Sea Change
Adm. Vern Clark, 57, is halfway through his four-year term as the 27th chief of naval operations (CNO) and proud to report the Navy is enjoying its highest-ever reenlistment rates. In a recent visit with Navy rotc midshipmen at Penn State University, Clark described the Navy as winning the "battle for people," despite a high pace of operations and the war on terrorism. He credited not only recent pay and allowance gains but also a renewed "commitment to service," a theme he emphasizes in talks with sailors. On a return flight to Washington, D.C., Clark discussed these issues, and more, with contributing editor Tom Philpott. The interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Military people in recent years have seen better pay raises, retirement reforms, and more robust medical coverage - particularly in old age. Yet, as CNO, you have to worry about balancing resources, having enough money to sustain readiness and build ships. Is the Navy striking the right balance?

It's a great question. We have got to compete effectively for people in the marketplace. As an advocate for covenant leadership, I have to keep my promise that sailors get a fair wage. So what has been done is right. Having said that, I don't want to spend a nickel for a person we don't need who draws away resources from...the Navy.

Moves made on behalf of retirees [like tricare for Life] were issues of fairness. They also affected competition in the marketplace. [Older retirees] were putting up billboards that said, "These guys aren't going to keep their word." This was an integrity issue, a credibility issue. I will tell you I looked at a chart yesterday with projections for the medical accounts. They are big numbers!

This is where we must challenge every [spending] assumption in a bold and courageous way. That's why my guidance for 2002 says, "All right, folks, on overhead, go cut 10 percent." This is new stuff. When I was a ship [commanding officer], I didn't even know what overhead was. This is new thinking. This is what has to be done.

But you've fought for things like sea pay for junior enlisted sailors...

Absolutely.

So if personnel budgets are too big, you're one of the culprits.

Yes. [But we're] getting better. We're on a path. The commitment to reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses is having the biggest impact. It's also the right thing to do. Except in certain high-cost areas, I don't want more military housing. I don't want a chief petty officer retiring from Navy housing. I want him to have a stake in America. If he lived in Navy housing his whole career, and then retires, he's hurting.

You emphasize "a commitment to service" with sailors. Is this an attempt to get some balance back in the equation for future budgets?

No. I started delivering that message on day one. In fact, I used it in my first "all hands" [remarks] to my ... staff. We got a report back that a commander heard it, walked into the Bureau of Naval Personnel, and pulled his resignation letter. He said, "That's the first time I've heard anybody talk about service in 10 years." For the first time since I've been in the Navy, our retention rate is better than any other service. It isn't just the pay raise. ... Something else is going on inside our Navy.

You hope some of the change is your message of commitment to service?

Absolutely. I had told my transition team I was going to tell sailors, "If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." A guy said, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Another suspect theme was, "People are No. 1." I tell people not to say that. … We evaluate leaders on two points: commitment to growth and development of those they lead and commitment to [the] mission. The mission is No. 1.

What are your top challenges now?

We added 4,000 sailors to our end strength last year. We had to. The Quadrennial Defense Review goals set in 1997 [cut too much]. They did it arbitrarily, and we went immediately to a gap in sea billets of 12,000 to 14,000. But we started retaining people, and suddenly the chief of Naval Personnel comes in and says, "Hey, I've got too many people. I can't pay for this." Fleet manning is better than it has been in [a] decade. I congratulate the Congress [for pay increases]. There are other variables, like the economy. I'm not going to be foolish and claim it's all Vern Clark's message. But it's part of it.

What has happened to personnel levels as a result of the war on terrorism?

I've got 10,000 reserves called up and am allowed a 2 percent surge, to 380,000, for active personnel. I can live with that fine. My problem now is I don't have the money to pay for the extra 2 percent.

Is that why you only used stop-loss authority modestly? You couldn't afford the cost of keeping more sailors past their release date?

Had nothing to do with it. I kept every person we thought we needed.

Did record reenlistment rates allow you to close the gap for billets at sea?

Absolutely. The last four or five carrier battle groups left manned at 96 [percent] to 98 percent.

You have said current readiness is wonderful. What about ammunition stocks and the like?

I don't want to mislead anybody. The inventory is short of some weapons. Tomahawk cruise missiles [are] one. The Joint Direct Attack Munitions didn't exist when we started Kosovo. Now the inventory objective is huge, almost six digits. It will take five to 10 years to buy the inventories we want. But readiness is more than munitions.

One of your personnel initiatives is to reform the detailing process, how sailors get reassigned. What's wrong with the current system, and what are you doing about it?

All power and authority was vested in the detailers. They waited for the sailor to call them. That's not true anymore. Last month, 92 percent of sailors being reassigned were contacted preemptively by their detailer. The detailer is moving from that side of the desk to this side, where he sits alongside the sailor to plan his career. My guidance ... is that every sailor will have a professional development plan. Before long, he'll have his own home page and will use the Web to find jobs inside the Navy. What I call Task Force excel is about growth and development and lifelong learning. You're not going to be good in this organization if you're not constantly growing.

Another priority for you is to reengineer training. What's wrong with current training?

We can make it more efficient. Today it's a brick-and-mortar solution. I don't believe that's going to meet future needs. Fewer Navy kids go on for advanced education than any other service. ... Why? Because we're on the other side of the earth. We can fix this [through technology].

