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[ room noise ] >> so the house rules committee taking a break here. when members return, this meeting will continue live on our companion network c-span 2. on the house floor votes are currently under way. members are voting on two bills including one that aims to prevent suicides among veterans. the measure requires an annual third-party review of mental health and suicide prevention programs at the png and veteran affairs department. that's live now on c-span. and in the senate today there was a procedural vote on a bill authorizing construction of the keystone xl oil pipeline. the vote was 63-32. which was enough to limit debate and advance the bill for a vote on final passage at a later time. as always, you can watch the senate live on c-span 2.

here are a few of the comments we've recently received on the 114th congress. >> the thing that really needs to happen is going back to what the incomeing majority said, is they need to get back to regular order. if they go back and pass the 13 bills that it take to fund the government, then everybody can see who voted on what, who put what amendment up, and then send it to the president and let him pass it or veto it. >> i 40e7hope it's a more mature, responsible congress that we will see emerging in the next two years. i think emblematic of this situation, of an irresponsible congress, we can see that reflected in this john boehner challenge today. it's time for both parties to put aside the bitter partisan

battles and get on to the tas thak they're constitutionally required to do and that is to govern, to legislate. and i think what the american people said in november, of both parties, is it's time to see that finally start to happen. >> i think i don't know, if 114th congress, what can we expect of them? with citizens united. it's like all the politicians are bought and sold really. i mean, who are they representing, us or what? the first thing on the agenda is the keystone pipeline. >> frankly the american people are prepared to get passed the polished language, the false promises. we need you to understand, sir that you work for us. we have seen nothing but foreclosures, people in the street, and frankly we're tired frt silly games being played,

and we don't believe anything we're hearing any longer to create jobs. that is so worn out. >> and continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. or send us a tweet tweet @c-span #comments. join you the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate op c-span 2, here on c-span 3 we complement that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. and then on weekends c-span 3 is the home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including six unique series. the civil war's 150th anniversary, visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts. touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. history bookshelf with the best

known american history writers. the presidency looking at the policies and legacies of our nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors delving into america's past. and our new series, "real america," featuring archival government and educational films from the 1930s to the '70s. c-span 3. created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable and satellite provider. watch us on hd like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. military veterans gathered in november at the u.s. navy memorial in washington, d.c. for a conference honoring their service. among the speakers were medal of honor recipients from the vietnam war. the two veterans talk about their inspirations for joining the military and how the medal changed the perceptions of those around them. from their subordinates to their superiors. this is about 40 minutes. [ applause ]

good morning, everyone. can you hear me? all right. the medal of honor is the united states of america's highest military honor. and it is awarded for personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. the medal is award by the president of the united states in the name of the u.s. congress. the medal of honor was created in 1861 and several years later on march 25th, 1863, the first medal of honor was presented to u.s. army private jacob parrot. since then only 3,470 medals of honor have been awarded to america's soldiers, sailors, airmen marines and coast guardsmen. 3,470 represents a very, very small fraction of the tens of millions of men and women who served america in uniform. and as of today there are only 79 living recipients of the medal of honor, and i'm pleased

to be here with two of these great american heroes.f our first panelist served in the united states marine corps for 27 years and received the medal of honor for valor during the vietnam war. he retired from the marine corps in 1989 and served as deputy assistant secretary of the navy for reserve affairs from july 2001 until january 2009. he also served as acting assistant secretary of the navy from january through -- from january through april 2009. please welcome medal of honor recipient recipient, u.s. marine colonel h.c. barney barnum. [ applause ] our second panelist served in the united states army for 26 years. he was one of america's first soldiers to don the green beret authorized by president kennedy to be worn by the special forces. he served two tours of duty in vietnam and also served in the dominican republic and panama.

on september 17th, 1969 his heroic actions in vietnam earned him america's highest military award. after more than 45l>bx years he finally received the recognition he deserved and was decorated with the medal of honor by president obama in march of this year. please welcome medal of honor recipient u.s. army sergeant first class melvin morris. [ applause ] i've prepared a few questions for our panelists but i'll certainly give all of you plenty of time later on for your questions as well. and we'll have a good discussion with our panelists. but before we get started i encourage all of you to visit the medal of honor society website at www.cmohs.org, where you can learn about all medal of honor resip sxwrents read their citations as well. and if you're ever down in charleston, i encourage you to

visit the medal of honor society museum aboard the "usscmz yorktown" down in patriots point south carolina. so colonel barnum, i'd like to start with you sir. are you ready? okay. what talk about some of your role models early in your life when you were growing up in connecticut. >> well i think my role models first of all were mom and dad. we came from a small town in connecticut, and we didn't have much but we had everything. dad worked three and four jobs and mom was a homemaker. then i think probably scouting made a big difference in my life, and i think much of what i learned in scouting carried on to my career as a marine and the leadership aspects and first aid and living in the field and i guess my coach that played sports. and that's when i learned it's not about you, it's about the team.

because that's what it takes to get through life. and of course my minister and in the non-military various leaders in the marine corps. >> you were president of your freshman and senior classes at cheshire high school. >> yes. >> tell bus the day military recruiters came to your school, why you became a marine. >> on career day in high school they had all the juniors and seniors in the auditorium and they had all the recruiters come in. and the army recruiter got up and gave his spiel, and there was a lot of whistles and calls and cat calls and the air force got up and the navy got up and the students were really giving him the old raspberry. well, this old marine got up and he says i want to tell you there's no one in this room that i want in my marine corps, you're undisciplined, i'm disappointed with you. then he began to chew out the faculty in the back of the room for letting the guys get out of hand. picked up his gear and walked off the stage. well, at the end of the -- at

the end of the auditorium i was one of 13 guys who went up and stood at his table and he put his table back together and we talked. and i signed up in 1958 and joined the united states marine corps. >> very good. good story. >> he knew what had to be done had a mission, was proud of who he represented wasn't going to take any shenanigans. and i says you know what? i think i'd like to be like that guy. [ applause ] >> sergeant morris, you were raised in oakmagee, correct? oklahoma. tell us about your early life and your early role models when you were growing up there. >> okay. excuse me. my role model was an uncle of mine. and he was a paratrooper in the triple nickel which was the segregated airborne unit at that time.

but i was so impressed. again, just looking at him in uniform. and as he's jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. that was my inspiration to become a paratrooper. but my conditions were about the same as his. i owe it all to my family and my father. because we were economically depressed. and my early days i learned to hunt and fish. still do. but you know i learned my skills. i was also a boy scout. and explorer scout. i took those values i learned with me into the military. i joined the national guard in 1959 1959. didn't see a recruiter, but i had gotten my draft card and i didn't have to worry about that because we had already made our mind up to go into the national

guard because at that time it was completely integrated and they were recruiting minorities. so i joined the national guard and did my basic and my e.i.t., and i fell in love with the military. so upon completing my advanced individual training which was infantry, i decided i want to go regular army, and i asked them could i go regular army. and they said of course. but we'll take a strike for me. and i said no problem. which they had to do anyhow. so i joined the regular army and volunteered to go airborne. then after graduating from airborne school i volunteered for the green beret. at that time it was called special forces. and the only thing i heard was sneaky pete. and i heard about what they do, and i said i've done a lot of this.

i spend all my time in the woods hunting. you know. and i didn't think they were going to pick me up. and they did. and i went to the green beret, and i was 19 years old, and i was private first class. 5'4" and 117 pounds. barely with an open parachute when i went to jump school. but i managed to stay there from '61 until 1982. and i was there when jfk authorized the green beret october 1961. i still have that same beret today. my passion is being a green beret. and i will not get rid of it. and people say, well, you need to get rid of that beret. never, never, never. no. that's with me for life. [ applause ]

>> why don't you talk to us about the green berets and how your role as a green beret may have been different from the marine corps the army the other military forces in the army at the time. >> you know i've been asked that. really we all operate as brothers, as a brotherhood. and you know, how you're disciplined and what kind of moral character do you have. you know the marines have a specific mission. the green berets have their specific mission. so does the navy and air force. but we're all brothers. and it's not competition between the service when it comes to combat. it's the thing of working together and getting the job done. of course they'll send marines in to do things that nobody else will do and which we laugh about, though.

