UNCLASSIFIED

A project of the Combat Studies Institute, the Operational Leadership Experiences interview collection archives firsthand, multi-service accounts from military personnel who planned, participated in and supported operations in the Global War on Terrorism.

Interview with LCDR James Drew

Combat Studies Institute Fort Leavenworth, Kansas UNCLASSIFIED

Abstract

In this interview LCDR James Drew discusses his time in the Navy on board the USS Yorktown and the USS The Sullivans. LCDR Drew was onboard the USS Yorktown in port when the attacks of 9/11 occurred. He describes the mission of the ship immediately following the attacks and how things changed. After being an instructor at the SWO School, LCDR Drew arrives on the USS The Sullivans to serve as the weapons officer and combat systems officer. Serving in this dual-hatted role LCDR James explains the challenges he had and the different tasks the ship performed while deployed to the Mediterranean and Black Seas from 2006 through 2007. LCDR Drew concludes his interview stating that although the Navy has been doing deployments for a long time more attention may need to be paid to the training of its junior officers; that the training which solely rests on the shoulders of the other officers onboard ships could be detracting from the state of readiness of the ship if not managed correctly.

UNCLASSIFIED

Interview with LCDR James Drew 28 May 2009

JT: My name is Jessica Trussoni (JT) and I'm with the Operational Leadership Experiences Project at the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I'm interviewing LCDR James Drew (JD) of the US Navy. Today's date is 28 May 2009 and this is an unclassified interview. Before we begin, if you feel at any time we're entering classified territory, please couch your response in terms that avoid revealing any classified information. If classification requirements prevent you from responding, simply say you're not able to answer. When did you first find out that you would be deploying to ? How long have you served in the Navy? JD: 12 years. JT: How much of that time have you been aboard ship? JD: Probably seven years. JT: Are there any training requirements you must complete prior to being stationed aboard ship and going to sea? JD: Yes. It's changed within the last couple of years but after I got commissioned I was required to attend six months of Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) School at Newport, Rhode Island. In 2004 the Navy changed its training requirements and that requirement was changed to just three weeks of training prior to being stationed on board ship. JT: Is that three-week period adequate time to prepare yourself? JD: What has changed as that the onus of training newly commissioned ensigns falls on the ships more so now than it ever did. I'm sure the Navy as a whole is doing studies as to the effectiveness of it. One of the jobs I held on my most recent ship as the senior watch officer on the USS The Sullivans was to be responsible for training the newly commissioned ensigns. I believe that program was done successfully. There was no major difference between how well those individuals performed at that stage of their career versus someone like me who had six months of preparatory training prior to arriving on board. JT: During those six months of training what sorts of topics did you cover? JD: It was generally an overview of Navy capabilities and limitations. It was broken up into what they called training modules. An example of a training module would be weapons systems where they would describe to the newly commissioned ensigns the capabilities of all the ship classes in the Navy inventory at that time. They would also talk about the communications capabilities the ships had. There was obviously some ship and navigation instruction and different things were stressed like adherence to international rules of the road as far as how the internationally accepted norms for how ships are to behave and interact with each other at sea. JT: For a new ensign boarding a ship for the first time, how long would it take for those same modules to be completed [on board]?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 3 UNCLASSIFIED

