Tom Clancy: You've been saying all along that you're going to be trying to man your new generation of ships with fewer sailors doing more jobs than on older vessels. This means that you're probably going to have to raise the crossbar when it comes to getting new sailors trained. Chuck Krulak has much the same plans for his Marines, and has instituted the Crucible program to help form and toughen his recruits. Are you going to do something similar for Navy recruits?
Admiral Johnson: It's a work in progress. We have upped our own crossbar. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. I talked earlier about the young men and women who come into the Navy from the upper parts of the demographic profile. These are really smart, well-schooled young folks. What we do with them then is send them into a recruit training experience that is a very different, very positive, and very challenging experience.Now, I'm not too proud to admit that we have liked what we have seen of the programs that you have mentioned from General Krulak, including the Crucible. We now have a "final battle problem" exercise evaluation instituted at Great Lakes Training Center. This is a Navy version of a Crucible-like evolution. We call it "Battle Stations," and it's a very arduous, physically demanding fourteen-hour damage-control problem/scenario requiring stamina, ingenuity, and teamwork from the recruits to pass.We just came back from Great Lakes, where we observed pieces of the pilot version. We think that this is an extremely good and powerful program. The way that we treat our recruits and the things that we indoctrinate them with-heritage, core values, tradition, and pride-lets us groom them into very strong sailors when they leave Great Lakes.Then we have what we call the Basic Military Training Continuum, which takes them into the fleet and builds on what they have learned in boot camp. We also have embedded throughout the Navy something we call the Leadership Training Continuum. Now, I'm only the implementer of this program, not the inventor. The program was Admiral Frank Kelso's idea. Kelso was CNO before Admiral Boorda, who also worked on it.It's powerful! It consists of four two-week training blocks for officers and enlisted personnel, and provides formalized leadership training throughout their careers. That's the basic framework, and we'll build on that later.Right now I'm interested in getting these four basic blocks instituted throughout the Navy. And mark my words: If you plan on being in the Navy as a career and want to advance, you will take these training blocks! The Navy has made an institutional investment in formalized leadership training. I'm convinced, based on just the early feedback training and what I've seen thus far, that when you and 1 are gone from this world, this Navy will be a stronger at all levels because of it.
Tom Clancy: Obviously, the Navy has had a rough and rocky time integrating women into the force. Yet, one gets the feeling that the Navy is farther through the process than perhaps the other services and that you've paid a high price to reach that goal. Is it your opinion that the first-stage initiatives for fully integrating women into the combat force have been successfully completed?
Admiral Johnson: Absolutely. We're through that. As a good example, the CVWs and carriers are already fully integrated. CVW-11 just came back off deployment on the Kitty Hawk [CV-63] fully integrated, and it was a marvelous deployment for them. Our surface combatant integration program is going well, though the pacing item is that we want the ships to be properly built or modified so that the habitability standards we have established for the Women at Sea Program are followed. In addition, the crew must be shaped the right way, so that the proper critical mass and makeup of female personnel is maintained. There's a right way and a wrong way to do that, and we've learned how to do that. We're a little over halfway through that initiative right now, and it's going well.Keep in mind though that Women at Sea issues are not the only things that drive our overhauls. Environmental "Green" upgrades, as well as improvements to combat, habitability, and other systems are just as important. Our ship overhauls are the ultimate fifty thousand-mile checkup, and happen every five years that a ship is in the fleet.
Tom Clancy: As you go out into the fleet today, are the sailors having fun doing their jobs?
Admiral Johnson: I think that, overall, the forward-deployed forces are having fun. They're working hard, making a contribution; they're at the tip of the spear executing their missions, and they're doing the things that they came into the Navy to do. On the non-deployed side, we're doing pretty well, but we've got some work to do, some taking care of business. We owe those personnel a reasonable pace when they're not deployed and we owe them ships and airplanes that are properly maintained. Those are the challenges that I'm working on right now. The "tip of the spear" is doing great. The non-deployed part of the force is doing well too, but I think that I owe them a bit more than they're getting right now.
Tom Clancy: Obviously, the last ten years have been a roller-coaster ride for senior leaders in the services. Could you look into your crystal ball, and tell us what new roles and missions that you see the Navy taking on as it moves into the 21st century?
Admiral Johnson: Well, to start with, I don't want to lose any of the core skills that we have right now. I think that we would be very shortsighted to lose any of those capabilities. ASW is a classic example. A lot of people think that you can "take your pack off" now and not worry about it. I do not concur! We're putting great focus and effort into undersea warfare and specifically ASW. We're the only ones in the world who can do that. That's Navy stuff! That gets back to my operational primacy guidestar: "We can never take our eyes off of that ball." The truth of it is, those core combat skills are things that we need to maintain. You've asked what is new. I give you one word: TBMD. That's something fundamentally new and different from what we are doing now. It's a brand-new capability that will reside in our fleet.
Tom Clancy: To wrap things up, I'd like to give you the opportunity to speak your mind about your vision for the Navy. What would you like to say to the readers, sir?
Admiral Johnson: I think that we've touched on the big things already in this interview. One point that I would hope to make is that the capability that CVBGs and the Navy in general give to the country and the world is vital. We've talked a lot about the equipment, and that is vital. But I think more than anything, we've got to really represent all the people in the Navy. That's the story. When you go out and "tie on" with one of those groups, you'll see that people are the magic that makes it all happen.I'd also like to say that we need to make the American people see the need for maintaining the greatest Navy in the world. There still is a need. The lessons of history tell us that. So our commitment to them is that we will never "take our packs off." Operational primacy will stay as one of our guiding stars as we head into the new century, and we'll do it with leadership, teamwork, and pride.