the marine corps is really designed to take on the tough stuff. and yeah, in the green beret our mission was to train advise, assist and direct. and a lot of people always looked at us as combat soldiers. no, that's not it. we're teachers and advisers. that's our primary mission. and we're fighting until the regular infantry the armor or whoever, marine corps, but you know, the same thing that's gone on over in iraq right now, we have a special force there, the green berets. and they are advising and they are training. and they're directing. and they're assisting. and that was our primary -- >> colonel barnum, you were honored for an action, you were in vietnam only about ten days, is that correct? and you served a second tour of duty. why did you go back a second

time? >> i was in vietnam ten days. i was with the unit four days when i was in that ambush. and ended up with a medal of honor. it really pissed me off, you know. but anyway no. and i came home. and i became an aide to the assistant commandant of the marine corps. and he says, barnum, if you can last a year with me as an aide, you can go anyplace in the world for orders. the year was up. 13 months was up. i went to the general, said general, time for my orders. he said that's right. where do you want to go? i said vietnam. you can't go to vietnam. you got the medal of honor first time. medal of honor recipients don't go back. but general, you told me if i lasted a year with you i could go any place i wanted. and i said you know, there's a war going on, i'm a professional marine, that's where i should be. so general walton did what generals do. and i went back, i became the battery commander of the same battery i was a forward observer

in the first time. [ applause ] >> it was only earlier this year that you were decorated with the medal of honor. what was your reaction when you got the news? >> i didn't believe it. and i never really worried about it, never thought about it. i received the nation's second highest decoration. so you know, i thought it was going to go. and i just continued to march. i didn't worry about anything else. and when i got a call from g-1 colonel davis over here in the png, and he said well government officials want to speak to you tomorrow, you'd be standing by the phone.

and the first thing that comes to mind was i said i've done something wrong, you know. and i got a little nervous about it. the next day the phone ring and the colonel got on the phone. he said a government o'official will speak to you now. and my mind's flying. so it was president obama got on the phone. he said this is president obama. and i almost dropped to the floor. and he said i want to apologize to you for not receiving the medal of honor 44 years ago. you should have received it then. short conversation. that was it. and i still couldn't believe it. i told my wife, i said i'm going to call this colonel back. and i called himgl'i back the next day, and i asked him, was this a prank? he said, look, if the president tells you this is official this is official. don't you ever call back up here no more.

[ laughter ] that was it. yeah. >> let's talk about military leadership for both of you gentlemen. thinking back over the many years. who are the military leaders that you most admire and why? why don't you difference a few examples? the military leaders in history that you most admire. >> i had so many it's hard for me to distinguish. but one that i most admire because he was a hard-ass, and that was general william p. yarborough. the reason i admire him, but i had a bad experience with him. he was our commanding general. and you know i'm an e-4, and i have to do extra duties on the weekend. and i was thumbing home. i always walked home ten miles.

didn't have a car. couldn't afford one. and he caught me thumbing. and he offered me five bucks to take a cab. and i refused his money and i refused a ride. and i got back to duty monday morning and he called me up to headquarters and said don't you ever refuse anything from a general. you go out and get the five-gallon buckets of whitewash and a brush and you start painting all these buildings. that's who i most admired because he meant what he meant, don't thumb. >> you know, there are so many because in our glorious corps we're small. but i worked for people like general lou walton who had two navy crosses on peleliu, was my division commander who recommended me for the medal of honor, and was the assistant commandant of the marine corps who i was an aide for and sent

me back to vietnam. i think of general ray davis, medal of honor recipient. my second tour was my division commander. i never served with chesty puller, but i was in his presence a couple of times and i sat in awe of that man and all he's accomplished. and i think i'd like to add to this, you all are wearing the uniform of our great country. you're not on active duty yet. some of you will be active duty. some of you will be congressmen, senators, and if you are i hope you'll get something done. some of you will be doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers, firemen, policemen. ceos of multibillion-dollar companies. and some of you will have the opportunity to wear that cloth of our nation and serve in a defense capacity. and because you're college graduates you'll be officers and you will be charged with

leadership. and the young whippersnappers who you will get to lead will be looking up to you. you're on parade 24 hours a day seven days a week. so if you're going to be in the military, know yourself be good at what you're doing and lead by example. and then you will be looked at someday. when that question is asked, one of your troopers someday is going to say colonel so and so, general so and so admiral so and so. and one of you admirals or generals are sitting right here. so remember that. that's what this is all about. and that's what melvin and i are here today. we want to jumpstart you. start thinking down range. not yesterday. you can't change yesterday. you can affect them all. you are building that strong foundation upon which you're going to build the walls of life. that's what we're here to do today. >> thank you. [ applause ]

one final question, and then i'll open it up to the audience. colonel barnum, we talked earlier. yesterday marked the ten-year anniversary of the fallujah in iraq. >> yeah. we were talking about vietnam, and we had some korean war and vietnam veterans here. you just had some world war ii people tuskegee airmen. you know, the reason we're in war time is because there are people who do not believe in what you and i believe in want to take us down want to take this great country down. but by god, we ain't going to let them do it. that's the reason we have a military, prepared to go any place at any time, take on these turkeys, win and come home. if you look back ten years ago, the second battle of fluja, operation faj rachlt or phantom fury was december 2004. the bloodiest battle of the iraq war. 82 of the 12,000 troops who took

part in that battle were killed in action. another 600 wounded. estimated 2,000 insurgents killed. . 1200 captured. 3500 to 4,000 fugitives in the city when the battle began. the focus of our marines and the sacrifices they made as we did in vietnam the marines did their job and they did it well. and the marines today and the soldiers today will be prepared to take on the next fallujah, god forbid that it ever umz. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> okay. we'll open it up for questions. >> remember, the only dumb question is the one you forget to answer -- ask. and you think about it as you're going out the door. you can ask any question.

>> i have a comment. this is for the cadets. you know if you can't he follow, you can't lead. so you've got to set the example for other people that you're going to command. and you've got to be able to get their willing obedience. you're going to have to treat your troops fairly. you're going to have to be understandable. you're going to have to be knowledgeable. i'll tell you this. since i was in the military so long and infantry. they will see your weakness if you don't have what it takes. once you lose that ability to lead you're no good. you're no good. remember that. you've got to stay on top of your game. and you know develop all the knowledge and skills that you can possibly gain.

if you're doing the right proper job, your troops will see you as a leader. they will follow you willingly. they will be obedient and think about it. how can you tell a man to go into harm's way if it you don't have their confidence? you must gain their confidence. so you know, you must -- it's hard, i know, to -- you've got to keep it up. you've got to care for your people. i want to pass it on to you. >> my question is for the colonel. i'd like to ask the colonel about how his battery reacted once he went back to vietnam. >> when i went back to vietnam, i had a 105 artillery battery. and of course the troops were in all, and i got them together and said okay, guys, i earned the

medal of honor the first time and i'm here as a captain, not a battery commander. we have a mission, i'm your leader. i'm going to give the orders. you execute them. now, i'm going to tell you you're going to have visitors come to this battery because of this, not because of captain barnum. captain barnum happens to have the medal of honor. and believe me you're going to get sick of it. and they all sort of -- gunny told me they thought that was pretty funny. well they had to keep the area policed up and all because they never know when the general's going to stop in. or a movie star or football fan. so -- but on into the battle they learned real quick that i stood up for them, and i think the day i turned to battle is the chief of staff of the marine corps was visiting the fire base. and the order was the uniform will be bush hats. well, i'd been trying to get bush hats and green t-shirts

under your utility uniform for two months. the artillery. trying to get it. they wouldn't give it to me. the infantry had them. the artillery didn't. so i fall out in a helmet and an old black t-shirt, and colonel barrow, who was the regimental commander, went on to be commandant of the marine corps, pulled me aside and he said the uniform is bush hats and green t-shirts. i said general -- i mean colonel, i've been trying to get bush hats and green t-shirts for my troops for two months. he says, well we set up a bush hat and a green t-shirt for you to wear today. he says, unless all my troops had them, i ain't wearing them. word got out. the skipper's taking care of us. >> thank you. [ applause ]

>> this question is for both gentlemen. particularly colonel barnum. last night we heard the rivet's story of sergeant jeremiah workman, and afterward somebody asked him a question, which is a question i would ask you gentlemen. and it was about fear. his story is unbelievable as both of your stories are. being a marine, he was uncomfortable with admitting if he did have fear. but i would ask the two of you, it's not only the question of fear but other emotions. when you -- especially as an officer, in leading men, how do you deal -- how did you deal with if you had fear? you probably didn't, colonel barnum. but if you did, how did you deal with that, overcome it, but not only fear but another emotion is sadness, maybe anxiety, especially in losing your other men in your unit. but it's for both of you gentlemen. >> norm, thank you very much.