JD: In large degree that depended on the motivation of the individual. They took a lot of the classroom instruction that I had received when I went through the program in 1998 and made it exportable on CD ROMs that could be forwarded out to the ships. The intent was to cover the same amount of material that a person like me would have gotten six years prior to in a classroom. The standards of it would vary from whatever ship you walked on board. Some folks would say you need to have it done within six months. If you had a highly motivated individual that could get it done in three, there was nothing stopping them from completing those tasks early. If you had someone who wasn't as highly motivated there wasn't anything that stopped them from completing the requirement within nine months. The intent of it is that by your 12-month on board mark you've completed all of the CD ROM training and that you've been deemed worthy of getting your office of the deck letter, which is when the captain trusts the individual to drive the ship without his direct supervision. JT: What period of time were you stationed on the USS Yorktown? JD: I was on board the Yorktown from July 2000 until January 2002. JT: What was your professional position? JD: I was the fire control officer assigned to the combat systems department. All of the missiles on board are surface-to-air missiles and they belonged to me. I was also one of the primary air warfare commander watch standers during my time on board. JT: What did a typical day of yours consist of? JD: We'd get on board the ship about 0600 and would attend officer's call with the executive officer (XO). Your in port routine is devoted to maintenance of weapons systems or systems or equipment; that would have been my primary responsibility -- making sure that happened. If and when the ship was underway those duties continued but also you're required to stand a minimum of six to eight hours of watch in any 24-hour period. That could be split between being the officer of the deck -- the person in charge of the safe navigation of the ship -- or as a watch stander in the combat information center where my duties included the air defense of the ship wherever we were transiting to and from. JT: Did you have any staff working for you? JD: Yes. For a time I had three chief petty officers who were my direct subordinates. At the highest peak of manpower we had 32 Sailors that answered to me. JT: In a general sense, what were those enlisted tasks? JD: The enlisted tasks were the care and maintenance of the Spy One radar which is the primary fire control radar on board the Aegis platforms which USS Yorktown was. It's really the central piece of the Aegis weapon system. In addition to that the enlisted also took care of the Mk-99 fire control system which included the four fire control illuminators that the ship uses to engage air targets. Every display system that was in operation in both the bridge and combat information center was a part of their routine maintenance; to make sure they were all up and running. I would think that most of the ships during that time were doing things the same way but I also had several gunners' mates missile technicians that cared for and performed

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 4 UNCLASSIFIED maintenance on the Mk-26 missile launching system and any other kind of auxiliary equipment associated with it. That generally was the scope and limit of my division's responsibilities. JT: While out at sea were you able to conduct any exercises? JT: On board the Yorktown, which was stationed in Pascagoula, Mississippi while that base was still open -- Hurricane Katrina basically shut that operation down -- however, when I was down there in 2000 through 2002 we would have primarily been tasked with doing counterdrug deployments in South and Central America. As it turned out we had some maintenance problems with both our sonar dome which had a tear and we were required to spend about seven months in the shipyard in Mobile, Alabama. As such our deployment got moved to a time after I had transferred off the ship. On board the Yorktown we didn't do any far reaching deployments while I was on board. The one real operational thing we were involved in that had any significance was immediately after 9/11 when many of the ships in Pascagoula, Mayport, Florida, Norfolk, or San Diego had to immediately sortie to who knows what to protect the homeland from another attack by terrorists. JT: Was the ship still in port once the attack occurred on 9/11? JD: Yes. We were actually preparing for a visit by the Board of Inspection and Survey, which is a routine assessment that's conducted during the life cycle of the ship; it's supposed to be done every five years. We were in port during that time and within a couple of days we had to obviously pack up shop ashore and go out into the Gulf of Mexico and a little bit to the east coast of Florida to enforce the grounding of all civilian air traffic that was inbound to the US or over flying the US. We did that working as part of the Southeastern Air Defense Network; that's who we reported to directly in performing those duties. JT: What was the situation like for the Sailors assigned to the ship before the 9/11 attacks and how did those attacks change the overall focus and mission? JD: I don't know if I can really answer for everybody on board the ship. From my own perspective it made a lot of the day-to-day maintenance and things of that nature a lot more important to me. I recall vividly going through the missile launcher of the ship with my superior, the combat systems officer. He was a fellow named Lieutenant Tracy Greene. We were basically unlocking the missiles we had on board and making them able to fire which is something that's not usually done in the course of training. We knew we weren't going far -- either out to the Gulf of Mexico or somewhere out in the Atlantic -- but it struck me very keenly at the time that we were getting ready to shoot things out of the sky. It was a knee jerk reaction, which we all understood. Nobody wanted to see another airplane make entry into the US with some destructive effect but there were those thoughts that went through your mind. Seeing all of the air traffic inbound to the US just wasn't there anymore and we were sitting there on watch thinking, "What do I do if I see something? What are my rules of engagement (ROE)?" I'm not sure I had the very best grasp of what that would be because it was such an unforeseen type of event. JT: After the attacks on 9/11 how long did you have to get everything ready to leave the port? JD: At that point of our inter-deployment training cycle we were preparing for our next deployment. From a maintenance standpoint there was nothing to keep us from getting

