THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501210209
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Amid growing complaints about the fast pace of Navy operations, the service's top officer said Friday that training schedules are being adjusted to give sailors more time at home between their overseas tours.
Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, the chief of naval operations, said the new schedules should allow ships that aren't on deployment to cut their time away from the pier by an average of 19 days per year. In the Norfolk-based Atlantic Fleet, those ships currently are under way an average of 124 days annually.
The change should improve morale and save money by cutting steaming time, Boorda said. ``Training will not suffer in this.''
Boorda's comments, in an interview with defense correspondents, came one day after the skipper of the Norfolk-based destroyer Barry told senators that long stretches away from home are taking a toll on his crew. The Barry spent about 75 percent of its time out of port over the last two years, said Cmdr. James Stavridis.
The Navy limits peacetime deployments overseas to six months, with at least a year at home between those assignments. But training and readiness exercises and brief missions, like last fall's involvement in Haiti by the carriers America and Eisenhower, can keep ``at home'' ships away from the pier for weeks at a time.
Any added time at home is welcome news for sailors, especially if it means fewer sea hops between deployments.
``The six-month Mediterranean cruise is hard to deal with mentally, but when you're back home, and they're throwing a week at you here, a few days there, a month here - that's even more of a burden,'' said Petty Officer 3rd Class Emory Alger, 21, an engineer assigned to the Norfolk-based amphibious transport dock Ponce.
``It's really hard to make plans month per month when you're constantly uprooted.''
Boorda said the training adjustments, which other senior commanders have been working for some time to develop, are among several steps he's taking to slow the working pace of service members.
A move to delay the scheduled retirement of 15 frigates over the next six years also should help, he said. By keeping those ships, the Navy spreads work over a slightly larger fleet for relatively little money, he said. Each frigate costs about $13.8 million annually to operate.
``It's a small number of relatively small ships that do very good work that I'm trying to hang onto,'' he said. ``It won't change the face of the Navy or the nation. It will make everybody's life a little bit better.''
Boorda said keeping the frigates will let the Navy end its drawdown with a fleet of about 346 ships. That's more than the 330 envisioned by his predecessor, retired Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, early last year, but Boorda said Kelso's plan was based on a world more tranquil than it has proven to be.
On other subjects, Boorda said:
The Navy decided against keeping the Norfolk-based carrier America in service past its scheduled retirement in late 1996, after concluding that the ship will not be needed. Officials earlier had indicated that the decision was made for financial reasons; it costs about $170 million per year to operate a carrier.
Retaining the America for one additional deployment would have given the service 13 flattops.
``I think that 12 aircraft carriers is what this nation needs,'' Boorda said. ``I think that we could properly employ about 15. We just can't afford 15, and 12 is a reasonable number for this day and age.''
As the Navy continues to put women on combat ships, the private quarters of each sex will remain segregated. The Army has been bunking some men and women together in open barracks during the current operation in Haiti. Shipboard privacy is limited enough, Boorda said, without having men and women forced together in their sleeping quarters.
The Navy's carrier fleet, which some Air Force officers have suggested could be cut without jeopardizing national security, is much needed.
Carrier-based planes and Air Force bombers ``have very different potentials, very different missions, very different capabilities . . .'' he said. ``About the only way you can really make that argument (that bombers can replace some carriers) is to not understand it very well.'' MEMO: Staff writer Dennis Joyce contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda said the move will improve morale and
save money.
by CNB