that's a great question. because it's something for you all to think about. you know, war is horrifying and not glorifying. i want you all to realize that. first of all i know jeremiah workman. i was at bethesda when he was brought back. he was shot up pretty bad. and there's a young staff sergeant at the time that really grabbed hold of his bootstraps, tightened them up, and got on with life. and he's done very well. and he's fought ptsd, and he's helping other marines and navy corpsmen with ptsd. fear. i want to tell you i'm on that -- coming out of the mountains that day. fourth day into the operation. and we got ambushed. first time i'd ever been shot at. i hit the deck. very prudent thing to do. and when i looked up all those marines were looking at me lieutenant, what are we going to do? was i scared? you're damn right i was scared. first time i'd ever been shot at. were those troops scared?

damn right they were scared. that is emotion. but at that point i went into action as an officer, leader of marines. i started doing what needed to be done. the thing is with fear is how you control that fear. you've got to control it. you're going to have it. you've got to control it. so it doesn't interfere with you making the right decision at the right time for the right reasons. it doesn't prevent you from mission accomplishment given the right orders to the troops. to take on the enemy. if i didn't come out from underneath that helmet those troops, that fear would have consumed them. all i had to do is kick them in the butt and then put reins on them and guide them. because there's no fury unlashd like a bunch of marines whose company commander had been killed and his buddies had been wounded. but i had to jumpstart it. was i scared?

you better believe it. but my background, my training enabled me to control that fear. and that is the most important part. sad intersection i'll tell you. it wasn't until the end of the battle that i broke down. when the gunny came to me with the dog tags of those that had been killed and we had to account for everybody, i went to pieces. in private with a gunny. not in front of them. we're human beings. you've got to know we have emotions. you've got to know how to control them. >> going back with him. you have to channel your fear. and you can turn your fear into a useful tool. you've just got to learn how to deal with it. i'm a little different from him. he said scared. okay. i don't use the word scared. when you're scared you can't do nothing. in his head he hit the deck.

that was scared. but fear -- >> that was common sense. >> common sense. but i was a company adviser. if i had fear, i couldn't do my job because they were looking to me to lead and make the right decisions. anytime you're leading troops, they're watching you. and you've got to make the right calls. you make bad judgment calls, you cause people to lose their lives. but being scared -- because it's something i never thought about it. it's telling you to do things and it takes over. and i guess -- depending on the

situation is whether you're fearful or scared. i was fearful all the time. fear makes you do the right thing. but being -- you heard the term scared to death. yeah. i've seen people get scared to where they couldn't do nothing. but fear you can challenge, you can control. that's all i can tell you. >> i think you know what we're both saying. the other concern rather than fear i had that when i was in command that i'd make the right decisions. and get the job done and get fewer marines hurt or injured. and it's pretty tough to make a decision when i tell you four to take out that machine gun and you get mowed down and i turn to the next four and says okay, you get him. because we have to take out that machine gun or we're all going to go. those are the type -- fears scared, concerns it's

semantics. but the thing is emotions that you have to be able to control. and as a leader you've got to stand up be seen. you don't say go do this. you say follow me. that's what he was saying. [ applause ] >> i had a brief question for both gentlemen. what does being able to wear the medal of honor mean to you, what does it mean to your family, and what does it mean to the men you fought side by side with? >> well, to me i mean, humility. there's no greater pride for me than anything in the world. i never would have believed it would happen. but you know, to wear the medal of honor, receive it, it changes your life. what you used to be, you're not anymore. you're a different person. and you've got to expect your life is going to be completely

changed, as mine has. you're a national treasure. when you receive the medal of honor. it's a very high decoration. and people are watching you. they're looking at you. and actually, you're setting an example for the rest of the people. you know. and so it's an honor to where -- but you've got to walk a straight line. you've got to walk a straight line. and you're an inspiration to the younger generation. i was telling someone we just left for birmingham with a lot of the students. a lot of students don't even know what the medal of honor is. what it represents. and so you can have that knowledge. please give them a little push. and a little education. because you know i read something, if this nation doesn't honor its heroes we are done. we are doomed. okay. >> well, it is a great honor.

and the greatest honor is when i was standing there and the secretary of the navy was putting it around my neck, i was looking at my mom and dad. tears. and i made them proud. to me that was the highest moment because i made them proud. i put them through hell. you know, the priest said your mother has worn out three pairs of stockings on the kneeler from praying. and then i stayed in the marine corps and i wore this my whole time. but i wear this medal and honor those great marines and phenomenal corpsmen that i got to lead on the field of battle. i never used it for my own benefit. i never used it to get my orders changed, get a job. i'd be naive to believe that this didn't hopp help me with some of the jobs i had because some general decided i want that medal of honor guy. like general walton wanted me to be his aide, not because barney barnum, captain, barney barnum with the medal of honor. you're up on a pedestal.

it's not just captain barnum colonel barnum barney barnum. it's barnum with a medal. you're on parade. people are looking at you. i had a recruit training battalion at perris island and in two years i trained 12000 unorganized, overweight civilians into being hard charging low crawling united states marines. and the people in the px said you know what? we know when the second battalion graduates because all the recruits come in there and all the cigars sell out. i always had a cigar in my mouth. they emulated me because they respected me. they wanted to be like me. that's an awesome responsibility. the troops look up to you that way. so as general chapman said, the marines do things that they're supposed to do and don't do things they're not supposed to do. i followed general chapman's edict and did what i was supposed to do because i was leadership by example. >> thank you.

[ applause ] >> this is for both of you. and you have addressed this to a certain extent. what effect did the upbringing by your parents your church, your -- the hunting, fishing that you did growing up, how much did that help you become what you became? >> you know, it gave me the morals and the values and standards to live by. and even as the days -- it's a little more now. because of the change in my life from the medal of honor, though. you know, it's the way you live. and you know with the hardship i came up with in my youth that also helps you to do things. you know not joking i spent a

lot of time eating rabbit and squirrel, right? i learned to hunt when i was a small kid because it was necessary. and i knew how hard my father and my parents had it. because we were economically depressed. and you know, i had the foresight just to do the right thing thing. you know. but most of all, it helped me develop the character i needed to go through life. and i still use the same tools today. >> well i concur. and i think -- and let me segue the answer to this in my closing remark. my parents my scoutmaster, my priests, my coaches, they helped me build the foundation of life. upon that foundation now i've been building walls. college. marine corps career. now i'm a grandpa.

i'm putting the roof on the house. but the roof on the house and the walls would fall down if i didn't have a strong foundation. okay? you are all now climbing the ladder of life. and because you're into college you're up on about rung 5 or 6. and i encourage you and charge you to set your goals high. way high. you can always reach out to get those goals as you continue to climb that ladder of life. never say it's too hard. never say i can't. for god's sake, take the word "failure" out of your vocabulary. there isn't anything that you want to accomplish that you can't if you put your mind to it. i've got to tell you, there ain't no free lunch out there. you've got to work for what you get. the greatest country in the world. if you work hard it's going to be there. so if you're going to be a bear be a grizzly bear.

all right? and i just want to say think about those things that we said. we're sharing them with you because we experienced them. we want you to have a great life living in the greatest country in the world. we've had a great life. have there been challenges? have there been bumps in the road? hell, yeah. look at us. [ applause ] >> i want to make one more comment. just an example about leadership. you know after i received the medal of honor, my radio operator from cambodia found me. after 45 years my interpreter. getting everybody together. i mean, that -- they actually -- they admired me, and they still

do today. and i carry pictures in my wallet. that your foreign troops even give you the respect you that never thought you had. so after 45 years i'm on the television with my foreign troops. that's all. that's part of leadership. i cared for them. and that's what it's all about. >> okay. [ applause ] tonight on "the communicators," martin cooper, inventor of the cell phone on spectrum issues and the efforts by federal agencies to provide for the growing needs of mobile phone service providers. >> the ultimate in the spectrum-efficient technology is what's called dynamic spectrum access, and that includes a whole bunch of things. it includes mobile but it also includes cognitive radio, and i know you've heard a lot about that. and it includes some new technology that's just starting

to become laboratory available. where we can use satellites to actually create a model of the world so that when somebody transmits they will know whether they are going to interfere with somebody else. you put all these things together, i hesitate taitd to tell tell you how much more efficient we're going to be because you would laugh me out of this room but we're talking not about tens of times improvement or hundreds or thousands but millions of time improvement. and that's not as crazy as it sounds because from the time of marc marconi until now we are a trillion times spectrally efficient than we were in marconi's time. so the thought of being a million times more efficient in the next 20 or 30 years is not as crazy as it sounds. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators," on c-span 2. president obama today

