state in the United States. Not just for being the last admitted to the union, but for the unique, the uniqueness, that Hawaii brings to our nation. It's truly the warm and welcoming aloha state. And, I think that this state in particular contributes to the security of all of the United States, in terms of its western approaches, by its strategic location in the Central Pacific Ocean.

I would encourage you to take the time to look up the state of Hawaii's history. For those of us that are stationed here, that certainly appreciate all that Hawaii contributes to the support for our military, take the opportunity to participate in the semicentennial gala that will no doubt accompany the 50th anniversary of the state. The USS Hawaii, a new Virginia class submarine, is now homeported in the state of Hawaii during the year of its 50th anniversary, and that's very special.

So, we congratulate the state of Hawaii, we thank the state of Hawaii for its continuing support for our military and we all look forward to celebrating with you the 50th year for our 50th state.

OUR NEWEST T-AKE ~ USNS MATTHEW PERRY

This week we're christening the newest T-AKE (Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo/ammunition ship) number 9, the USNS Matthew Perry, and I thought I'd take just a moment to talk a little bit about Commodore Perry as both a warfighter and a diplomat in the Pacific.

He was very much a part of naval history and perhaps worth a couple of minutes.

Commodore Perry fought in the War of 1812; he commanded our first steam warship, the USS Fulton; and he's also credited with organizing our first naval engineer corps. Those alone would have, I think, caused us to revere him in naval history, but he went on to do much more.

In 1822 Commodore Perry was credited for suppressing piracy and slave trade in the West Indies. He went on to command USS Mississippi in the Mexican-American War, and in 1853 he sailed to Japan, arrived in a small fishing village port named Kurihama, very near Yokosuka Naval Base. Every year in Kurihama, they celebrate the arrival of Commodore Perry and his ships, and they credit Commodore Perry for opening Japan to western trade, something that the Japanese believe was a turning point in their history, to take them out of a very internalized society and many, many centuries of internal war and allow them to focus on trade with the outside.

In 1854 Commodore Perry returned to Japan and signed the treaty of Kanagawa which opened Japan, as I said, to the West. And, I've had the rare opportunity when I was 7th Fleet Commander in participating in some of the ceremonies that honor Commodore Perry.

Finally some facilities in Japan are even named after him. There is the (Matthew C.) Perry School in Iwakuni, Japan at the Marine Corps air station and there's the (Commodore) Matthew C. Perry General Mess dining facility in Yokosuka.

We will remember him in the Pacific forever. I would suggest that our Navy should have Commodore Perry in its thoughts in a place of honor for his many contributions across two wars and in conjunction with some very significant changes and improvements in our Navy across the board.

USS CALIFORNIA

My wife Donna had the great privilege of being invited to be a sponsor for the next USS CALIFORNIA, which is going to be one of our newest Virginia class submarines, and she and I had the opportunity to attend its keel-laying ceremony in Norfolk, Virginia, recently.

As a California native I'm personally very proud that my spouse will be sponsor of the next USS California. There's a long history of USS Californias in our Navy, beginning with the first one that was a frigate that was propelled by steam and sail, serving our nation over 140 years ago, christened back-in 1869, so we've come a long way since then.

Another USS California was one of our battleships attacked here in Pearl Harbor, and she was subsequently salvaged and repaired at Pearl Harbor Shipyard and went on to perform with distinction in World War II.

This 8th Virginia class submarine, manned by the pre-commissioning unit for USS California, (SSN 781), has been about two years in production and will be christened, we hope, next calendar year. The young Sailors there are manning the pre-commissioning unit for USS California, very impressive, hand-picked, to prepare this ship for its christening and subsequent commissioning.

I think this next USS California will be a fitting tribute to the men and women who serve in our Navy from the state of California, and veterans and their families that are located in the countless communities across the great state of California that so very well support our young men and women in uniform. I'm very proud of this opportunity for my spouse, and I'm sure USS California will be now in our family and in our thoughts forevermore.