By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, July 31, 2015 – Looking back on a 37-year
career, Navy Adm. James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld Jr., says he “would do it again in
a heartbeat.”
The ninth vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired
today. As the day approached, he spoke about his experiences as the military’s
second-highest-ranking officer.
Budget concerns dominated Winnefeld’s four-year term. He
spent much of his time battling for more resources during an era of budget
cuts.
He took office Aug. 4, 2011 -- two days after the Budget
Control Act became law. A naval aviator, he flew F-14 Tomcats and commanded at
every level from squadron to combatant command. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva
succeeds Winnefeld, and will now take up the budget battle.
The vice chairman serves as the chairman in the chairman’s
absence and has portfolios all his own. Those break down to investment,
strategy and policy and people, the admiral said, adding that they must all be
in balance for a healthy military.
Budget Control Act Generated New Challenges
The Budget Control Act threw the system off-kilter, he said.
“Whenever you ask a large organization to either not grow as fast as it thought
it was going to grow or actually shrink as far as its resources go, it’s a
tremendous internal and external challenge,” the admiral said.
The external challenge is making sure the public and members
of Congress know exactly how these changes affect the military’s mission to
protect the national security interests of the United States, he said.
Internally, the challenge is to “marshal your creativity and
keep people out of denial,” Winnefeld said, “and actually try to get something
done where you can rebalance this portfolio so that we can defend the national
security interests of the country as well as we can with the means that we’re
granted.”
The military will continue to look for ways to save
resources, either by cutting ineffectual programs or finding new ways to employ
forces and equipment, he said. And, Winnefeld said, he and the rest of the
Joint Chiefs will continue to stress that any forces sent into harm’s way will
have the training, equipment and leadership needed to get the mission done.
But military readiness has suffered under the Budget Control
Act and sequestration, the admiral acknowledged.
“I have a saying that ‘Readiness has no constituency,’ and
it’s really true,” Winnefeld said. Saving force structure at the expense of
readiness hollows out the force, he said.
“The services early on in this kind of process will say, …
if we have to get smaller, we’re going to stay ready,” he said. “But when it
comes to jumping off that cliff of actually cutting force structure, it’s very
hard for them to bring themselves to do that.”
Cuts Worry Troops, Impact Strategy
Many leaders say it is easier to build readiness than it is
to recover force structure. But these cuts have a deeper effect, Winnefeld
said.
“When the money goes away and you’re not flying anymore, it
hurts morale, it hurts retention, it hurts your ability to go off and fight
quickly if you need to be able to fight,” he said. The services can recover
over time and with a lot of money, the admiral said, but it is difficult to
climb out of the readiness hole.
With already announced personnel cuts, many service members
are worried that they will pay the price with longer and more frequent
deployments, Winnefeld said. That concern is echoed by senior military and
civilian leaders, he added.
“There have been a couple of instances lately … where we’ve
come to the conclusion that … we have to do less,” the admiral said.
Winnefeld said that the military’s senior leaders understand
that budgetary issues will force them to adjust missions.
“When we’ve gone over to the White House and explained that,
when we’ve gone upstairs to the secretary of defense and explained that, they
always ask a lot of questions,” he said.
“They want to make sure that our facts are right and that
sort of thing. But they’ve never once pushed back and said, ‘No, I understand
that this is going to be harder on your people, but you just have to do it.’
They’ve never said that.”
Sometimes, it is the military ethos that causes the
problems. “Part of it is we’ve got such a can-do ethic around here that we
don’t want to say we can do less,” the vice chairman said. “That’s part of the
battle.”
It takes money and resources to fulfill a strategy --
particularly in terms of operational tempo, he said. “At some point we’re just
going to have to say I’m sorry, we can’t do this one thing,” he said. “We’re
going to have to trim back.”
This may mean fewer intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance patrols, Winnefeld said. It may mean reducing the Navy’s forward
presence, he said, or it may mean fewer Patriot batteries.
“Every service feels this,” he said. “We’re going to have to
be willing to stand up and say we’re going to have to do less with less. And we
can -- and I’ve never had pushback on that,” the admiral said.
Respect for Those Who Serve
Winnefeld and his wife are champions of service members and
their families, especially of wounded warriors. “These are young men and young
women who have raised their right hand, volunteered,” he said.