announced new measures for consumer protection and online privacy at an event hosted by the tral trade commission. the announcement included a partnership with credit scoring agencies to make it easier to access your credit rating and technological advances by credit card companies to make online theft more difficult. the president also called on congress to pass legislation that would create additional protections. this is 20 minutes. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you. everybody have a seat. thank you. well, thank you, edith, for your introduction. as was mentioned edith and i go a long way back. in law school we served on the "law review" together. i will not say who edited who. [ laughter ] i will say she looks exactly the

same. and i do not. [ laughter ] and that's upsetting. but edith in your career you've stood for citizens and communities. i was proud to nominate you first as a commissioner and then as chairwoman of the ftc. you are doing an outstanding job, as are your fellow commissioners, and we very much appreciate your outstanding efforts. you know anita's story, from the daughter of mexican immigrants to the head of the ftc, we see a central part of the american story. and that's worth remembering. at a time when those are issues we're debating all the time. it's a reminder that what makes this country special is the incredible talent that we draw from all around the world and somehow it all merges into

something unique, america. to edith, to the fellow commissioners, to all of you who work at the ftc, thanks for welcoming me. i'm told i may be the first president to come to the ftc in nearly 80 years. since fdr in 19 -- [ applause ] first time apparently since fdr in 1937. which is a little surprising. i mean you'd think like one of the presidents would have just come here by accident. you know, they ended up in the wrong building. where are we? we're at the ftc. anyway, i figured it was time to correct that. plus i know sometimes your name confuses folks. they don't always understand what your mission is. one person who does understand is david letterman.

a few months ago he thanked you for standing up to the companies that were trying to pitch a new weight loss product caffeine-laced undergarments. i'm actually not making this up. you ruled that these products were not substantiated by scientific evidence. so thank you for saving america from caffeine-laced undergarments. these companies owed consumers a refund. and that was just the latest example. because asr celebrated your 100th anniversary. and i want to thank you for 100 proud years of protecting american consumers. i also want to thank some of the members of congress who are here today and many of our partners private sector and consumer and privacy and advocacy groups. next week, just up the street, i

will deliver the state of the union address. and it will be a chance to talk about america's resurgence, including something we can all be proud of which is the longest stretch of private-sector job growth in american history. 58 straight months, more than 11 million new jobs. in the speech i'm going to focus on how we can build on that progress and help more americans feel that resurgence in their own lives. through higher wages and rising incomes. and a growing middle class. but since i've only got two years left in this job i tend to be impatient and i didn't want to wait for the state of the union to start sharing my plans. so i've been traveling across the country rolling out some of the ideas we'll be talking about, a little bit of a sneak preview. and in the 21st century, in this dizzying age of technology and innovation, so much of the

prosperity that we seek, so many of the jobs that we create so much of the opportunity that's available for the next generation depends on our digital economy. it depends on our ability to search and connect and shop and do business and create and discover and learn online, in cyberspace. and as we've all been reminded over the past year, including the hack of sony, this extraordinary interconnection creates enormous opportunities but also creates enormous vulnerabilities for us as a nation and for our economy and for individual families. so this week i'm laying out some new proposals on how we can keep seizing the possibilities of an information age while protecting the security and prosperity and values that we all cherish. today i'm focusing on how we can better protect american consumers from identity theft

and ensure our privacy, including for our children at school. and then tomorrow at the department of homeland security, i'll focus on how we can work with the private sector to better defend ourselves against cyber attacks. and finally on wednesday in iowa i'll talk about how we can give families and communities faster and cheaper access to broadband so they can succeed in the digital economy. i wanted to start here at the ftc because every day you take the lead in making sure that americans, their hard-earned money and their privacy are protected, especially when they go online. in these days that's pretty much for everything. managing our bank accounts, paying our bills handling everything from medical records to movie tickets controlling our homes, smarthouses from smartphones. secret service does not let me do that. but i know other people do.

and with these benefits come risks. major companies get hacked. america's personal information, including financial information, gets stolen. and the problem is growing and it costs us billions of dollars. in one survey 9 out of 10 americans say they feel like they've lost control of their personal information. in recent breaches, more than 100 million americans have had their personal data compromised. like credit card information. when these cyber criminals start racking up charges on your card, it can destroy your credit rating, it can turn your life upside down, it may take you months to get your finances back in order. so this is a direct threat to the economic security of american families and we've got to stop it. if we're going to be connected, then we need to be protected. as americans we shouldn't have to forfeit our basic privacy

when we go online to do our business. and that's why since i took office we've been working with the private sector to strengthen our cyber defenses. a few months ago we launched our buy secure initiative. the federal government and companies across the country are moving to stronger chip and pin technology for credit cards. here at ftc you're working with credit bureaus so the victims can recover their stolen identities faster. and every day you're helping consumers with identity theft.gov. so today i'm announcing new steps to protect the identities and privacy of the american people. let me list them for you. first, we're introducing new legislation to create a single strong national standard so americans know when their information has been stolen or misused. right now, almost every state has a different law on this. and it's confusing for consumers and it's confusing for companies. and it's costly too, to have to

comply to this patchwork of laws. sometimes folks don't even find out their credit card information has been stolen until they see charges on their bill, and then it's too late. so under the new standard that we're proposing, companies would have to notify consumers of a breach within 30 days. in addition, we're proposing to close loopholes in the law so we can go after more criminals who steal and sell the identities of americans even when they do it overseas. second. i'm pleased that more banks credit card issuers, and lenders are stepping up and equipping americans with another weapon against identity theft. and that's access to their credit scores free of charge. this includes jpmorgan chase, bank of america, usaa state employees credit union alli financial. some of them are here today, i want to thank them for their participation. this means that a majority of american adults will have free

access to their credit score, which is like an early warning system telling you that you've been hit by fraud so you can deal with it fast. and we're encouraging more companies to join this effort every day. third, we're going to be introducing new legislation. a consumer privacy bill of rights. working with many of you from the private sector and advocacy groups, we've identified some basic principles to both protect personal privacy and ensure that industry can keep innovating. for example, we believe that consumers have the right to decide what personal data companies collect from them. and how companies use that data, that information. the right to know that your personal information collected for one purpose can't then be misused by a company for a different purpose. the right to have your information stored securely by companies that are accountable for its use. we believe that there ought to

be some basic baseline protections across industries. so we're going to be introducing this legislation by the end of next month, and i hope congress joins us to make the consumer privacy bill of rights the law of the land. and finally, we're taking a series of actions to protect the personal information and privacy of our children. those of us who have kids know how hard this can be. whether they are texting or tweeting or on facebook or instagram or vine our children are meeting up and they are growing up in cyberspace. it is all-pervasive. and here at the ftc4[ pushed back on companies and apps that collect information on our kids without permission. and michelle and i are like parents everywhere we want to make sure that our children are being smart and safe online. that's a responsibility of ours as parents. but we need partners.

we need a structure that ensures that information is not being gathered without us as parents or the kids knowing it. we want our kids' privacy protected, wherever they sign on or logon, including at school. now, the good news is we've got new educational technologies that are transforming how our children learn. we've got innovative websites and apps and tablets, digital textbooks and tutors. students are getting lessons tailored to their unique learning needs. we want to encourage that information. and it also facilitates teachers and parents tracking student progress and grades in realtime. and all this is part of what our connect ed initiative is about. connecting 99% of american students to high-speed internet so that we're empowering students, teachers and parents and giving them access to worlds

they may never have had access to before. but we've already seen some instances where some companies use educational technologies to collect student data for commercial purposes. like targeted advertising. and parents have a legitimate concern about those kinds of practices. so today we're proposing the student digital privacy act. it's pretty straightforward. we're saying the data collected on students in the classroom should only be used for educational purposes. to teach our children, not to market to our children. we want to prevent companies from selling student data to third parties for purposes other than education. we want to prevent any kind of profile ing profiling that has certain students at a disadvantage as they go through school. we believe this won't just give parents more peace of mind,

we're confident that it will make sure the tools we use in the classroom will actually support the breakthrough in research and innovations we need to keep unlocking new educational technologies. now, we didn't have to completely reinvent the wheel on this proposal. many states have proposed similar legislation. california just passed a landmark law and i hope congress joins us in this national movement to protect the privacy of our children. we won't wait for legislation, though. the department of education is going to offer new schools to help schools and teachers work with tech companies to protect the privacy of students. as of today 75 companies across the country have signed on to a student privacy pledge. and among other things they're committing not to sell student information or use educational technologyies to engage in targeted advertising to students. some of those companies are here today. we want to thank you for your leadership. i want to encourage every company that provides these

technologies to our schools to join this effort. it's the right thing to do. and if you don't join this effort, then we intent to make sure that those schools and those parents know you haven't joined this effort. so this mission, protecting our information and prive in the information age, this should not be a partisan issue. this should be something that unites all of us as americans. it's one of those new challenges in our modern society that crosses the old divides. transcends politics, transcends ideology. liberal, conservative, democrat republican. everybody's online and everybody understands the risks and vulnerabilities as well as opportunities that are presented by this new world. business leaders want their privacy and their children's privacy protected just like everybody else does. consumer and privacy advocates also want to make sure america keeps leading the world in technology and innovation and

apps. so there's basic, is sense pragmatic steps we all ought to support. and rather than being at odds i think much of this work actually reinforced each other. the more we do to protect consumer information and privacy, the harder it is for hackers to damage our businesses and hurt our economy. meanwhile, the more companies strengthen their cyber security the harder it is for hackers to steal consumer information and hurt american families. so we've got to all be working together in the same direction. and i'm confident if we do, we'll be making progress. we are the company -- we are the country that invented the internet. and we'reg r uz the pioneers of this information age. the creators the designers, the innovators. our children are leaving us in the dust. if you haven't noticed. they're connecting and they're collaborating like never before and imagining a future we can only dream of.

