Category: Defense

Source: United States Navy

The courses reviewed during their visit included: Information Systems Technician Submarines Block 0, Systems Administration, Advanced Communications Signals Collection, Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst, Intelligence Specialist “A” School Block 0, Operational Intelligence Analyst “C” School Block 2, and Geospatial Interpretation Analyst “C” School Block 2.

To open the session, Denise Myers, from CIWT’s learning standards office, provided an overview of the command before subject matter experts for the various disciplines took over to explain their component of training being evaluated. Cryptologic Technician Maintenance Master Chief Vincent LeDonne, Information Systems Technician Senior Chief Veronica White, Cryptologic Technician Collection Chief Richard Poe, Intelligence Specialist Chief Clora Bennett, and Intelligence Specialist Senior Chief Robert Morris each discussed the courses they represent and made themselves available during the time the ACE team was present for any questions about their subject matter.

Dr. Lisa Ferris-McCann, director of evaluations and integrity for ACE, explained that during the ACE review they bring a team of subject matter experts, who are college and university faculty members actively teaching in the areas they review to look at courses being taught and occupational ratings. For the course exploration, they do a deep dive looking at course materials, student materials, instructor materials, assessments, as well as any other documentation to do with that course, identifying learning outcomes, and aligning the knowledge and skills taught with comparable civilian college credits.

During the rating assessment, the same team conducts panel interviews with Sailors in the E-4 through E-6 rates and the E-7 through E-9 rates. The faculty members mine as many pertinent details from the groups as possible about what the Sailor’s job entails, including any on-the-job training received outside of school, while also looking at the professional, technical, and managerial skills used at the various rates. In addition, the team is provided ratings’ primary qualification standards, occupational standards, and learning and development roadmap to assist them in making the credit recommendation.

“Many service members are eligible for college course credit at academic institutions based on knowledge already gained during military service,” said Myers. “Through the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) program’s Military Training Evaluation Program (MTEP), a service member’s learning from military training, education, and occupational experiences is evaluated by ACE and documented in their Joint Services Transcript (JST).”

Myers continued that getting ACE recommendation for accreditation for their course work shows the importance CIWT puts on taking care of its service members. It saves the service members time and provides a head start on advancing their education. It allows them to avoid the costs of duplicating learning at a civilian school and increases their options to attend civilian schools as more than 2,300 academic institutions accept ACE credit recommendations for credit.

“Our center has been accredited for more than 45 years and is the longest accredited Naval institution providing training on par with highly regarded civilian institutions,” said Marc Ratkus, commanding officer of CIWT. “We are proud not only to deliver trained information warfare professionals to all branches of the armed services, but that the education we provide allows service members to continue to pursue their goals for higher education.”

During the exit interview, Jessica Sabo, associate director, ACE, said the team really appreciated the responsiveness, level of detail, and professionalism with which CIWT conducted the review process as a host. Doug Johnson, the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) program manager for ACE, said they intend use this visit as a template and standard for how an ACE review should be conducted by a military center of education, and said lessons learned will be passed on to all service components.

ACE provides a guide for military personnel to upload their joint service transcript and view the approximate college credit they may receive for courses taken and their military experience toward getting their college degree at https://militaryguide.acenet.edu/.

Source: United States Navy

These efforts are aimed at enabling efficient, accurate, and low-cost designs of defense systems and applications.
 
NRL offers undergraduate and graduate students with a strong interest in scientific research an opportunity to learn under the tutelage of professionals through the NREIP.
 
During the ten-week internship program, students work with mentors at participating Navy laboratories who help hone or further develop their skillsets. Magargal, a Lehigh University doctoral student, helped design and build computational multiphysics models and subsequently used them to generate synthetic data to train algorithms developed by the NRL and UW team.
 
“Computational multiphysics is a field of computational mathematics and physics that enables scientists and engineers to model complex phenomena, such as modeling airflow over an airplane,” said Magargal.  “While these tools have become indispensable in engineering design, they are often too computationally expensive to be used in many time-critical analyses.”
 
Dr. Steven Rodriguez, an NRL research scientist from the Computational Multiphysics Systems Laboratory who is heading the NRL and UW team in this effort, guided Magargal through the development of an in-house code based on numerically modeling the physics of multiphase flow with smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The tandem composed code that can be customized and user-defined to allow for physical inputs such as conductivity, density, viscosity and other physical and computational parameters.
 