“They went in and they got hurt serving their country,” the
admiral said. “And we owe everything we can to try to do the best we can for
these warriors and their caregivers and their families to make sure that we
take care of the ones who have given more than the average in the service of their
country. It’s a moral obligation that we have, and it’s going to be with us for
decades.”
Winnefeld said he wants the military to remain one of the
most respected entities in America.
“The most important thing that we can do is maintain the
trust of the American people,” he said. “It means, first of all, your own
personal integrity and always doing the difficult right thing rather than the
easy wrong, and purging it from our ranks when we find people who don’t get
that.”
It also means being competent, the admiral said. “What that
means is working hard, going the extra mile to learn your job, taking care of
your people, making sure you can execute the mission, and just being dead-set
dedicated to the mission that you’re on,” Winnefeld said.
He says that when he asks young service members if they want
to trade places with him, none take him up. “It’s a delight to see these young
millennials coming in, and they’re so smart, and they’re better than we ever
were, and capable,” he said.
“They want to serve,” he said. “They want to do something
important. For all the challenges that we deal with every day, seeing those
young people come in just gives you all the faith in the world that we’re going
to be OK.”
An Unexpected Career
Winnefeld has had a plethora of experiences in his 37-year
Navy career. He flew off the wing of a Soviet Tu-95 Bear bomber right after a
Sukhoi Su-15 shot down a Korean Air Lines 747 passenger jet and killed all 269
passengers and crew. It was one of the tensest moments of the Cold War,
Winnefeld said.
While serving as an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons
School, he worked on the 1986 movie “Top Gun,” and later flew combat missions
during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
As commander of the USS Enterprise on 9/11, he ordered the
carrier -- then completing a deployment -- to turn around and head back to the
Arabian Gulf. The ship was in position to launch some of the first strikes
against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He went on to command U.S. Northern Command
before his selection as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
When he graduated from Georgia Tech’s Navy ROTC program, he
had no plan “other than to be a fighter pilot and take it from there,” he said.
“I almost left the Navy when I was young. I was in this sort
of two-month window when I had to decide whether to take a bonus or leave. But
I knew I was going to miss the people and I was going to miss the mission and
the excitement, and so I decided to stick around.
“And it’s just gotten more and more interesting every year
that I’ve been in,” he continued, “and it’s just a wonderful life. I’d do it
over again in a heartbeat.”
By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, July 31, 2015 – Looking back on a 37-year
career, Navy Adm. James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld Jr., says he “would do it again in
a heartbeat.”
The ninth vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired
today. As the day approached, he spoke about his experiences as the military’s
second-highest-ranking officer.
Budget concerns dominated Winnefeld’s four-year term. He
spent much of his time battling for more resources during an era of budget
cuts.
He took office Aug. 4, 2011 -- two days after the Budget
Control Act became law. A naval aviator, he flew F-14 Tomcats and commanded at
every level from squadron to combatant command. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva
succeeds Winnefeld, and will now take up the budget battle.
The vice chairman serves as the chairman in the chairman’s
absence and has portfolios all his own. Those break down to investment,
strategy and policy and people, the admiral said, adding that they must all be
in balance for a healthy military.
Budget Control Act Generated New Challenges
The Budget Control Act threw the system off-kilter, he said.
“Whenever you ask a large organization to either not grow as fast as it thought
it was going to grow or actually shrink as far as its resources go, it’s a
tremendous internal and external challenge,” the admiral said.
The external challenge is making sure the public and members
of Congress know exactly how these changes affect the military’s mission to
protect the national security interests of the United States, he said.
Internally, the challenge is to “marshal your creativity and
keep people out of denial,” Winnefeld said, “and actually try to get something
done where you can rebalance this portfolio so that we can defend the national
security interests of the country as well as we can with the means that we’re
granted.”
The military will continue to look for ways to save
resources, either by cutting ineffectual programs or finding new ways to employ
forces and equipment, he said. And, Winnefeld said, he and the rest of the
Joint Chiefs will continue to stress that any forces sent into harm’s way will
have the training, equipment and leadership needed to get the mission done.
But military readiness has suffered under the Budget Control
Act and sequestration, the admiral acknowledged.
“I have a saying that ‘Readiness has no constituency,’ and
it’s really true,” Winnefeld said. Saving force structure at the expense of
readiness hollows out the force, he said.
“The services early on in this kind of process will say, …
if we have to get smaller, we’re going to stay ready,” he said. “But when it
comes to jumping off that cliff of actually cutting force structure, it’s very
hard for them to bring themselves to do that.”
