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Fleet Week New York provides an opportunity for the citizens of the Tri-State area to meet the Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen as well as witness firsthand the strength, lethality, and instruments of national power that we can bring to bear anytime, anyplace, swiftly and silently – whew! Perhaps a drop mic moment that should bring pride to everyone in this room.
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But, we cannot achieve that level of operational effectiveness without the support of great Americans like New Yorkers, as well as our family and friends.
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My Boss, and our 33rd Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti and I are working every day to get after her three tenets of Warfighting, Warfighters, and the Foundation that supports them.
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Tonight’s reception and the theme of this week is “Celebrating Those Who Serve.”
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So, James, most importantly, thank you for giving the Commanding Officers of the participating units of the 36th Fleet Week New York an opportunity to be recognized and to celebrate the eye-watering work their Sailors and Marines have done to make this week so successful!
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That theme falls into that second, bucket – celebrating Warfighters! That is what we are, but we are so much more than that.
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Our teams are so special, like the Sailors and Marines onboard U-S-S BATAAN, who recently returned from over an eight month deployment, where they stood ready to provide interdiction, sea control, and non-combatant evacuations of innocent civilians. Put that timeframe into perspective, that is from now until Groundhog Day in February 2025.
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And tonight … right now … we have our ships and Sailors standing watch in the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Arabian Gulf. The Iranian backed Houthis are making every effort to shutdown international maritime shipping, to attack vulnerable merchant ships, to influence the region’s flow of commerce. Following the Hamas attacks into Israel, Iran has launched Ballistic Missiles into Israel.
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But since October, our team has been doing an extraordinary job of shooting down those missiles down, launching aircraft to remove RADAR sites and taking out U-A-V platforms while keeping the lifeblood of the global market flowing through those vital commercial commons.
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Our Sailors are able to do that because they know their families are being taken care of here at home.
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That is where that third line of effort comes into play – The Foundation that Supports Us.
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It is organizations like the Navy League, and our principal sponsor tonight, Huntington Ingalls Industries, that make our teams stronger – delivering the world’s most powerful ships and technologies that safeguard our seas, sky, land, space and cyber. This foundation creates unbridled overmatch for the Fleet – your Fleet – to protect peace and freedom around the world.
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So, I want to thank you for everything you do, and for welcoming your Fleet back to New York City! For this year’s Fleet Week, we have over 2,300 Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen.
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They hail from across the country, each with different backgrounds and experiences – but they share the common virtues of honor, courage, commitment, and devotion to duty that called them to serve.
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And just like the intrepid spirit and grit of the people of New York, there is nothing these young men and women can’t do, nothing that they can’t accomplish.
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New Yorkers and our service members share that legacy, that ‘knife in the teeth’ toughness, that laid the foundation for where we are today.
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I want to share with you the story of one in particular, Corporal Jason Dunham, a Medal of Honor recipient and namesake of the U-S-S JASON DUNHAM Guided Missile Destroyer from the great state of New York.
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Now, everyone on the planet knows Marines are tough, but let me tell you, Corporal Dunham is in a class of his own. He enlisted in July 2000 just weeks after graduating high school. His first duty station was guarding Naval Submarine Base in Kings Bay, Georgia but the Marines knew he was destined for the Infantry.
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He made the transition and deployed to Iraq in early 2004. He was leading a Rifle Squad in a small town in Iraq when gunfire broke out and his team came under enemy fire. Upon seeing Insurgents attempting to flee, his team engaged.
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An Insurgent leapt out of the vehicle, where Corporal Dunham wrestled him to the ground, and in that process, the Insurgent released a live grenade.
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Without any hesitation or regard for his own safety, Jason Dunham warned his fellow Marines then dove on the grenade taking the full blast, and later succumbing to his grave wounds while saving the lives of his Marines.
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Ladies and gentlemen, there are people under your charge, and right here in your city, ready to do that, ready to take those types of risks, ready to put team before self. What fine company we hold!
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Every day, I see and experience the same toughness, persistency, and tenacity reflected in our service members across the nation.
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It’s important to understand that Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are not born – they are forged, forged by the call of service, shaped by their environments growing up, underwritten by their sworn obligation to defend our Constitution and way of life – something I think this group in particular understands and fully appreciates.
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Each and every one of them you meet this week is shaped and strengthened into a more capable version of themselves by virtue of their service and by all those who have gone before them – people like Corporal Dunham.
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And so, I encourage you to talk to them tonight and in your travels around town – you will walk away prouder with your head held high knowing that your sea services – your Fleet is and will remain, ready to fight and win. They truly bring all the metal you have seen this week to life.
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I think I can speak for everyone when I say once again – thank you for welcoming your Fleet back to New York, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for the staunch support of our nation’s Armed Forces.
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Thank you.