Magargal and Rodriguez first focused on generating training data for  NRL’s algorithms with simple fluid flow often seen in natural convection, such as Rayleigh-Bénard instabilities – a phenomenon which can be seen when you boil water. 
 
“Liam focused on helping me code up a mathematical technique used to model fluids called the ‘Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics Method,’ or SPH for short, which was originally developed to model astrophysics,” said Rodriguez. “SPH, is recognized among the scientific computing community as an effective modeling tool, and has shown to be useful for problems involving different types of fluids with different densities – for example, how oil and water interact at room temperature.”
 
This past summer, Magargal learned the mathematical framework of SPH and how to communicate these ideas to a computer to run fluid simulations and study the behavior of intermixing fluids. After modeling the Rayleigh-Bénard Convection, Magargal leveraged the code to systematically generate training data for the Projection-Tree Reduced-Order Model (PTROM) – the algorithm developed by NRL and UW team. 
 
“The PTROM is a class of reduced-order modeling, which is a discipline in applied and computational mathematics that aims to reduce the costs of simulating complex multiphysics systems,” Rodriguez said. “It is an approach akin to machine learning, where you feed an algorithm data over a couple of different user inputs runs and the algorithm is able to predict output data of many other desired inputs it was not trained on.”
 
Magargal’s code and data will enable the deployment of the PTROM for many query applications such as design optimization, uncertainty quantification, and control. Rodriguez went on to say “Using Liam’s SPH code, we can train the PTROM to learn the behavior of intermixing fluids over a few physical properties, such as different densities and viscosities. So that if we train our PTROM over the interactions of air and water, it can guess how honey and milk will interact – as a fun and extreme example.”
 
“I was drawn to NRL because of Dr. Rodriguez and his organization’s research, which involves applied mathematics and machine learning methods and how they relate to computational physics models,” Magargal said. “I had a healthy amount of freedom to explore new interests while working toward an end goal, and I was excited to build skills in new areas that will be beneficial to me throughout my career.”
 
The resulting code Magargal and Rodriguez developed is now being used to for new developments that will further extend the capabilities of PTROM algorithm.
 
“NRL has always supported mentorship and encouraged mentoring students,” Rodriguez said.  “On a personal level, I had many great mentors over my career and NREIP is an opportunity to provide other students the help I received when I was first starting in research.”
 
Whether it be receiving access to advanced software and hardware to working alongside Nobel Prize caliber scientists, Rodriguez encourages post-doc students to participate in NREIP internships across the Department of the Navy.
 
Magargal recounted that the NREIP internship provided him real-world experience in developing physics models and associated computing.
 
“I plan to continue collaborating with Dr. Rodriguez throughout graduate school, as our research areas are closely aligned,” Magargal said.
 
The Office of Naval Research is offering summer appointments at a Navy lab to current sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students from participating schools.
 
For more information about NREIP opportunities, please contact NRL’s NREIP coordinator at: NREIP@nrl.navy.mil
 

About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL is located in Washington, D.C. with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; Monterey, California, and employs approximately 3,000 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.
 
For more information, contact NRL Corporate Communications at (202) 480-3746 or nrlpao@nrl.navy.mil. 

Source: United States Navy

ADMIRAL MICHAEL M. GILDAY:  Good morning, Pascagoula.  What a great, beautiful southern Mississippi morning and a great Navy day.  It is an honor and my privilege to be here today to join you for the christening of this great warship. 

Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Reynolds, matrons of honor, and other members of the Lucas family, Senator Wicker, Congressman Palazzo, Secretary Berger, Congressman Guests, distinguished guests, shipmates, in February of 1945, a 17-year-old Marine waded through enemy waters, flanked only by his fire team, as they moved towards the sound of fire and into the battle for Iwo Jima. 

Today, we christen this incredible ship you see behind us, and in the coming year 350 of our nation’s finest sailors will put to sea this destroyer named Jack H. Lucas, for whom the bell nearly tolled on a tiny island made of godforsaken rock, sand, and volcanic ash. 

But this was no ordinary man.  This was the United States Marine who jumped on not one but two grenades to save the lives of his team.  Because he survived, and as the story has been told today, many believed and perhaps he was, indestructible. 

So for a ship that aspires to shield our nation and defend freedom, the name Jack H. Lucas is not only fitting but it signifies the bravery and the toughness for which this ship must always strive to emulate.

