Navy Secretary highlights Mayport future as another frigate decommissions

Getting the right people and doing right by them.

It’s a major thread in the platform which Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus outlined while stopping in Jacksonville today, speaking with Sailors from Naval Station Mayport and Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

Talking to reporters following an “All-Hands Call” with Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 48, Mabus says he had four clear points he wanted Sailors to leave with today- his focus is doing right by them, the Navy will continue to build ships, we will see a change in how the Navy gets and uses energy, and international partnerships must be a focus.

Mayport is uniquely positioned to benefit from the ongoing shipbuilding. The base will be the East Coast hub for the new Littoral Combat Ships, which are expected to begin arriving next year. The ships come as Mayport decommissions its remaining guided-missile frigates.

“Getting their replacement in- getting the Littoral Combat Ship and the Fast Frigate in behind them- is crucial,” Mabus says.

The USS Taylor decommissions Friday at Mayport following more than 30 years in service. After that, the base confirms they have two frigates left, and both are expected to decommission by the end of the summer.

Mabus says the LCS plans are “absolutely on track”. Budget questions have led them to alter the final 20 of the planned 52 ship force, however. Mabus says he’s classifying those final 20 as Fast Frigates instead, and that they will be even more lethal and survivable than the LCS.

The military budget is an ongoing question, and with the House and Senate this week agreeing on a budget outline, I asked Mabus if he supported it, given that there was some boost for military. He says their benefit comes at the expense of programs healthcare, education, food stamps, and other programs that would be cut under the framework, and that can’t happen.

“We’re not going to fix the military at the expense of other civilian programs,” he says.

Mabus says his focus is recruiting and maintaining good people, but that is a challenge because many potential servicemen have a criminal history, haven’t graduated high school, or have health problems and are, therefore, disqualified from service. He says cutting funding for programs aimed at avoiding these issues would, ultimately, hurt the military as well.

He’s instead pushing for the President’s budget plan, which he says will give them what they need to do to get the job done.

It's a job that's seemed to take a more prominent role since the onset of the fight against ISIS. In fact, the Mayport-based USS Philippine Sea was among the first to launch missiles against ISIS in Syria. I asked Mabus whether the rise of these threats has at all changed the way he approaches handling the Navy. He says, fundamentally, their mission remains the same.

“We’re the first responders- we’re the ones who get there faster, we stay there longer, we take everything we need, and we don’t need anybody else’s permission,” he says.

He added that whatever the threat may be, the Navy will always be ready to step up to the command its given by the President.

The Navy has seen a recent domestic battle, along with other military branches- the fight against sexual assault. Following a critique of the culture around sexual assaults among servicemen, a number of reforms and new programs have been put in place to encourage victims to report the crime, seek harsh punishment against violators, and instill in servicemen that they need to intervene and stop any crime they see happening.

“If somebody was walking around this base taking shots- random shots- at Sailors, we would do something about it. Sexual assault is exactly the same thing,” Mabus says.

He believes the Navy is moving in the right direction, following a recent report from the Department of Defense saying the number of assaults being reported has risen while the number of assaults themselves seems to be dropping.

“But one is too many,” he says.

Some lawmakers have critiqued the report- saying it doesn’t capture the whole picture of the current climate and that the military has failed to remove command posts from the decision making progress in terms of how to pursue alleged assailants.

“I do think that we’re beginning to make progress, what we can’t do is get complacent,” he says.

While his time in Jacksonville today was part of a swing through the South- and clearly there were a lot of questions to be addressed- Mabus circled the focus back once again to the Sailors themselves. He shook the hands of those who wanted to, posed for pictures, and even took a few selfies. He told the Sailors they are the reason the Navy is what it is, and will continue to be.