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 5 UNCLASSIFIED underway within 24 hours or something like that. The ships are usually maintained at a high state of readiness so if something were to happen it could be made ready to get underway within hours. JT: Did any of your Sailors have any concerns about the attacks on 9/11 and what was going to be called upon them to do once on board ship? JD: I happen to be from New York City and there were several of my shipmates also from New York City that were obviously concerned about family members back home. That did kind of prove to be probably not as much of a distraction as I thought it was going to be. My brother was a police officer in New York City and I had the sense that he was probably there or nearby when the World Trade Center fell. I had that thought; I recognized it and then realized that I had work to do here also. There was an awareness on the part of many people that the world had changed. It was unknown to us at the time how it was going to change our deployment schedule or if it would. The Navy has been deploying to places around the world for centuries. It's something we obviously still do today. It did have an effect on a lot of people. JT: When did the ship leave the port? JD: I don't recall specifically when but I would say it was within a couple of days. JT: Were you aboard? JD: I was. JT: How long were you on board the ship until you left to permanently change stations? JD: It was an 18-month tour so following that I departed there and went on shore duty as an instructor at the SWO School from 2002 until 2005. JT: While aboard ship were there any challenges? JD: Always. I think there are challenges associated with the constant coming and going to and from port during the training cycle. One thing that people fundamentally understand about the Navy and being on ships is that at certain points during the year they're gone for a minimum of six months. What they don't always have an appreciation of is how much underway time you have in order to train and get ready for those deployments. There is pretty much continuous separation from home and loved ones; it always poses a challenge. On the Yorktown we were blessed with a good crew so on the whole the crew was very well behaved. We didn't have any disciplinary problem cases. The other challenge is that the Navy is also a very technologically- oriented branch of service. As the ships get on in age they tend to break down more frequently and more invasive and extensive actions are required to keep them in service. JT: Did you receive adequate support? JD: Yes. From an operational standpoint the logistics needs of the ship were generally met. The only times we would run into problems on both the Yorktown and my subsequent shipboard assignment on the USS The Sullivans was if you had a system or a piece of equipment that broke for whatever reason. Sometimes it was hard to get pieces and parts to fix them because some of the technology had matured to the point where your particular model of system was no longer

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 6 UNCLASSIFIED being built. Something that should have been repaired within a week could sometimes stay an equipment casualty for significantly longer periods than that. JT: Were there any lessons learned that you took away from your time on the Yorktown? JD: I would say the big lesson learned for me was that I was kind of making the transition in my own mind from being a junior officer -- an ensign or lieutenant junior grade -- to taking on more of a middle management kind of role. When I was on board the Yorktown I was promoted to lieutenant, the rank of O3. I might be biased but I think in the Navy the O3 rank -- being a lieutenant on board a ship -- comes with different responsibilities than being a captain (O3) in the Army. There is an increased level of responsibility that you're expected to take on. The lesson learned for me, as a result of 9/11, was to never cut corners or do things the easy way. You never know when that equipment you were supposed to be maintaining faithfully will need to be up and running in response to a crisis. That's something that 9/11 really drove home to me and something to tried to take and will take to my next shipboard assignments. JT: If you could make one recommendation to the US Army based off of your experience on the Yorktown, what would you recommend? JD: The Army is now the service that is dealing with situations that the Navy has dealt with for quite some time; the constant and expected deployment of units overseas. One of the things we have is the inter-deployment training cycle which has served the Navy pretty well for the last couple of decades. The Army might be able to use that as a model for how to take a unit that's overseas, bring them back home, and make sure that their training proficiency doesn't suffer so they maintain a high state of readiness and are ready for the next predictable deployment in this day and age. JT: When were you stationed on the USS The Sullivans? JD: I was on board from June 2005 until June 2008. JT: What was your professional assignment? JD: I was a department head. My first nine months on board I was the weapons officer and then I assumed the additional responsibility of the combat systems officer, which is a little bit unusual. I had to discharge both of those department head functions for a period of five months unit a new weapons officer was brought on board. My last year and a half onboard was solely as the combat systems officer. JT: What were your primary tasks? JD: I was one of five principle assistants to the XO and the captain of the ship. My responsibilities as the combat systems officer was everything I had done as the fire control officer on the USS Yorktown with the added benefit of being responsible for all of the radio communications we had on board; all of the information technology systems on board -- every computer and every communication system fell under my control. That was probably the most challenging tour I've had in the Navy thus far. You're so reliant on your communications and ability to talk to other units while you're out at sea. Along with that is the emphasis we now place on email and chat rooms as a means of exchanging information. If those things are not