Cuts Worry Troops, Impact Strategy
Many leaders say it is easier to build readiness than it is
to recover force structure. But these cuts have a deeper effect, Winnefeld
said.
“When the money goes away and you’re not flying anymore, it
hurts morale, it hurts retention, it hurts your ability to go off and fight
quickly if you need to be able to fight,” he said. The services can recover
over time and with a lot of money, the admiral said, but it is difficult to
climb out of the readiness hole.
With already announced personnel cuts, many service members
are worried that they will pay the price with longer and more frequent
deployments, Winnefeld said. That concern is echoed by senior military and
civilian leaders, he added.
“There have been a couple of instances lately … where we’ve
come to the conclusion that … we have to do less,” the admiral said.
Winnefeld said that the military’s senior leaders understand
that budgetary issues will force them to adjust missions.
“When we’ve gone over to the White House and explained that,
when we’ve gone upstairs to the secretary of defense and explained that, they
always ask a lot of questions,” he said.
“They want to make sure that our facts are right and that
sort of thing. But they’ve never once pushed back and said, ‘No, I understand
that this is going to be harder on your people, but you just have to do it.’
They’ve never said that.”
Sometimes, it is the military ethos that causes the
problems. “Part of it is we’ve got such a can-do ethic around here that we
don’t want to say we can do less,” the vice chairman said. “That’s part of the
battle.”
It takes money and resources to fulfill a strategy --
particularly in terms of operational tempo, he said. “At some point we’re just
going to have to say I’m sorry, we can’t do this one thing,” he said. “We’re
going to have to trim back.”
This may mean fewer intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance patrols, Winnefeld said. It may mean reducing the Navy’s forward
presence, he said, or it may mean fewer Patriot batteries.
“Every service feels this,” he said. “We’re going to have to
be willing to stand up and say we’re going to have to do less with less. And we
can -- and I’ve never had pushback on that,” the admiral said.
Respect for Those Who Serve
Winnefeld and his wife are champions of service members and
their families, especially of wounded warriors. “These are young men and young
women who have raised their right hand, volunteered,” he said.
“They went in and they got hurt serving their country,” the
admiral said. “And we owe everything we can to try to do the best we can for
these warriors and their caregivers and their families to make sure that we
take care of the ones who have given more than the average in the service of their
country. It’s a moral obligation that we have, and it’s going to be with us for
decades.”
Winnefeld said he wants the military to remain one of the
most respected entities in America.
“The most important thing that we can do is maintain the
trust of the American people,” he said. “It means, first of all, your own
personal integrity and always doing the difficult right thing rather than the
easy wrong, and purging it from our ranks when we find people who don’t get
that.”
It also means being competent, the admiral said. “What that
means is working hard, going the extra mile to learn your job, taking care of
your people, making sure you can execute the mission, and just being dead-set
dedicated to the mission that you’re on,” Winnefeld said.
He says that when he asks young service members if they want
to trade places with him, none take him up. “It’s a delight to see these young
millennials coming in, and they’re so smart, and they’re better than we ever
were, and capable,” he said.
“They want to serve,” he said. “They want to do something
important. For all the challenges that we deal with every day, seeing those
young people come in just gives you all the faith in the world that we’re going
to be OK.”
An Unexpected Career
Winnefeld has had a plethora of experiences in his 37-year
Navy career. He flew off the wing of a Soviet Tu-95 Bear bomber right after a
Sukhoi Su-15 shot down a Korean Air Lines 747 passenger jet and killed all 269
passengers and crew. It was one of the tensest moments of the Cold War,
Winnefeld said.
While serving as an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons
School, he worked on the 1986 movie “Top Gun,” and later flew combat missions
during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
As commander of the USS Enterprise on 9/11, he ordered the
carrier -- then completing a deployment -- to turn around and head back to the
Arabian Gulf. The ship was in position to launch some of the first strikes
against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He went on to command U.S. Northern Command
before his selection as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
When he graduated from Georgia Tech’s Navy ROTC program, he
had no plan “other than to be a fighter pilot and take it from there,” he said.
“I almost left the Navy when I was young. I was in this sort
of two-month window when I had to decide whether to take a bonus or leave. But
I knew I was going to miss the people and I was going to miss the mission and
the excitement, and so I decided to stick around.
“And it’s just gotten more and more interesting every year
that I’ve been in,” he continued, “and it’s just a wonderful life. I’d do it
over again in a heartbeat.”
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