Today, we not only christen the USS Jack H. Lucas but we celebrate the evolution of the American destroyer and the tenacity of our sailors who, throughout history, have driven these ships into harm’s way. 

In times past, it has often been the strength of our fleet that has tipped the scales of conflict against our adversaries.  Our role in the world has never been an easy one.  It should not be.  It has required not only strength but it requires sacrifice.  That is the price that we pay for our commitment to our ideals and a vision for a safe and secure world for our children and for their children. 

Throughout its history the American destroyer embodies our nation’s strength and willingness to serve.  Multi-mission by design, destroyers charge into contested environments to protect convoys or protect capital ships so that we can control the seas and defend the cause of freedom around the world. 

A destroyer at flank speed is a not so gentle reminder to every nation that we will bear any burden and support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.  Perhaps there is no finer example of our destroyers’ place in history than that of Leyte Gulf, and if you’d bear with me for just a short story.

At the Battle of Samar during World War II, with their five-inch guns blazing, torpedoes exploding around them, and anti-air flak blotting the skies above them, three American destroyers, along with their escorts – they were outgunned and they were outnumbered – charged into the fray to face a much superior Japanese force. 

Resolved to fight rather than run, these American fighting ships stormed into history in what would be remembered as the last stand of the tin can sailors and the United States Navy’s finest hour.

Before the battle began, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, he addressed his crew and he said, “This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected.  We will do what damage we can.”  These tin can sailors sacrificed themselves to save the landing forces commanded by General MacArthur, cementing an Allied victory and extinguishing the fires of global combat. 

Following the war, our destroyers evolved with the advent of guided missiles, allowing them to take on surface combatant roles previously filled by battleships and cruisers.  Throughout the Cold War, our destroyers became America’s keepers of the sea, the greyhounds, and the protectors of free and open oceans around the world. 

At the dawn of this century, the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer has become the gold standard for modern surface combat.  These warships, built around state-of-the-art Aegis combat systems equipment, established themselves as the very fulcrum of our fleet as fierce a friend to our allies and a fear-inspiring foe to all adversaries. 

The Arleigh Burke-class, built right here, has reminded relevant – has remained relevant and lethal because we have modernized this platform just as Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, the father of Aegis, intended it to be. With each successive flight of the DDG, we built a little, we tested a little, and we learned a lot.  If here today, Admiral Burke and Admiral Meyer would stand proudly in awe of the USS Jack H. Lucas. 

Lucas will not only be the most capable and sophisticated surface combatant ever built by man, but it also represents the bridge from the past to the future as we bring in new radar, the Aegis Baseline 10, and a new electric plant onto an already highly capable platform. 

Such an evolution, though, would be impossible without the shipbuilders of Huntington Ingalls Industries and the Pascagoula community.  The Flight III represents the dedication and the commitment of our sailors and our civilians, the skill and the innovation of our shipyards and industry partners, and the commitment of the American people to keep the seas free and open for all. 

From its combat system and galley equipment to the generators that power the destroyer on its critical missions abroad, components from all over the country are brought and assembled from the keel up right here in Pascagoula. When the Jack H. Lucas soon sets sail across the world, you should all beam with pride, knowing you helped bring this ship to life. You have built the finest destroyer in the world. 

Our responsibility as a Navy is to field captains and crews capable of commanding and sailing such a fine ship. To her crew, I ask you what does it mean to be a tin can sailor and how do we prove worthy of such a legacy?

In the end, no matter our stations, standing, or background, it takes a couple of seconds of courage to overcome the unforgiving minute – Jack knew that – and to place – and to remember to place ship and to place shipmate before yourselves.  Just like Jack Lucas, the legacy of the destroyer is one of selfless sacrifice and the bravery to charge into the breach once more. 

I charge Captain Oster, Commander Ross, and Command Master Chief Brockman to make this ship as indestructible as her namesake, and to sail it as boldly as the tin can sailors of World War II.  When Admiral Burke christened the first ship of this proud class of destroyers, his namesake, the Arleigh Burke, on July 4th, 1991, he said this:  “May this ship do her duty for many years and may she have good luck in all her endeavors.”

For this ship, the first Arleigh Burke Flight III, the USS Jack H. Lucas, I wish all future captains and sailors of this ship the very same.  May God bless our country.  May God bless all of you, your families, and many voyages to come. 

Thank you.  (Applause.)