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 7 UNCLASSIFIED running at 100 percent proficiency all the time it gets noticed at high levels. They need to be repaired very quickly otherwise the mission capabilities of the ship are adversely impacted. JT: While the ship was underway what waterways did it cover? JD: The ship was home ported in Mayport, Florida. When we did venture overseas we did some exercises in the north Atlantic as part of an exercise called Neptune Warrior which is pretty much an exercise that we participate in with member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the north Atlantic. After that my ship deployed to the Mediterranean and Black Seas from November 2006 until May 2007. We transited over the Atlantic, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and into the Mediterranean; through the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles by and into the to do operations with what we were calling at the time emerging partner nations. Those were former Eastern block countries like , that were looking to get a foot in the door of NATO. JT: Did you have any contact with any of those other countries? If so, how was it? JD: We generally had contact with the British Navy, the Spanish Navy, the Greek Navy, the Romanian Navy, the Turkish Navy, the Bulgarian Navy, the Tunisian Navy, the Israeli Navy, the French Navy, and the Italian Navy. My contact with naval units from other nations was pretty extensive during that time. JT: Prior to working with those countries were you able to conduct any shipboard exercises? JD: At the unit level they get us ready for that. We did try and emphasize training with Allied Tactical Publications (ATPs). Generally speaking, when a Navy ship is operating with another ship from the US Navy or a group of Navy ships, which is what we normally do, we're governed by a series of doctrinal publications called Navy Tactical Publications. When you're going to be operating with Allies or NATO nations generally you're operating with a series of publications called ATPs. One thing we found out early on was that the British, French, and Spanish that were used to working together under the ATP doctrine were much more well versed in it then the US was. We just weren't used to working with them. Seeing that we would be working with Allied nations as part of our deployment on a semi-regular basis we took time and effort to educate our crew and watch standers on the contents of those ATPs versus our own in-house Navy publications. JT: Did it take a long period of time to adjust to the difference in publications? JD: We didn't really have time. Most of the learning, regardless of the amount of preparatory training we had to devote to that effort, actually took place in practice when we were in the moment operating with those other ships. Were there some moments of confusion where we didn't always feel as if we were speaking the same doctrinal language? Yes, there certainly were but it was important to capture those instances and share the lessons learned with the next group of people that were either coming on watch or would be doing the same type of exercise a month from now. From an even broader perspective, to capture those lessons learned in the Navy's lessons learned database and make it accessible to another ship that could be deploying over to the Naval Forces Europe Theater several months down the road. JT: Were there any additional ships traveling with you at this time?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 8 UNCLASSIFIED

