Rear Adm. John “Jack” Scorby, commander of the 16 Navy installations in the Southeast region, emphasized three priorities Monday at the JAX Chamber Military Appreciation Luncheon.
First was what the U.S. Navy was doing to conserve energy and water resources.
Second was how the Navy is working with communities to strike a balance of compatible land use.
Third was the U.S. Navy’s future.
“Our Navy is getting smaller and we’re doing more with less,” he told the more than 900 chamber members and guest attending the event at the Hyatt Downtown.
“Just 20 years ago, we had 472 ships. Today, we have 284 ships, one of the lowest numbers since the 1920s. Defense budget cuts are real and potentially significant,” Scorby said.
Scorby’s experience, beginning when he entered the Navy in November 1982, includes service as commanding officer of Naval Air Station Jacksonville from 2007-10.
He returned to Jacksonville to become commander of Navy Region Southeast in August and assumed the rank of rear admiral in September.
Scorby was the keynote speaker at the chamber’s 9th Annual Military Appreciation Luncheon.
“We are conscious of the fiscal pressure that the nation is under and we –– every base commander, every leader, every sailor, soldier, marine, airman and coastguardsman –– must take an unsparing look at how we’re doing business,” Scorby said in prepared remarks.
He said the Chief of Naval Operations “calls it a culture of judiciousness.”
“We cannot afford a culture of consumption,” Scorby said.
“We need to manage our resources carefully, but at the same time we will need to ensure fiscal pressures do not disrupt our enormous capabilities.”
Scorby said the military has faced worse challenges.
“From 1932-1940, we built the Navy that defeated the Japanese at Midway and turned the tide of war in the Pacific, and we built that Navy during the Great Depression,” he said.
He said the military men and women continue to persevere.
“Today you would be hard pressed to find any place in the world where our presence is not felt,” he said.
The annual chamber military appreciation event includes business leaders and military personnel, including active duty, reservists, veterans and their families.
The chamber reports that military installations in Northeast Florida have a combined total of more than $14.2 billion in annual regional economic impact, employ more than 46,000 people and account for more than 250,000 residents living in the region between active duty, reserves and retired veterans.
The lead master of ceremonies was 2009 chamber Chair Mike Hightower, who is also the immediate past chairman of the U.S. Naval Academy and an Air Force and Vietnam veteran.
Mayor Alvin Brown was also among the speakers.
“It is important that we come together and show our appreciation and gratitude,” said chamber President Wally Lee in a news release.
Scorby said that he left Jacksonville to serve for 15 months at the Pentagon.
“It takes about 15 months to find your way around the building without getting lost,” he said.
He said former President and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower “learned the hard way shortly after World War II when he tried to return to his office, all by himself, after eating at the general officers’ mess.”
Scorby said Eisenhower wrote about it:
“So hands in pockets and trying to look as if I were out for a carefree stroll, I walked … and I walked and walked, encountering neither landmarks nor people who looked familiar. One had to give the building grudging admiration; it had apparently been designed to confuse any enemy who might infiltrate it.”
Scorby said he had the same experience when escorting the assistant secretary of the Navy.
Scorby emphasized that the military, the City and community are a team.
For his first point, he said the Navy is leading the way in energy conservation and alternative energy conservation “because energy is a national security issue and strategic imperative. It’s also a major vulnerability.”
“We buy too much fuel from volatile places on Earth, those places we would never let build our ships or our aircraft, but we give them say. We give them a say on whether our ships can sail or whether our aircraft can fly, because we buy our fuel from them,” he said.
He said every time the price of oil rises $1, it costs the Navy $31 million in additional fuel costs. When Libya started having problems, he said, the price of oil rose to $30 a barrel.
That is “almost a billion dollars” he said “the Navy’s got to come up with.”
In addition to costs, he said there are tactical reasons to lessen dependence on foreign oil.
“A Navy ship is at its most vulnerable when it is refueling,” he said. “The attack on the USS Cole took place in Yemen when the ship was refueling, and we just marked the 11th anniversary of that attack,” he said.
He said the Secretary of the Navy has a goal that by 2020 at least 50 percent of the Navy’s total energy consumption will come from alternative fuel sources.
He said that toward that goal, NAS Jacksonville just won the Secretary of the Navy’s Energy and Management Award, one of seven commands to receive the highest level.
For his second point, which was compatible land use, Scorby said the relationship between military installations and surrounding communities is “undeniably interrelated” and the Navy is taking steps to manage that relationship so both sides benefit.
“Each of our installations has a community planning liaison who is responsible for quickly identifying potential problems stemming from land use development and taking steps to find a balanced solution,” he said.
“We know we can’t put our head in the sand and just hope that things will work out because hope is not a good strategy,” he said.
He said the Navy is “working hard to develop partnerships and do the right things in order to ensure military training can continue uninterrupted,” he said.
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