That opinion began to change almost immediately, when Nimitz retained many of the staff officers present at Pearl Harbor, rather than cashiering them and bringing in his own people. The men responded with total loyalty, and many were instrumental in the subsequent Allied victory in the Pacific. His action in retaining these officers, even though some commanders would have gotten rid of them for their perceived "responsibility" for the disaster, proved to be the first of an unbroken string of brilliant personnel, planning, and operational decisions. These eventually brought Nimitz to the deck of the USS Missouri (BB-63) in 1945 as the Navy's representative to accept the Japanese surrender.
Though the Navy has been blessed with many fine leaders in its illustrious history, all the successes of the past are meaningless unless it can serve effectively today and in the future. The late 1980s and early 1990s have tested the faith of even the most fervent U.S. Navy supporters. Following what some felt was a mediocre performance during Desert Storm in 1991, the Navy suffered a string of public relations "black eyes" that included the infamous 1991 Tailhook scandal. There was worse to come. In the spring of 1996, after a media frenzy and an intense round of public criticism over both his handling of personnel matters and his own character, the popular Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Mike Boorda, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The suicide of this much-admired sailor cast a pall over the entire fleet; and many in and out of the Navy began to question the quality of Navy leadership. Clearly, it was time for a top-notch leader to step up and take the helm. The man selected to take over as Chief of Naval Operations was actually much closer at hand than some would have thought-in fact, just a few doors away in the office of the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral Jay Johnson would soon start the Navy back on the road to excellence.
Johnson, a career naval aviator and fighter pilot, has quietly served his country and his Navy for more than three decades. A slim and trim officer who looks years younger than his age, Johnson is a quiet and sometimes shy man. But the quiet demeanor is something of a smoke screen. This man is a "doer," who has chosen to make the hard decisions that will give the U.S. Navy a real future in the 21st century. Johnson is a passionate man, one who cares deeply about his country, his Navy, and the sailors who serve under him. He channels all that emotion into one goaclass="underline" to build the U.S. Navy into a superb fighting machine, an organization that is once again the envy of military officers everywhere in the world.
Jay L. Johnson came into the world in Great Falls, Montana, on June 5th, 1946. The son of a soldier in the Army Air Corps, he spent the bulk of his youth in West Salem, Wisconsin. Let's let him tell the story of his journey into naval service:
Tom Clancy: Could you please tell us a little about your background and Navy career?
Admiral Johnson: I was born in Montana. My dad was serving there at the time. I didn't stay there long-only about a year. I spent the rest of my youth in Wisconsin, in a little town with a lake near it, not far from the headwaters of the Mississippi River. That's the total exposure to water that I had in my early years.
Tom Clancy: What made you choose the Navy as a career?
Admiral Johnson: I'd been intrigued by the military service academies as I was growing up. I had a distant relative who had gone to West Point, and was thinking about applying there myself. Then I went to a Boy Scout National Jamboree out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in what is now the Black Forest, just down the road from the Air Force Academy. It was in 1960, I believe, about a year after the Air Force Academy had come into being. As part of our stay, we were invited to a tour there. We also got to see a show by the Thunderbirds [the Air Force precision-flight demonstration team]. As I watched that performance, and looked at that academy, I said to myself, "I can do this!" When I returned home, I decided that I'd apply to the Air Force Academy. Before I did so, I found that I had an option to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. I looked into it, found out a bit about carrier aviation, and decided that was what I wanted. I took that opportunity, and here I am.
Tom Clancy: Did you have any particular "defining" experiences while at the Academy?
Admiral Johnson: Well… I got to watch Roger Staubach [the great Naval Academy and Dallas Cowboys star quarterback] play football. On a more serious note, the most striking thing I remember about my time there is how close my company mates and I became. To this day, we're inseparable. A lot of them are still in the Navy today. Admiral Willie Moore, who is the USS Independence [CV-62] battle group commander, was a company mate of mine. My former roommate is the Naval attache to India. Rear Admiral Paul Gaffney, who is the Chief of Naval Research, was also in my company. These are just a few of the people I met at the Academy who are special to me personally.
Tom Clancy: Were there other notable members of the Academy classes while you were there?
Admiral Johnson: Guys like Ollie North and Jim Webb [the former Secretary of the Navy]-and of course Roger Staubach from the class of '65. I have always admired him. Even then, he was a man of great integrity, courage, and superb physical prowess. What I see of Roger today matches exactly what I saw then. It's nice to see a guy who is that solid early in his life, remain so through a highly visible career, retirement, and new career.
Tom Clancy: You graduated during the depths of the Vietnam conflict [1968]. Were you immediately sent out to flight school and into the Replacement Air Group [RAG]?
Admiral Johnson: Well, they did move us through at a nice pace, though I don't remember it being any kind of "rush" job. I went through flight training in pretty much a normal time frame. I got my wings in October of 1969. From there I headed out to San Diego and NAS Miramar to learn to fly the F-8 Crusader.
Tom Clancy: You must have been there with some living legends, men like "Hot Dog" Brown and Jim "Ruff" Ruffelson, right?
Admiral Johnson: Yes, they were there. Being one of the F-8 "MiG Killers" was kind of the unusual for a new guy back then. It was the time when a lot of the guys fresh out of the Academy were getting orders to F-4's [Phantom IIs], and most of us were lined up to get into the Phantom community because they were new and they were hot! More than a few of us wound up flying F-8's though, and in retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The F-8 was an awesome airplane. And, as good as the airplane was, the community of people who flew and supported it was even better. We're all still pretty tight. We have F-8 Crusader reunions every year.