JD: My deployment to the Mediterranean and Black Seas was a bit unusual because we weren't transiting as part of a carrier strike group (CSG) where you would have generally six or so other ships operating with you. We deployed with just another that was home ported in Norfolk, the name of which escapes me right now. We felt like we were going out there alone and unafraid. Having that kind of freedom was refreshing. There wasn't a whole lot of immediate supervision on what the ship was doing. JT: What did a typical day of yours consist of while at sea? JD: It wasn't dissimilar to the rotation on the Yorktown except that as part of my duties as the combat systems officer I had more work to do. My watch rotation was generally the same; standing six to eight hours of watch in a 24-hour period. The level of responsibility associated with my primary duty as combat systems officer was significantly greater than my primary responsibilities as the fire control officer several years before onboard the Yorktown. I think the area where that impacted me the greatest was that I was able to sleep or rest a lot less than what I had grown accustomed to. JT: Did you hear or see any problems with piracy while you were at sea? JD: The piracy issue was something that was just coming on our radar screen, so to speak, back then. I had heard discussions about the Navy taking a greater role in the anti-piracy mission when I was a student at the department head school prior to assuming my duties onboard the USS The Sullivans. It hadn't taken on the importance that it has recently. One of the things that we were concerned about was that when we were over in the Mediterranean and Black Seas it wasn't to just shake hands with member nations and conduct exercises. We were concerned about the movement of contraband which could be weapons or people that had the ability to transit on the seas. We didn't do any boardings of vessels but we certainly knew they were out there and reported their presence to the Naval Forces Europe Plans and Operations Command Center where that information could possibly be shared among member nations. "Hey. We have an indication that this ship may be carrying bad guys; possibly terrorists or criminal elements and they're inbound to this port in your country." The idea would be that that nation could apprehend those individuals or track their movements. JT: Are you aware if any of those nations ever took action on any of your tips which resulted in a positive response? JD: I don't have any direct knowledge of that. JT: Were there any noteworthy events that took place during your time onboard The Sullivans? JD: Not really. JT: Did you receive adequate support? JD: Yes. I would just echo the previous answer I gave. From a food and fuel standpoint -- the basics it takes for the ship to perform its mission -- those needs were always adequately cared for and pretty regularly scheduled. It was the unforeseen equipment breaking down that sometimes caused a problem. One of the things that occurred on a semi-regular basis was when you were overseas say, in Marmaris, Turkey and your Spy radar breaks; you require a component to fix

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 9 UNCLASSIFIED that. Getting that component from the Continental United States (CONUS) over to a place like Marmaris where you're only going to be for two days -- having that component follow you around the globe added significant time to your ability to receive it, install it, and get your systems up and running. Sometimes you'd run into customs issues where it would arrive into a country and they didn't know what it was and it had to be cleared. That just added not unnecessary delays because you're dealing with the rules and regulations of Allied Nations -- but from the combat systems officer's perspective on the USS The Sullivans, it was immensely frustrating. JT: Did that ever pose a security risk; having those other countries knowing the part, what it looked like, and it's make up? JD: I would say, generally speaking, it would not. The Navy takes pretty good care to ship items by registered mail and things of that nature which should hopefully preclude the possibility of tampering of items like that. As a security risk I would say it was minimal to zero. JT: How do you feel your Sailors did on the deployment? JD: As the Navy deployments go that was one of the best deployments a ship could have. One of the primary reasons we had gone over there was to basically build or participate in a program that was big in the European Command theater at that time, which was building theater security cooperation and bettering our relations with those emerging partner nations I mentioned before. A lot of it had a public relations flavor to it. I think we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 port visits during that six-month deployment which is unheard of. It was a good deal for the crew. They very much enjoyed it and I think the reception we got in all of the countries we visited was very positive. JT: What was the professional lesson learned that you took away from your time on the USS The Sullivans? JD: By that time in my career I was looking forward to the next step in my career evolution. I tried to learn as much as I could from my superior, the XO, and tried to learn his job to the best of my ability. I knew the next time I was going on a ship at sea that was the function I would be performing. That's something I'll take to my next assignment, assuming the Bureau of Navy Personnel screens my record and deems me worthy of it. I thought it best to prepare myself for that eventuality. JT: If you could make one recommendation to the Navy on how to improve things, what would you suggest? JD: I think I would take it back to how we train and care for the junior officers and some of the enlisted folks we have on board the ships. I know from a personal standpoint that there's only so much a ship can do and for the Navy to make decisions like, "We're going to significantly reduce the training we offer junior officers and place that onus on the ship," could have been made prematurely. The effects of that are still under observation and discussion. I think they went a little too early in that regard. Like I said, the Navy has been doing deployments for a long time and their system is generally sound. I wouldn't have too much more to say than that. JT: Is there anything else you'd like to add to this interview?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 10 UNCLASSIFIED

JD: Thank you for the opportunity and hopefully someone will find something of value in it someday. JT: Thank you very much.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcribed by Jenn Vedder

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 11