CNO Richardson here and as I talk to you right now we have; the United States Navy has over 100 ships forward deployed, that includes three carrier strike groups with their air wing, two amphibious ready groups, and over 16 attack and SSBN submarines. We’ve got SEAL teams and SEALs deployed fighting Isis and counterterrorism across Africa in the Middle East.

This is a global Navy. This is the best Navy in the world – the United States Navy – but I’ll tell you what, the competition is on. There are a lot of navies out there vying for the title of best in the world and we need to come to work every day ready to earn that title of best navy in the world. How can you do that?

As individual Sailors, we’ve got to know how to fight our ships. We have to know how to run our watch stations for normal, combat and casualty conditions. As team leaders and especially as commanders we need to run our teams through their paces. We need to do the proper planning – planning for the best case, planning for the worst case. We need to do the practice to that plan so that we do the sets and reps as a team and then we need to execute to that plan. By planning, practicing and executing, we’ll make sure our teams are ready.

Finally, as your CNO I need to back you up 100 percent and I will. I will make sure that you get the resources you need and I want to crush every obstacle that stands between you and being the best Sailor that you can be. Let me know what I can do to enable you to do that.

I’m here on the USS Gridley (DDG 101) in Everett, Washington. It was Capt. Gridley who got the order from Adm. Dewey to fire when ready. We need to be ready to execute that order. We need to be ready to fire on command. That’s the way we’re going to stay the best navy in the world. Let’s get to it.

http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2017/11/17/cno-to-fleet-be-ready-to-earn-title-of-best-navy-in-world/ U.S. Navy