when we americans put our minds together and our shoulder to the wheel, there's nothing we can't do. so i'm confident if we keep at this, we can deliver the prosperity and security and privacy that all americans deserve. we pioneered the internet but we also pioneered the bill of rights. and a sense that each of us as individual s individuals have a sphere of privacy around us that should not be breached. whether by our government, but also by commercial interests. and since we're pioneers in both these areas, i'm confident that we can be pioneers in crafting the kind of architecture that will allow us to both grow innovate, and preserve those values that are so precious to us as americans. thank you very much and thanks to the ftc for all the great work you do to protect the american people. thank you.

♪ tonight on c-span3, a look at aircraft carriers and maritime strategy. then the u.n. secretary-general talks about priorityies for the u.n. in the new year. the u.s. naval academy recently hosted a debate on the role of air contractors carriers in u.s. national security environments. two retired navy officers looked at whether the vessels were the most effective and efficient maritime defense strategy for the u.s. military. this is just over an hour.

>> food >> good evening. i'm c.c.felker. on behalf of superintendent vice admiral ted carr, i want to welcome those flag officers and navy senior civilian leaders escaped the beltway to join us our distinguish faculty in the indianapolis economy, and most of all our midshipmen, who are the real reason we're here tonight. i'd like to recognize lieutenant commander claude bareby for respond forring this event. he's continued the transformation of the naval academy museum to a more active educational medium for the midshipmen. tonight's debate is representative of his energy and imagination. i'd also like to thank the u.s. naval institute for live streaming this event on twitter. this debate is being followed on #carrierdebate. i'd also like to thank c-span

for being here. the importance of an informed public, especially when their security interests are concerned, cannot be overstated. george behr argued in his book "100 years of sea power" that "the navy, as with any other agency of government, is the instrument of national policy. its junior partner in every regard. and to dissociate itself from the broad national position is to dissociate itself from the source of its purpose and strength." behr's thesis is particularly relevant to tonight's debate. for the last 70 some odd years the aircraft carrier has been the centerpiece of the fleet. fast carrier task forces were instrumental in the navy and marine corps central pacific campaign of world war ii. a carrier-centric navy adapted well when hot war turned cold, expanding beyond sea control to project power ashore in conflicts from korea to iraq and providing responsiveness and sustained forward presence in ways that our sister services

could not. but implied in pehr's thesis is a cautionary note. a navy that does not constantly evaluate how well it supports national policy and what tools it ought to have to do so can distance the service from the country it serves with severe consequences to the nation's security needs. now, just to allay the fears of our midshipmen particularly our firsties who just received their first flight suits no one's losing a fleet seat tonight as a result of this debate. in fact, the opinions expressed tonight do not represent those of the naval academy, the navy, or the department of defense. but what we are doing tonight is what blue suitors, regardless of your shoe color and civilian policy experts ought to be doing. thinking about and objectively and dispassionately evaluating our mission and the ships best suited to accomplishing it. within the context of history, contemporary challenges and

threats, and future national security concerns. the resolution tonight is at the big deck nuclear aircraft carrier with its air wing is the most cost effective and efficient platform to protect power in the maritime and littoral realms and support u.s. national security interests in current and future security environments. addressing this resolution are two gentlemen who in both their active duty and post-navy careers have been directly involved in navy and national security policy issues. dr. jerry hendricks is a retired captain who deployed at a tactical officer and coordinator. he holds master's debrises from harvard and hpd from king's college in london. jerry served on the cno executive panel, the avs advisory panel, and ofd's office of assessment. following his retirement dr. hendricks joined the center for new american security as a

senior fellow and director of the defense strategies and assessments program. debating dr. hendricks is commander brian mcgrath. a career service warfare officer who commanded "uss balkly," commander mcgrath was the primary author of the 2007 maritime strategy. he is currently the managing director of the ferry bridge group defense consultancy and also serves as the assistant director of hudson institutes center for american sea power. please join me in welcoming captain hendricks and commander mcgrath. >> the rules of engagement of are as follows. eight-minute opening arguments falled by two four-minute rebuttals. each will then get an additional two-minute quick hit. then we'll wrap up the debate portion with a final two minutes for second nickels and closing remarks. we'll then use the remaining time for question and answer

session. my desire is to provide this opportunity exclusively to the midshipmen who can approach the mikes in their aisles to ask succinct questions. gentlemen, the floor is yours. >> thank you. good evening. let's get right to it. the modern u.s. aircraft carrier is large because it is flexible. it is nuclear powered because it is large. and it must be those things, because of what the nation asks this navy to do. a u.s. navy aircraft carrier or cvn must be large because much is asked of it. though known more for its pow are projection royals the carrier is central to the navy's ability to seize and hold sea control in contested areas. these twin missions in turn drive the design of the carrier's principal weapon system, the air wing. four squadrons of strike fighters and airborne early warning squadron, electronic warfare squadron, and a host of helicopters require a considerable amount of real

estate ample fuel and ordnance storage, a launching and recovery system and repair and maintenance facilities able to support multiple types of aircraft for months at a time in maritime environment. this weapons system enables strike ashore and at sea, organic situational awareness and command and control electronic warfare, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, surveillance, and search and rescue among other things. the cvn must be nuclear powered because of our nation's great distance from overseas regions which demand a ship with the endurance to operate independently for long periods of time with only limited logistic support. nuclear power allows a large deck carrier to dedicate virtually every drop of 3 million gallons of fuel to its weapons system, the air wing. without the need for large intake and exhaust trunks for

combustion, huge ordnance handling and storage facilities are accommodated. lastly, nuclear power allows the cvn to operate at high speed for great distances without refueling, which means it can be strategically repositioned without being restricted to the speed of advance of an escort ship. next, the cvn is effective because it is mobile, flexible and lethal. i've already mentioned the cvn's speed and mobility. its flexibility as a combat system is unmatched in our military arsenal. consider the "uss enterprise." cvn 65. a ship that entered service in 1962 and made her first deployment that year. her air wing then consisted of prop-diven a-1 sky raiders a-4 sky hawks, f-8 crusaders, f-4 phantoms, a-5 vigilantes and the e1b tracer. on the way home from its first mediterranean deployment the ship was vectored to join the armada gathering off of cuba.

in a demonstration of the flexibility of this weapon system, fleet ordered the deep strike vigilantes to be flown off and an additional 20 marine corps a-4s to be flown on for close air support. no additional cost. no yard period. no complex intergrace. but a major change to the weapons system made overnight. 50 years later "enterprise" deployment featuring over 2,000 combat sorties in afghanistan. on that deployment, her air wing consisted of four squadrons of f-18s and ea 6 b squadron hawkeye squadron, and numerous helicopters. in 50 years, including 27 deployments, i counted 43 different type model series of aircraft that flew off that aircraft carrier's decks. with missions as diverse as air warfare, strike anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare,

logistics, surveillance, and search and-4 one ship 57 years, 27 deployments, 43 different types of aircraft. the effectiveness of this ship revolved around its unique ability to adapt its primary weapons system the air wing, to the threats it would face. it does not do this on an ad hoc basis, it does this by design. i cannot put this any more simply. nothing we manufacture to defend our country has a better return on investment. with the ford class aircraft carrier the navy will purchase one ship every five years for 50 years. using constant dollars, the entire ten-ship class comprises less than .05% of every dollar spent on defense this those 20 years. for this we get the world's most lethal and flexionable war

