my name is lewis loeven and i'm the executive director of the san francisco fleet week association and what a great fleet week we're going to have for 2012. thank you. this is the second time we've had the uss macon islands and i want to thank captain pringle and his entire crew. what a great ship and what a great crew. they turned this swear hanger deck around all right night and turned it into a conference room and it looks absolutely beautiful. thank you, captain, and your entire crew. i'm going to make this short because we're already running a little bit behind schedule, but san francisco fleet week for the third year is organized with i object credible participation from city, civilian agencies from all around the region and all of us our fabulous united states military, the coast guard has been fabulous in providing assets to protect everybody out on the bay. it is one heck of a logistics program to get this whole program started and here we are the culmination of nearly a year of planning. we've had exercises, we've had lots of meetings down in san francisco up at the marines m

couldn't take place without all of the heavy lifting and hard work done by the san francisco fleet week association. so, thank you to general myatt for your vision. this is your three of not only the celebration events, but what you spoke to earlier. also the executive director of the fleet week association lewis lubin. thank you very much. (applause) >> i've had the pleasure of serving in the san francisco fire department for 22 years. it will benign years in nine since i stepped up and took the role of chief of the department. i continue to be proud of that. and i can say which i said earlier in the week, the coordination and the collaboration only gets better each year that we do this. and i'd also like to acknowledge the department of emergency management and all of her staff for coordinating so seamlessly with the fleet week association in addition to all of the other events that we have that's going on this week. so, thank you to our department of emergency management. (applause) >> as we discussed, it is so important to not only build relationships, but to strengthen them. and that is exactl

we have built san francisco fleet week and its associated exercises into our training continuum, and we'll continue to do so into the future. this will give us several milestones on our calendar that will get our heads back into this very complex arena. so, we certainly understand that. i think we're going to be seeing guidance coming from the secretary of the defense in the next couple of years that will elevate this in terms of our responsibilities and mission sets. so, we're in the process of laying the groundwork for that right now at camp pendleton. >> ann? >> just to build on what general spiese said, fleet week, this used to be or started as a one-week event, is now really -- goes year round. and, so, the relationships we're building, it's not just for this week. you know, we're building trust. we're building -- we're building that kind of knowledge of each other's capabilities, of our competencies that we will continue to exercise throughout the yearses. so, i think that's a very important point to make, that fleet week is not just one week, but these relationships are ongoin

we got a phone call at the fleet week association to ask if we could help bring together some resources and leet a fact-finding mission and we did that. one of our panelists is up here, second from your left, rob dudgeon, he's with the department of emergency management and he's the director of emergency services. rob's organization has been instrumental in creating the program that we have from back in 2010 all the way through to today and i know in the future we're already talking about putting together a hot wash of everything we've learned through 2012's fleet week. so rob is going to talk about the van, turkey mission. from turkey we have rear admiral guereva he has more than 14 years sea-going experience serving across various frigates. he assumed command of the suband joint command, chilean joint chief. he has been promoted to the rank of rear admiral. nita demato, serving as a major, she actually has a dual career. as a reservist she's also a professional educator and she's currently serving as a congressional fellow in the office of bob casy of pennsylvania focusing on the appr

i'd like to thank the san francisco fleet week association, lewis loeven, specifically, major general myat, always a mentor, former secretary of state schultz and mrs. schultz, mrs. perry, honored to be in your presence. the uss makin island, chief of the fairest city in the world, san francisco, and he esteemed professionals. this is nice, i'm going to move south of here and take you to afghanistan. as you know we have marines, soldiers, sailors in afghanistan currently, but i'm going to bring you to when i was there during 2010 and 2011 after the president decided to surge the forces. first marine decision, first marine expeditionary force forward entered southwest afghanistan during 2009. we arrived in 2010 so it was a bit more stable. and we went straight to helman and nimruz province. very complex dynamic environment that we were operating in but before i begin it talk to you about the operational picture, i just want to give you a snapshot of afghanistan. when we got there i want to set the frame here so you understand what we're dealing with. afghanistan ranged 180th out of 1 8