THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411060206
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines
Adm. Jeremy ``Mike'' Boorda, the Navy's top officer who took over as chief of naval operations six months ago, accepted a full plate of questions from editors and writers at The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
He rarely spit one back, except for specific questions about what he will recommend to the upcoming Base Realignment and Closure Commission when it begins its work next year.
He did say he expects a review of an earlier commission decision: placing Navy planes coveted by Oceana Naval Air Station at a Marine Corps base in North Carolina.
In a recent visit to Hampton Roads, Boorda talked about military pay raises, sailors on food stamps, too much time at sea, families, equal opportunities and the prospect of retiring fewer ships than planned.
Here, in question and answer format, are highlights from that discussion with the editorial board:
We sense a feeling, particularly among the junior enlisted and those who have families, that they're really struggling financially. Have you any indication that a higher number of Navy personnel are applying for food stamps, for example, or other federal assistance?
That is an almost ``Have you stopped beating your wife?'' question because one person on food stamps is one person too many. So anybody who says, ``Oh that's not a problem,'' doesn't understand. I'm not going to tell you it's not a problem.
It is also a zero question from anybody who understands military pay and what's happening in the country with pay: that we have been falling behind.
And of course when you start falling behind, who first gets hurt? It's the people who make the least - the more junior ones.
If you don't want anybody on food stamps, zero is the right number. Andwe have fallen behind in pay. We've been paying by law less than the full amount of ECI (the Labor Department's Employment Cost Index) each year. And that's not a good situation. It's one that . . . we have all recognized. We have to do something about it.
The Congress added money last year. We'll go ask for it up-front this year.
I do want to talk a minute about food stamps.
For most Navy people, except for people who have either lots of children and who are very junior (in rank) . . . you're not going to be eligible.
A little phenomenon in the system is that if you're living in government quarters, you give up your (quarters allowance).
I don't want anybody in the Navy on food stamps. The bureau found that the numbers of people who were eligible for food stamps in the Navy were about 3,500. And that was in a Navy of about 480,000 at that time. But (the number of) people in the Navy who were eligible for food stamps, if you didn't apply that anomaly of living in government quarters, was about half - about 1,700.
That is not by way of apology for what we do have. I don't think anybody in the military should be down at a level where they are even close to that. So we got to work on pay and that's what you're hearing us say and that's what you'll see in the next budget.
Is that next pay proposal, or request, going to have to be substantially high? Higher than the 2.6 percent the military received this year?
By law, what we can request in the budget is ECI minus half of a percent. (That would be 2.4 percent according to current figures - Ed.) What they requested last year was ECI minus a percent and a half. I think there's going to be lots of discussion about pay between now and the time the budget goes in. And there's going to be lots more after it gets up on the Hill.
We'll have to see. I don't think there's a single service chief that doesn't think we need to do something. And also Secretary Perry has been real vocal what he thinks we need to do as well.
Is quality of life for sailors today higher or lower, particulary in light of the fast turnaround for deployments, shorter times ashore because of contingency operations like Haiti, Cuba, and others?
The Navy is really working hard to keep deployments to six months. (The carrier) George Washington, barring something very unusual happening, is going to get home on time (Nov. 17).
So, barring things that everybody would understand, six months is what we're going to do. Does that mean there's never going to be anybody that goes over six months? No. It would be silly to say that. But nobody is going to go over six months without having an awful good opportunity to say, ``Oh, wow. I understand why that happened.''
The inter-deployment time between deployments is a different matter. In other words . . . how much are you running around doing other stuff while you're home?
Well, right now that is excessive without a question. And it is particularly excessive on the East Coast because of Haiti and the Cuban situation that we just faced.
That's not good orhealthy for morale. And we don't want to do those kinds of things. But when they need to be done we'll do them.
I've asked the two fleet commanders - actually they came to me and said they were going to do it - to look at shortening up, reducing the amount of time under way during that inter-deployment time and try to find some innovative ways to still do the training we need to do.
You recently said the Navy might possibly retire fewer ships than are called for in the Bottom Up Review, giving the Navy a fleet in excess of 350 ships. Is that a proposal yet? Can you give us any numbers?