machine. a sovereign air base that can move fast. its weapons system can be modified and upgraded. it is an exceptionally combat credible conventional deterrent. its presence can be as intrusive or subtle as we wish it to be. it is the most effective method of sustained power projection ever known for man. and for this we get for .05% of the defense spending. which brings me to the matter of the cvn's relevance in current and future security environments. i'll get to the current environment a little later in the debate. i'll talk about the future. the future which ordinarily people will talk about as the anti-air access and area denial period. which bring many defense analysts to a weak-kneed condition and which is the subject of much of the current debate about the relevance of the aircraft carrier. carrier critics would have us believe that only recently has

the capability of all target and engage aircraft carriers. this new found ability is at the heart of their criticism. yet such a view ignores eight decades of experience in which risks to the carrier arise only to be mitigated by the inherent flexibility of naval power in general and the aircraft carrier specifically. soviet long-range bombers and nuclear powered submarines are in super sonic maneuverable anti-ship missiles were among the last generation's carrier killing threats. the journals of the day were replete with the same arguments we see today. nevertheless, the navy became quite skilled at confounding soviet oceanic surveillance and reconnaissance. now as then the attacker must find, fix, classify, engage, and assess the target. which includes making the hardly cost-free decision to actually execute the attack. this difficult process is ripe with opportunities for

disruption or exploitation by an imaginative and resourceful defender. >> two minutes. >> the mobility of the carrier further complicates the attacker's problem. recent improvements in technology have not fundamentally changed these conditions. why carrier critics have lost faith in their nation's ability to keep solving such problems is beyond me. campaign design and operating concepts matter greatly. u.s. navy battle force should not be thought of as some kind of a charge of the light brigade deep into a contested zone at the beginning of a war. followed by the establishment of long-duration frontline sanctuaries. rather they should be conceived of as hit-and-run operations that gradually degrade an adversary's capability to fight effectively in the contested zone's out of the regions before moving into the conflict's middle zone and finally closer to their shores. no platform is more capable of

these operations and no set of capabilities would be more crucial to a combatant commander in such a conflict. thank you. >> good evening. thanks to the united states naval academy for hosting this debate. navy museum, captain felker for moderating dat bate, admirals, secretary roach. and to my good friend ryan mcgrath for debating and participating this evening. this is a debate that he and i have wanted to have for about three years now. and i'm so pleased that we have this opportunity now. first of all let me start by saying that i take second place to no one in my respect and appreciation for the aircraft carrier and its role in the success of the united states navy over the past 70 years. it has been critical. it has been the critical fulcrum upon which the success of the navy has pivoted since pearl harbor. and it was my great privilege to serve on board one super carrier

and one amphibious carrier in my active duty career. they were both awesome and overpowering in their immense immenseness and impact. however in both terms of efficiency and efficacy their day is coming to an end. we consider this evening a question as to the efficiency and efficacy of the aircraft carrier to project power in the maritime and littoral realms. this gets to the basic question that my old boss andy marshall taught me. to do what? the answer is to project power. for what purpose do we build these magnificent platforms? to project power. from this vantage point they are a great testament to our national wealth and industrial capacity. foronuñ surely no nation can build ships such as these. for steaming around, showing the flag, impressing the heck out of

the locals or launching aircraft in a permissive environment. but they are not suited for winning a war wherein someone is seriously shooting back at you. for this, they are too old in their design, too expensive in their cost, too vulnerable and we as a people are far too cautious to use them as they were intended. let me address the age of the design first. the aircraft carrier concept has been around since 1912. and the design and launching of the ford class implies that we trust that these platforms shall remain effective for another 50 years, until at least 2065 or so. so we are to believe that this concept, greatly evolved to be sure, will remain effective for 150 years. when has that happened?

the spear lasted for a millennium. the chariot lasted for 600 years. the longbow for 200. the musket for 100 years. with the battleship, the lasting rate was only less than 50 = years. in each case the enemy figured out a new method of warfare that negated the advantages of the status quo allowing the enemy to bypass the strategic advantage of the prepont rant power. it is natural for the preponder preponderant power to invest in the status quo. after all, if it ain't broke why fix it? but history demonstrates time and time again that preponderant powers that stand still suffer eventual defeat. the up and coming power always finds a way to negate advantage. secondly, let me point out the obvious issue that all of these platforms are becoming increasingly expensive. the nimitz class carrier that

dominated my lifetime and service were produced at an average cost of $5 billion a year -- or $5 billion. making them the most expensive ships the u.s. navy had ever produced up until that time. taking up to four years to build. the last of these ships, the "george h.w. bush," cost $7.6 billion to build due to its serving as a transition platform in which many new ideas associated with what was then called cvnx were tested.(b-jp r(t&háhp &hc% this platform now referred to as the ford class has come in, according to a late gao report, at $14.3 billion. representing about 85% of an annual shipbuilding budget of $16.3 billion. now, i understand that those ships are built over a five-year period. but the annual budget remains the same. in addition, the carrier strike group costs well over $6.5

million a day to operate. not an inconsiderable sum given our current fiscal environment. thirdly, the system is increasingly ineffective. as more and more resources are dedicated to defending the platform from harm. cruisers destroyers submarines that used to have offensive missions have been subsumed into an anti-culture. anti-air. anti-service. anti-submarine. with less and less room in their magazines being left for offensive missions, offensive mission loads like the tomahawk missile. more and more, the offensive mission is focused in the carrier air wing, which over time has lost the ability to strike effectively at distance especially in high-threat, anti-access, area-denial zones. which threaten to push the carrier back to an operating area of 1500 nautical miles

from land. to come inside this distance is a risk targeting. fourthly, the ships are increasingly vulnerable to targeting and attack at a distance. we all have read about how the dispatch of two aircraft carriers through the taiwan straits in 1996 have launched the chinese into a massive investment into anti-access, area-denial technologies. to include the development of the df-21d anti-carrier ballistic missile which can range out over 1,000 miles and is equipped with a maneuvering re-entry vehicle warhead that will greatly complicate targeting and defending the carrier. this new technology comes behind previously existing technologies like mines, submarines and the smm anti-ship cruise missile, which were nearing perfection. assertions that both the carrier will still be difficult to find are both questionable and irrelevant. our nation and its political

leaders have become increasingly sensitized to combat casualties and fatalities. beginning with vietnam and all the way through our recent experience in iraq and afghanistan, these experiences demonstrate that the focus has been keeping casualties and risk low. very early in my career, while i was serving on a nuclear carrier, this fact was driven home to me when a 40-year-old unlocated weapons system resulted in a decision to pull my ship off station. i remain unconvinced regardless of what our leaders might say or believe, that our nation's civilian leadership, regardless of party affiliation, will commit $14.3 billion assets and over 5,000 american lives into a threat environment where they do not have a high confidence of survivability. in that scenario we'll be depending upon the boomers anyway. in short, we as a nation have

simply become too cautious to risk something so large so expensive, and so populated as an aircraft carrier. we have created something that we cannot afford to lose. and this is something that a military should never do. it is time to move beyond the carrier to a new generation of technologies and platforms that leverage our advantages and are more in line with our strategic culture. >> commander mac dprath you have four minutes. >> thank you. i knew i would have to come armed and jerry's obviously made it even more difficult. i'd like to talk a little bit about value versus cost forrf3eñ a second. i will start by saying aircraft carriers are expensive. i get it. they're probably more expensive than they should be. i get that too. the navy the shipyard the congress, are aware of this problem and they are working it as hard as they possibly can to

get costs down. the question ultimately is, what should it cost to have the capability that i described in my opening statement? again, though value. less than .05% of all military spending throughout the course of this program to this platform. dr. hendricks mentioned that the $6.5 million a day expense associated in operating a battle group, i saw that in one of his writings, and i think that's a good -- that's the carrier the air wing the surface craft, the submarine. one carrier battle group. per day. that expense is 1.4% of the amount of money the department of defense spends every day. if you rolled that up into 12 carrier battle groups, if you had every single one of them

under way, doing what they do, 12 of them, which we don't even have right now, you're still under 15% of the total daily budget of the department of defense. value. what should it cost? what does this most effective symbol and machine bring us? let's talk about cost in context. i'll use your number. i've never heard that number before but i'll use that number, $14.8 billion to compare to other things americans buy. for instance, we spend $7.4 billion a year on halloween. $270 million of which we spend on costumes for our pets. we spent $21 billion on video games. $101 billion on significant rit $65 billion on soft drinks.