You also worry about attrition - sailors leaving the Navy before completing their service obligations.

That's the saddest thing in the world. My attrition rate ain't any worse than it's been for 30 years. But we have a culture of too large a percentage of sailors washing out. Attrition is down 8 percent in the past year. That's not enough. This year, I've said we will reduce attrition by 25 percent.

What causes more than 10 percent of first-term sailors to wash out annually?

Expectations and not realizing them. Also, a young person can fall in with the wrong crowd. If you do drugs, then you're not going to be in our Navy. All of our experience shows us that if a person is prospering, [he or she] won't walk away. On one of my early visits, to Lemoore [Naval Air Station in California], a master chief introduced me to a petty officer, said she was getting out and what did I have to say to her? It was an E.F. Hutton moment. The whole room froze, and you could hear a pin drop. They expected me to get her in a [World Wrestling Entertainment] hammerlock. But my principle is to let them know they're needed, if they're good. Never beg. I [told her], "Obviously, you're good or they wouldn't care if you stayed. ... I will just ask one thing of you. When you get home, would you tell all your friends what it was like to be a petty officer in the [U.S.] Navy and [to be] given a chance to lead?" She said, "Yes, sir, I will." Long story short, I heard later that she stayed in the Navy.

When you became CNO, you were worried about officer retention.

It's still an issue. We got a bonus for the surface guys. But they're still not where they need to be. We under-assessed year groups in the '90s and will never be able to fix that with accessions. We need a different compensation system, more incentives. I want to revolutionize the way we do financial remuneration. For example, we need to "incentivize'' moves. When I fill an overseas assignment, it should be with somebody who wants to go. I don't want to slam somebody into a job, in an all-volunteer world, from a two-income home, and there's only one income over there. These are realities we have to deal with.

What are your thoughts on naval operations in the war in Afghanistan?

We've had two aircraft carriers there most of the time but [at times had] as many as four. I feel so good about that. Somebody said, "Does this validate the requirement for carriers?" What a question! I'm not wedded to any of our platforms forever, but I am absolutely convinced you can't win without dominating the battle space. You can't do that unless you own the air, and you can't own the air when they won't let you park your airplanes in their country.

When I was the [operations chief on the Joint Staff], every time we got ready to do something, I found myself standing with ... very senior people, handing them notes, telling them which airplanes we needed to come in. Meanwhile, they're talking to very senior people in other countries trying to get our stuff in. This business of not having permission is serious stuff. This is the importance of persistence force [carriers provide]. I tell my people, "Do not use bombs dropped and bomb hits as metrics. The metric is credible combat power. You either have it or you don't, and it has to be there." In January, we were flying exactly the same number of flights we were flying in October. The reason was, by then, 4,000 Americans were down there. We weren't dropping many bombs, but we weren't more than five minutes away from any of our people. We're persistent combat power in the far corners of the earth.

DD-21 was supposed to be the Navy's next-generation surface ship. Now it has shifted to DDX, a prototype for a family of ships. How comfortable are you with the timeline for getting high-tech, low-maintenance ships with smaller crews into the fleet?

DDX has to deliver. This is the most significant R and D project we've ever engaged in for ships. Past research and development programs have all been about buying newer versions of what we had, not the significant changes we're talking about in this ship - reduced electronic signature, reduced manpower, greater lethality.

I need the littoral combatant [variant from ddx] tomorrow, so none of this is going to deliver fast enough for me. Then, in three to five more years, we'll be building the [missile defense variant] when the missile defense system is here.

Our current ships do not have enough power. If you're going to put breakthrough weapons aboard - high-energy weapons and things like this - you've got to have power. This [new family of ships] is going to deliver power. It will set the stage for incredible things in the future.

Are you enjoying the job?

I am enjoying the challenge, the tasks, and there are some days so thrilling I can hardly restrain myself. [However] there are some days I just want to kill somebody who hasn't seen the light.

You had been CNO only three months when 17 sailors were killed and 37 injured in the attack on USS Cole. You and other naval leaders later addressed the families and the wounded in a memorial service in Norfolk [Va.]. Was that one of your toughest days?

That ended up being an incredibly rich day for me. I rewrote my speech because it had too many fancy words. I wanted to talk from my heart. We met with the families before the event. One mom whose son had been killed was told five [bodies] had come home the day before. I found her, a tall, African-American woman, standing with her family. Her lip was quivering. She said, "Where is my son?'' I just held her for about 10 minutes and talked to her. It was a hard time, but it was a fulfilling moment because I did what a CNO is supposed to do. I hugged a lot of moms and dads that day.

Then Sept. 11, 2001, less than a year later, came the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, including the Navy Command Center.

Forty-two Navy personnel [were] killed. We were hit harder than anybody. The most important leadership I've done since I've been the CNO I did Saturday after that Tuesday. We had lost almost 90 percent of our spaces so the Marine Corps loaned us a conference room up at the Navy Annex. I had all of my deputies and civilian flag equivalents up there. There was a lot of shock and trauma and downtrodden faces in that room. I said, "Look, it's time to stand up and lead. There are 380,000 sailors out there who need this organization to be functioning well. So get somebody to take care of the fatalities. You need to get moving."

After the meeting, a couple of people came up to say, "You'll never know how much I needed that."