The ideas are budget ideas and that's how you pay for keeping ships that you didn't have in your budget before. We know we need more ships. When we did the Bottom Up Review we didn't think about Somalias and Haitis and Rwandas and Bosnias. We were looking at MRCs (Major Regional Conflicts).
So one of the ways to get this personnel tempo down is to have more ships to spread it between. Now they cost money. We have the ships, it's the guided missile frigates that we wouldn't decommission. We're keeping a few tank landing ships. That's part of it. I think we'll keep a couple of Spruances (destroyers) that we were going to decommission.
I say I think because we still have to get it through the budget process and pay for it.
Are 346 ships about what you were hoping?
I think we figured out how to do 347. That's just a number today. I wouldn't take it to the bank. Somewhere closer to 350, or a little more. We're at 387 today. Part of it is bringing in a new (guided missile destroyer) and you're seeing them come in, not real fast, but you're seeing them come in. And instead of decommissioning the (guided missile frigates), we'll be able to keep them.
Do you think the combining of Navy F/A-18 Hornets from Cecil Field, Fla., with Marine Corps aircraft at Cherry Point, N.C., as ordered by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission in 1993, is going to happen? Is that going to work?
We're coming down to the part of BRAC '95 where everything gets revealed to the CNO and the (Marine Corps) commandant and we make our recommendations to the Secretary. That's the next thing that will happen.
There's a joint group as well as a Navy and Marine Corps group. One group will come forward with some recommendations that they think makes sense. And then (Gen.) Carl Mundy and I will get a chance to look at it and see what makes sense operationally to us.
I think that's certainly something that is going to get looked at. Beyond that with BRAC there's no place I can go in this country where I don't get BRAC questions that I'd rather not answer at this stage because you don't want to . . . I mean there's a lot of nervous people. And this is the last BRAC and when we get through this one, we'll be done.
Have you formulated any ideas on what you want closed and what you want to remain open at the end of the BRAC process? Or will you wait and see what the analysis is?
Do I have my own personal ideas? We all do. I'm not going to tell you I just sit around like a mushroom and never think about this. I'm trying not to create a headline right now because I don't know how it's going to turn out. I truly don't know.
It's not all intuitive. Sometimes you look at the numbers and the costs of things and get different kinds of answers. I mean the environmental cleanup of a place can sway things in a huge direction. I don't have any personal knowledge of any of that, but I'm sure going to know soon.
With reference to the Navy's shipyards, will there remain a role for private shipyards vs. public shipyards?
I think so. Do I think that public shipyards could do all the business we need done and there would be no roll for private ones? No. I think the math doesn't work out like that.
But is there a need to keep public shipyards open as far as the Navy is concerned? Or can private shipyards do it all?
Could we go the other way? I don't want to prejudice the BRAC process, but I don't see that happening. No public shipyards at all? Only private? I don't see that. I think I'm real safe in saying that. And I don't know what they're looking at. I know the kinds of things they're looking at but I told them I want to see it when it's finished.
The Eisenhower just deployed from here and you had a chance to see how women are integrating aboard that ship. We wonder if anything has happened to make you think we are moving too fast?
No. I guess if I had to look at the Eisenhower and Lincoln and some of those ships I'd say it tells me we're moving at about the right pace. If I thought we were moving too fast I'd slow it down and if I thought we were going too slow I'd speed it up.
No, I think we're about right. Nothing I have seen on the Ike would tell me we're going too fast.
We had a story on the front page recently about a seven-year-old girl waving goodbye to her mother who was going to sea. Do you think that's good? A good policy? To send women with very young children out to sea?
I cannot have equal opportunity without having equal obligation. I don't know how. I just can't do it. Our business is readiness. Now it is a self selecting process. I mean if you don't want to do that you don't have to stay in the Navy. So I can't make that choice for people. When the law was changed it put the choice in the people's hands.
What we need to do now is be very honest in recruiting and say listen when you come in the Navy, men or women . . . you will have to go to sea and leave your families. Family separation is one of the big reasons men get out of the Navy.
People will self-select what they're going to do. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Adm. Jeremy Boorda, chief of naval operations.
by CNB