Admiral Jerry C. Breast's Speech-2005 FID REUNION, Franklin, TN 8/27/05


REAR ADMIRAL JERRY C. BREAST, USN (Ret)

Speech Given at the
USS FORRESTAL Association 2005 Reunion

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

I am honored to be among the nation’s finest sailors and their loved ones who made us proud and mighty. Although I was never aboard CVA-59, the class ship for my own INDEPENDENCE, for anything more than a carrier qualification, her reputation and out shared mission makes her precious in my memory. I particularly remember sitting in Ready Room Three on ORISKANY that day in July 0f 1967 when a dark cloud of smoke appeared on the horizon of the plat. We ceased combat operations and steamed over to our sister ship. My squadron VA-163 (the Saints) had been hard hit in the ORISKANY fire in October 1966 and we, under the leadership of Commander Bryan Compton, had trained well in fire fighting. We had three full teams of 16 men formed in our squadron, including medics and we geared up to go to FORRESTAL, which we had closed to within three miles. In my recollection we did load up one of our teams in Helo’s but I’m not sure how much firefighting they actually did. Another fallout of that fateful day was that our squadron, which had already lost six pilots gobbled up all the A-4 pilots who wanted to cross-deck (they included folks like John McCain, John Roosen and Jeff Korommenhawk …tow of whom we subsequently lost. One of my close friends was LCDR Rod Kauber of VF-74 who wanted desperately to get into combat…but there were no Phantom boats on the line. What a tragic and strategic loss…you guys were primed and ready to go!!

I remember a couple of more events that happened on that cruise that I’m sure many of you can relate to: First was a little excursion I made into Hanoi. Another little brush I had with a more patriotic starlet occurred on Christmas of 1968 when the great Bob Hope brought his show to us on Yankee Station. The drawing card for that affair included Joey Heatherton and everybody’s sweetheart, Anne Margaret. 

One more sea story and then we get serious: In October 1967 we hit the Hanoi Thermal Power Plant. This is the flight when your shipmate, John McCain was shot down. The leader of that Alpha Strike was my skipper, the very same Bryant Compton who led the fire party to CVA-59. For planning and leading the strike, which put Hanoi in the literal dark for three months, Commander Compton won the Navy Cross.

Now, let’s talk about a couple of serious situations of the future: First is Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s “Transformation of the Military” or more specifically reorganization of the Army. In short, it will mean that the Air Force and the Navy will give away almost $10 billion to finance the changes in the Army over the next five years. Why, you ask is that necessary or fair? Since the days of Napoleon and for our country, the Civil War, the maneuver unit for ground forces has been the division. US divisions today number roughly 12,000 men and we have ten active divisions in the US Army. They are infantry, armored, mechanized, airborne, and air assault. These divisions consist of three brigades, each with three battalions. So a brigade has about 4,000 men, only about half of who are actually shooters. Secretary Rumsfeld wants to go from 30 brigades to 48 brigades and add about 2,000 “shooters” to each one. This means the brigade would become the maneuver unit that you hoist aboard a ship or three C-5’s or two C-10’s and send to a hot area to do the shooting. Of course this is a generalization since every division is unique in mission and composition and consequently each would be reshaped to maintain its unique mission capability. 

For the most part we as Americans should see this as a positive move because it would mean 30,000 more foot soldiers; it would provide more operational flexibility; and give us 18 more “maneuver units” to send in harm’s way. The down side for the Navy is that we lose some ship and aircraft procurement, the nature of our strategic and tactical roles may be modified; for instance, we can expect some of our carriers (for decades we have fought to keep 12) to have accommodations for a thousand ground troops and their vehicles and helos. We can expect our new destroyer types to be designed more as costal patrol and anti-terrorism craft than the war at sea/sea control machines we use to buy. One new vessel will be called the Littoral Control Ship (LCS). Another new procurement for the Navy will be the DDX (Low Profile Destroyer). This very modern, high tech ship will be able to fire a cannon projectile 65 miles over the horizon using space guidance, compared to the 22 miles for IOWA class of battleships we grew up with. Bottom-line, instead of the 600 ships Navy that Navy Secretary Lehman once wanted, we will end up with about 285 ships. Just as a reference point, in the invasion of Okinawa there were over 700 US vessels around the island. 

The next serious matter for your consideration is the rise to power of the Communist nation of China (The Peoples Republic of China). As we speak right now, the PRC and the nation of Russia (formerly our old nemesis, the USSR) are holding war games holding war games together in the northwest Pacific and the area around Vladivostok and the Kamchatka Peninsula. But this is just the latest in the red flags that have shown themselves in the Western Pacific. Consider these change facts:

- China has a population four times the size of the US. 
- China has a land army four times the size of the US.
- China owns billions of dollars of US debt.
- China’s recent prospering economy has grown an average of 8 % per year over the last 7 years…the US                     economy (the largest in the world) has grown at a rate of 2.5% over the same year. 
- As a result of this growth, China’s energy needs have doubled to 6 million barrels per day in the last decade. She is  competing with us and other nations on the world market. Last month she tried to buy UNICAL.

Although not outwardly aggressive, China is beginning to intimidate an old enemy, Japan, by violating territorial waters and mining some mineral resources in Japanese home waters. The US is sworn to protect Japan.

You are all familiar with the relationship between China and her offshore island nation of Taiwan…once again the US will not stand idly by while China overruns that ally of ours.

More to our naval perspective, China has just purchased 20 older Russian submarines and placed an order for to new nuclear subs of her own. 

The HEN class submarine is a special new and highly classified design, which they have perfected and placed on it as a primary battery a subsurface to surface missile, which is very accurate.

It is not time to recreate all the hype and paranoia of the Cold War…but it is time to take notice. Right now we have the best relations with China that we have ever realized. If you’ve looked at the labels of the goods you buy in the Wal-Mart’s you know how much of our consumption s made over there. That also tells you how important we are to their economy. Diplomatically, we are counting on them to lean on North Korea and try to make that highly unstable leader tow the mark and give up his pursuit of nuclear arms. China is very important to the stability of the Western Pacific and Asia…but they are building a Navy, which would soon challenge us and an economy, which will be very needy. We must “TRUST BUT VERIFY”.

There are other things we must do here at home, too. We must work together. We must get a grip on our energy needs. We must trust and respect our elected leaders and not the destructive press and radical elements of both the parties. 

As an old friend of mine, Attila the Hun, once said:

“The spirit of unity must be a cardinal principle in the ways and attitudes of all Huns. Once divided we are easily made subject to foreign nations.”