$4 billion on pet grooming. $10 billion on romance novels. and $11 billion on bottled water, which you can get from your tap. the risk. not long ago, certainly within the memory of most of the people in this room, the president of the united states sent 140,000 americans into the desert of iraq where he believed and virtually every intelligence agency of every major ally believed was an opponent who had and would use chemical and biological weapons. don't tell me we won't risk big things. we will risk big things. if the payoff is big enough. this discussion of -- he's right, we have become a bit of an anti-navy. but that i think is a legitimate

and logical outgrowth of the fall of the soviet union. we didn't have anybody to be pro for. so i know in the surface force it became particularly about defense. there's a lot of talk within the navy in general that we need to get more offensive. but for the carrier to get more offensive is an air wing issue. the carrier doesn't care what it launches and recovers. we need more range out of our air wing. like the vigilantes that we had in the 1962 air wing that i discussed earlier. perhaps a little more stealthy, though. at the end of the day, fixing the air wing and buying back range is an air wing issue. the aircraft carrier will continue to have the dominant role in power projection and sea control, which is something dr. hendricks didn't fixate on.

sea control. our carriers at one point when there were threats to sea control, were centers of sea control, anti-surface warfare anti-submarine warfare. when that threat went away they devalued it. the air wing won't be able to devalue it anymore and it will have to develop those skills again. >> very nice. i enjoyed particularly the comments about halloween costumes for pets. but i think that perhaps we diminish the fiscal challenge a bit too much. looking at our defense spending vis-a-vis our gdp is not quite the right way to look at it unless we look at it in the long-term. we as a nation have $18 trillion in accumulated debt. $92 trillion in unfunded liabilities. this works out to about $800,000 per taxpayer.

our national credit rating has been lowered twice due to our inability to address our budgetary shortfalls. and so there is no automatic response that we must simply spend more to be able to buy the fleet or the military that we might all wish and desire for. no less authority than former chairman of the joint chiefs admiral michael mullen has stated that the largest threat the united states national security is our own debt. and so we have to look very seriously at costs and make sure that there is a true return on value for the american citizen. and what is that value? i get it that the carrier is the most impressive symbol of our nation. and i've heard the discussions about the president asking where are the carriers? i still try to find those quotes in the the presidential papers. but i hear that the president is always asking about the carriers. so what is the value of

symbology? what is the value we attach to the carrier? is it, as i've stated in my writings, if we assign a value to the carrier of 1.0 in presence and symbology power then what is the value of other ships in-3z can we state that it's .2? because i can buy six berks for one aircraft carrier. can i make that up and grow my fleet? because surely this is one of the biggest challenges facing us. we're looking at a fleet today that we're trying to get above 300. but our numbers keep going down. we decided to increase the retirements of the ff gs from seven this year to 10. we gave up three numbers there we need to provide naval presence. so we have to come to grips with what value do we assign to symbology and is it worth it? i get also what you're saying about, we will risk these things if it's important enough. well, i would submit to you that it better be an existential

threat to the survival of the united states before i take $14.3 billion and 5,200 american lives and sail it in there. because i think the president and the sit room's going to say, how sure are you about that, admiral? if we can't tell him that we're very sure i think you're going to be surprised by the answer. the air wing argument. the argument that what needs to be fixed on the carrier is the air wing is not new. in fact, it's been around since the mid 1990s when the demise of the a-12 replacement program for the a-6 happened. radically altering the very essence of naval aviation. with the a-6 and a-12 on the deck, the navy had a capability to go deep. 1,000 nautical miles unrefueled with a heavy bomb load. the cancelation of the a-12 and retirement of the a-6 reduced the air wing to the capabilities of the hornet which was purchased to replace the f-4 and a-7 light attack aircraft reducing the carrier's range

from 900 nautical miles to around 400 newt call miles, again refueled. i know we can get into enf arguments and tanking but the fact is we've lost a lot of organic tanking as well. the navy has had numerous opportunities to explore long range strike, to remain relevant today in the anti-access area the navy would have to field a flat worm that could take off, tank, fly up to 1,700 naught ral miles, evade, hit the target come back out, tank, and then recover. that's about a 10 to 12-hour flight profile. and taking place within an enclosed cockpit ejection seat cockpit, which is outside of the ten-hour human endurance parameters that we normally deal with. we've flown up to 14 hours, we found out it's not a real safe environment. such a mission would be pest completed by an unmanned combat aerial vehicle capable of carrying a significant bomb load, tanking autonomously penetrating a dense surface to

air threat envelope. but we have -- naval aviation has consistently avoided this solution, and in fact with the conversation between u-class and u-cav we wanted to go isr as opposed to a deep penetrating strike asset. hopefully that conversation is still open. it seems the priority now to go after faxx which appears to be a manned aircraft which we're still limiting the strike potential of the carrier going into the future. so absent a significant modification of air wing again, i come back to my argument that the carrier's relevance is shrinking. and that we need to invest in the types of platforms that can have volume strike from perhaps a submerged environment where we still own the advantage. >> commander mcgrath, you have two minutes. >> great, thank you. i think my opponent just agreed with me on the air wing being the problem. we need to buy back range. and i know the navy is working on that.

and both manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft are under review. this whole problem of stealth plus payload plus range is a difficult one. but again, i'm the guy that says we solve difficult problems and i think we can still companyñú

audience in norfolk from the middle of june until 7 august, 54 days, the george h.w. bush was the only available strike platform we had that could do anything relevant in iraq and syria. 54 days. that's not a symbol.< 2. that's effectiveness. that's a fact. i think that the unmannedú6hñ aviation, especially unmanned strike, will give the aircraft carrierz/úg÷ decades more relevance than the five, 9wp it has now. i can't even imagine the power of an aircraft carrier built from the keel up to launch

unmanned strike vehicles. it will be like that big spaceship in "independence day." just disgorging strike ,c vehicles that come back, land, getú on an assembly line, grease, fuel bomb, mission, shoot them back it the other end.uwm i can't even imagine the power that can be generated from an aircraft carrier with unmanned aviation. thank you. >> there's a lot that he coveredcq there in just a very few minutes, my i want tom1/ talk first about our ability to confound targeting. we talk about andagb into certain things but the idea of being able to hide thesem)ñ things in the vast reaches of the ocean. the fact of the matter is as technology continues to evolve, one of the stories i was#&6 9 on today desperately trying to get ready for my able foe, a story about a navy astronaut in the space station who looked

down from 150 miles up and spotted a carrier sailingsú"=z across the pacific. small. but he saw it. and he checked to find out which one it was.qzyjñ and it was one of his carriers that he had sailed on. who do we think has satellites parked in geosynchronous in orbit over the pacific? how confidentl2f>ç are we that we catm remain hidden? i know that we test going back into mission controls to hide our electronic signature. but the fact of the matter is, it's still four and a half acres of sovereign territory, as we like to say. we talk about moving fast. and carriers can go fast. i've been on them, and boy it feels great when you're2f÷y really thudding = long. but missiles go faster.]úvnb we live in a missile age. and if you're targeted, they know where you're at and it's going to be very difficult to defend yourself. we can empty our magazines on all of the y surface blass tick

missile, defense missiles that accompany a carrier in under three and a half minutes in a dense attack formation. talk about this,s(& being out there. the last major combatant operation that the navy participated in i believe was libya. and there was no carriers 5 "hthere. there was a light amphibious character, then there was an ohio-class ssgn that disgorged about 122= now, i'm not saying that the carrier wouldn't have been useful in that. but what i amy ÷ saying is there's new range ofby technology that acts in a submerged and stealthy way that can deliver precision strike with volume.6 i don't think that we exist in a time when again the carrier has the opportunity to dash in launch an attack, and run away. i think it's time that we comebíyt present but with the future.

because trend analysis definitely suggests that we're heading intok)k!led waters. >> gentlemen you havew4lrtq@ two minutes for secondm3rd nickels ando closing remarks. commander mcgrath. >> i would be remiss if i didn't thank claude bareby and everyone else associated with this event in this magnificent room tonight to include captain felker and of course my friend jerry. as i stand here i am struck by how only one of two things can be true. either for decades naval architects, engineers, cost analysts and operational analysts have rigorously analyzed the requirements derived from,2b national tasking and the capabilities by an evolving threat and reached the same consistent conclusions in study after study, studies that jerry may not agree with, but%óg$ that bigger is better and nuclear is better than conventional.

