In his two years leading the fleet, Adm. Bill Gortney grappled with the budget cuts that canceled deployments, fast-tracked the fleet's new flame-resistant coveralls and developed a new deployment plan that's had a shaky start.
Gortney, an aviator who's moving on tolead U.S. Northern Command, spoke about his time at FFC, his views on the littoral combat ship, the challenges that a fleet bosses faces, and more in a Nov. 19 sit-down with reporters. head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, sat down with Navy Times on Nov. 19. He is scheduled to relinquish command on Nov. 24 to Adm. (sel.) Phil Davidson. Gortney has been tapped to lead U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity.
Q. What was your foremost goal when you came to Fleet Forces Command?
A. Our dominant line of operation is warfighting and readiness, and it has always been. That's what Fleet Forces does — man, train, equip and prepare forces to go forward. Our No. 1 goal was to go fix that particular process. The kill chain, our force generation model, that's been our primary focus, and I think we're on a pretty good path there. We've made pretty good strides in fixing what needs to be fixed.
What matters most in our ability to produce Navy forces to go forward are those things that we don't have a lot of, but are in have high demand. Our highest operational tempo of all of oOur forces [with the highest operational tempo] are EOD teams, carriers and air wings, amphibious readiness groups and Marine expeditionary units, and then [ballistic missile defense] ships. In that order. Because they are smaller in number, the impact on one has a much larger impact on the rest of those platforms. The denominator matters.
Q. What other priorities consumed your time? Did you have any other priorities?
A. My No. 1 priority from my very first command has always been safety. Injury and death are a necessary and evil part of combat, but they have no place in preparation for combat or how we live our daily lives. Having been in this business 37 years, and this being my sixth command, the only "get out day" is when I lose a sailor for any reason. It's just crushing. We got that particular call 58 times since I've been here. Only eight were on duty. Thirty-two were suicides and the rest were off-duty mishaps. Every one of them never should have happened.
We will never bring any of them back. But we want to make sure we do everything in our power to identify causal factors and put in place the procedures, process, oversight and training to prevent re-occurrence.
Q. What was the most difficult challenge you faced?
A. The way we are implementing all the elements of the Optimized-Fleet Response Plan. I often get asked, can we afford to do O-FRP with declining budgets? My answer is we can't afford not to do O-FRP. To get through sequestration, we opened up and codified communication paths that weren't there. I feel pretty good about that. I feel pretty good about what we were able to do and where we are moving, and codifying that behavior past personality.
Q. What do you see as your legacy after two years leading the fleet?
A. I don't think there is anything that is going to be my legacy. We go through commanders fairly quickly, by design. I think anyone who wants to establish a personal legacy is pretty vain. Our job is to turn over a better command than the one we took. The command I took over is a much better Fleet Forces Command than when I was first here as a one-star, and that is the work of [retired Adm.] John Harvey. And his work was the result of [Chief of Naval Operations, Adm.] Jon Greenert. I'm turning over to Phil a better command, and that is what you should always strive for. Yes, O-FRP and the Readiness Kill Chain is stuff that we have put in place and should be enduring. But if we choose not to use it, it is because we found a better way to do it. And I'm OK with that.
Q. What are your views on leadership?
A. We have no problem holding people accountable in our Navy. We sometimes get accused of doing it too aggressively. I don't think so. There are a lot of things we can do, and there are a lot of things we can't do in regard to helping our force. I can't pass a law to prevent sequestration from occurring. We're going to have to work our way through the challenges of being longer and deeper. But, by God, I can give them good leadership. And I think that is a sacred oath. And if somebody isn't doing their job, didn't do something right, we're going to hold people accountable.
FFC ships are seeing increasing confrontations with a newly assertive Russian Navy. How are you adjusting training to better them for those situations with a highly competent foreign Navy?
We don't necessarily train to an opponent, but to a compilation of our potential opponents' capabilities and capacities. We train everybody to the high-end. When we deploy somebody, we don't know where they are going to go. If [Adm.] Harry Harris needs a second carrier because there is a dustup in the Western Pacific, it is probably going to come from Central Command because the closest gets there first, then we'll backfill. So no matter what coast, they have to be ready to fight and win wherever they happen to be.
Russia is rebuilding a pretty good capability. They won't have the capacity that they had when they were the Soviet Union, but in many cases it is a better military than it was. They are rebuilding a pretty good Navy. We are seeing a lot of out-of-area deployments, we are seeing their long-range aviation very active, especially over the last two years. As they are asserting a global power-projection force, we have to be able to deal with it. I'm not worried about it.
Q. Littoral combat ships have been under scrutiny from top leaders, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. What are your thoughts on their future? has been taking a lot of heat as of late. What are your thoughts on its future in the Navy?
A. If you go back and read [the U.S. Naval Institute's] Proceedings when we put the Fig Seven-class [FFG-7 [Oliver Hazard Perry] class at sea, we got the same articles — square peg in a round hole. There is a debate in our Navy between high and low capability, and we have always been a Navy with a high/low mix. We can't ever afford a 100-percent high-end Navy. It is an unaffordable model and you can't get the capacity you need. And we have to be able to operate in a high-end environment as well as a low-end environment. What is important to me is having the right balance. The reality is the American people maintain a Navy to operate at the high-end. We are here to project power, to open and hold vast amounts of battle space to bring in the joint force, and to put other navies to the bottom of the sea. That is what we do. That is a high-end Navy. But we have many low-end requirements such as maritime security operations and counter piracy.
A year and a half ago, we extended Nimitz and sent her into the Med for the chemical weapons attacks in Syria. We had delayed Nimitz a couple of months on deployment because she had a reactor coolant pump problem, but sent her cruisers and destroyers forward. When we needed to extend her, we were taking her cruisers and destroyers up to about one year. We had to get them back. We were working through how to get more [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] shooters there, as well as a new air defense commander for the Nimitz. I didn't have the ships that I needed, but I was deploying two FFG-7s. Unfortunately, those two FFG-7s couldn't do what I needed. So I had ships that I was deploying that didn't have capability I needed for the crisis at hand. That is why you need the right high/low mix out there.
Q. Are you interested in becoming the chief of naval operations next year and if so, what do you feel you'd bring to the job?
A. I've got a job here until the 24th at 1400. Around 1420 I'm going to report my relief to [Adm.] Michelle Howard, who is going to be the presiding officer. The next day I will get in a loaded U-Haul, and Sherry and I and the dogs are off. I will report and take command of Northern Command, and until someone asks me to do something else, that is my job. We do what the nation asks us to do until they say "thanks for your service."