or that there has been a decades-long conspiracy of4:6y da vinci code-grade at the highest levels of the nefarious military industrial complex to silence the truth of the goodness of the small carrier. iñ>j(ñ tend to believe the former. i5úv tend to believe that the super carrier remains what we should # be building our navy around. and the greatest threat to those who would do us ill. i leave you with this. world leadership is a choice. sea power is a choice. and decline is a choice. the day may come when we asc v a nation collectively decide to pull back from the world and from our widely dispersed interests. when we look upon the one capability that sets this nation'súhñ navy apart as a+e xuu% rather than a necessity. when we lose faith in our collective abilityjctq to overcome

the next generation of technological threats to our maritime dominance. but i hope that this is not that day. thank you. >> thank you brian. thank you, claude. thank you, c.c. i'd like to end by talking about how we should assess our strategic position. assessment is@odlváñ about cost comparisons or trying to find methods of

ouóyzw to about $13.5 million per piece of ordnance that comes off from it. that's baladupon analysis of ordnance expended over the last 14 years. that's real money. especially when compared to a tomahawk cruise missile which costs about $1.4 million apiece. then there are opportunity costs. when president and general of the army dwight eisenhower] described the cost of a new bomber in the 1950s he poi6jp8ñ out that the nation could build 200 schools with that money.nyñ now, i won't get into that type of exchange. but i will say that forlúbe the price of one ford class aircraft carrier,dpç we could build two ohio class 2e strategic deterrence of our nation, or=ef six garally berk class destroyers to provide ballistic missile defense, 24 littoral combat ships to providem÷ global presence and freedom of navigation and free trade

patrols. we make a real choice to shrink the size of our navy every time we choose to spend d!ke billion on one carrier. especially with the full knowledge that our annual shipbuilding budget is only $16.3 billion. there is also a strategic cost in remaining wedded to the past. we say that the carrier can evolve. but its evolution is shore% @r(t&háhp &hc% slower than thate/%dof our enemies. when we decide not to invest in/o the armed unmanned autonomousw siuáems that would revitalize and modernize our carrier air future security environment, we give both our range and'%fíç our bearing to our competitors. based upon these arguments and more i regretfully say, as admirer of the carrier and all that it has done for our navy and nation, that1d is no longer either effective nor efficient in its primary task of fighting in a high-threat environment. we should cease construction ride the inventory down over time, and begin investing in a

submerged arsenal that can operate inyf8 an anti-access, area-denial environment, and take back the strategic initiative.e.&ra8o >> we have about 30 minutes for questions. the mikes are open for the /cj%shipmen. please, we'll start with you. if there's any time left then i'll open it up to the audience. mr. meyers. >> first class eric meyers. gentlemen, you both seem to be at loggerheads as to whether the carriers are defensible. can you elaborate why orb2f why not you think the carriers are capable of defending themselves against area of denial missiles? >> want me to start? >> yeah. >> i think the carrier is capable if it fights as a combat system with the rest of the battle group and with the rest

of the joint architecture that we fight as today. again, we're not sending the aircraft carriers in there all by itself to take the hit. the aircraft carrier has an air wing that has the ability to 1"pcf1 o survey the area around it, to kill ships and submarines that could threaten it. it has escorts that have the ability to do similar things and that in a systemic mannere the same ends. you have an isr complex in space and in the -- in a terrestrial isr thatn situational awareness necessary for the aircraft carrier to know those threats are coming and to act against them. 6rp:4>s the concept i will grant you thatv3nrthe technology is advancing to the point where you can -- a determined $kr adversary from land

might be able to findvz)ñh an aircraft carrier at range.gúa the problem is, there's lots of other ships using the same air waes. osp determining that is difficult if we go back to the sameéskim admissions control which is something we only recently have started to do again. but there was -- there is an element of risk. i can't stand here and say to you ts# impervious. of course not. what i can say to you that i am confident in the systems are there to protect it, the systems thatb & has those to kill those who would hazard it and to provide it with even better counters.lk+ >> so i would reply that this is -- this is a math equation. ÷6áj!

át fact of the matter is that the enemy can buildu-cé a weapons piece.0kñs! a carrier deploys with 96 cells on the destroyers. a low[3,d down with 36 missiles and pretty soon we find out ifkl;ñ even a light c upon initial dedex e text, that we will go win which he sayser on our defensive capableties in the first 3 1/2 minutes of the exchange. question. whether or not we have our airway in range to have an question. and then the other question is are you going to get the61> leadership's endorsement to try this mission to be able to go in there. mm c 4x6v&@vv,p zv

>> it's not difficult to spot if it's being undisciplined in the way that it operates. and, for that matter, even the manner in which it steams and how it steams in formation also is a give away. most commercial ships steam at about 14 1/2 knots. the carrier doesn't. @drkvu÷jm p> and i have some serious doubts about whether or not to push that in that environment.u >> can i have a comment about >> i'm a history may juror.

put this figure 13 $1/2 million that jerry talksknñ about which are dropped over the last 14 years.#r4r(t&háhp &hc% he wraps the live cycle into each bomb.y and then he=. hawk at $1.4 plilmillion but doesn't siet the life cycle itrh6zá$ @r(t&háhp &hc% figure.0di3o cf1 o the": 5+d/>[ 6ílñe$(ms+p sometimes bites is that this discussion of how many -- how many missiles that determined opponentx2py÷]0 ñ could build for the cost one of our carriers. it's ankny statistic, but those missiles are kind of useless without satellite constellations. without isr ground isr stations, without an extensive ?bá] networking system connecting these nodes. without operation centers.

so there's a certain amount of cost that goes into the del÷b8 ng of that weapon that gets forgotten about when we do that math.áby >> the question, dr. herks, ndrix. you spoke previously about the ohio class, about the submerged arsenal. but if the carriers were to be mixed, what do you u] preplace them and how would their mission be fulfilled in their absence. >> so we're getting ready toc%q try to field the ohio class replacement. it's coming in with an estimated of about 6.6$6.6 billion a copy with somest estimates around sç the original are actually the first four of the original ohio class that do the treaty limitations.3fqv&#bámf™h

>> what i would suggest that if they made the decision to ceasee construction of the ford class after the four that we would convert our build in. >> >> the point if the united states wished to replicate its 1996 actions of sailing in between taiwan and china, what's your confidence that the united states would have the)$ same effectiveness in doing so within the next decade?

>> i hate -- there's two parts. do we have the capability of doing it? heck, yeah. we could do that. the question, though, would it be a smart geopolitical mooif to make? one of the reasons in my view that the pla,navy, has built itself into the force that it is was that 1996 taiwan strait issue. i think it was a wake up call to the wf1ñpla andh that we could operate with impunity in their front yard. could we do it? yes. would it be wise? probably not.h5 >> there's also another point it's more likely that we would do it now than in ten years. two reasons.+(kw one, we're going to be in a different placo@4ñgeostrategically at that point in time. they'll also be in adifferent place at that point in time. so much analysts believe that probably the point ofa4huá

i won't use the word max numb danger, but china's coming up is right before they get old. they have some challenges that are coming. andgtç7+b@y sort of that critical juncture point with them is around the 2025 time frame. so if they haven't established themselves as a great power in control of t(+2"z sphere of influence at that time, they're not going to. and it also calls into question the stability of the communist barty as the ruling party in china. and so we get closer to that point, there's going to be a greaty 3ñ elseer sensitivity to operating with impunity in their backyard. y#o there's a scale an exponential scale. dq÷ right now, we're in a stronger position.hqíu by that point in time, they'll be desperate to demonstrate that thinker the strongest nation in that region and that particular geographic spot. so that would have higher consequences as we get closer to that time frame. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> yeah, they don't have to --

the chinese don't have to build a navy that's bigger and better than ours. it's just got to be bigger and/j better than what we can put in their front yard. >> second class for the alternative that you propose with the submarines how does that work with the other missions that the carriers and the carriers strike manages such as the humanitarian effort. certainly, our navy is not only an offensive force. would you, from my understanding of your proposition, that's the primary thing of the subs. so how do you propose that would work rk sir? >> its's funny you use the disaster response also pekts of this. the carrier is actually not the ideal plat forms to do hddr migszs.ñ6a generally, thei-f platform that's most-desired is the amphibs to have a deck that they can off load and float them into harbors as well as they have a large helicopter fleet that's got heavy lift capability that can mooif things./0y one of the things we saw in

haiti, we did respond to an aircraft carrier in haiti.pccuñv> thank you, sir. >> can i talk about economy? >> sur!y.b >> one of our commonf510 heroes is --9n yes.>

and general/presidentize hour. awe f34áuhr think weg]ñ have a sliegtsly different view. and i'll speak for jerry for just a second because i'm allowed to right now. i think jerry really respectedsi4kw president eisenhower because of this view that he economized.u?hçk as he looked at the -- what we were spending inp &% military and he achiefed economies, more bang for the buck and i think he'd like to see us do that. and we'd all like to see thamhx what i saw from eisenhower was prioritization.q@ñ the u.s. air force got 49% of the defense budget in 1958, 47%. he prioritized. all right.c i'd like to see some of that prioritization go on today. and that's an argument i'd love to have.