Category: United States Navy

Source: United States Navy

The Honorable Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy, will deliver the principal address at the commissioning ceremony. Remarks will also be provided by the Honorable Matt Gaetz, U.S. Representative, Florida’s 1st District; Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations; General Christopher Mahoney, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps; and Ms. Kari Wilkinson, Executive Vice President, HII, and President, Ingalls Shipbuilding. The ship’s sponsors are the granddaughters of its namesake, Shana McCool and Kate Oja.

Richard M. McCool, Jr. will be the 13th San Antonio-class ship commissioned in the United States Navy, and the first U.S. Navy ship to bear this namesake.

“Captain McCool’s leadership in the face of grave danger and his acts of heroism to save the crew and the ship our nation entrusted to him are indeed an example for all throughout,” said Secretary Del Toro. “I am proud that the Department of the Navy is pursuing the award of the Amphibious Multi-Ship Procurement Contract for a total of three San Antonio Class amphibious ships—just like USS Richard M. McCool Jr.—along with an America Class amphibious assault ship. I am proud to see these Sailors and Marines bring this incredible warship to life in service to our nation, much like this ship’s courageous namesake.”

The Navy named LPD 29 to honor U.S. Navy Capt. Richard M. McCool, Jr., Ret., who received the Medal of Honor in 1945 for his heroism. Kamikaze aircraft attacked his ship during the Battle of Okinawa. Despite suffering from shrapnel wounds and painful burns, he led efforts to battle a blazing fire on his ship and rescue injured sailors.

The Navy designs San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships to embark, transport, and land elements of a landing force for various expeditionary warfare missions. These ships provide the Navy and Marine Corps with modern, sea-based platforms that are networked, survivable, and built to operate in the 21st century, with capabilities including the MV-22 Osprey, the upgraded Amphibious Assault Vehicle, and future means for delivering Marines ashore.

You can live-stream the ceremony at www.dvidshub.net/webcast/34486. The link will become active approximately ten minutes prior to the event at 10:50 a.m. CDT.

Direct media inquiries to the Navy Office of Information at (703) 697-5342. Visit https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2222713/amphibious-transport-dock-lpd/ for more information on the Amphibious Transport Dock ship.

Source: United States Navy

Torri Huske, a two-time Olympian, kick-started Team USA’s quest for gold at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games by winning the 100-meter butterfly race on July 28, 2024. Torri, who narrowly missed out on the podium in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games by a single one-hundredth of a second, edged out some of the world’s best swimmers and claimed her first gold medal in Paris.

“It was a surreal moment,” Torri said in a room full of Carderock employees and their children in West Bethesda, Maryland, on Aug. 26, 2024. “I feel like it’s one of those things where you’ve wanted it for so long; it’s not really a surprise, but you just can’t believe it finally happened.”

However, up in the stands of the Paris La Defense Arena, her mother – Ying – could barely watch.

“You always hope that your kid can perform to their potential,” Ying said. “But you are also worried and afraid that she would be disappointed or not happy because she didn’t meet her own expectations for some reason. At these games, Torri was not just representing herself; she was representing the United States. We were hoping that she could represent the country well and make Team USA shine. We were over the moon to see her perform so exceptionally well. She swam her heart out.”

Ying emigrated from China to the U.S. in search for a better future and new opportunities. As a first-generation migrant, she had to overcome a language barrier and financial difficulties until she finally found her niche in this country. She attended graduate school at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. After she graduated, she took a job in the Washington, D.C., area and settled in northern Virginia. In her spare time, and whenever she wanted to exercise, she went to the pool.

“I never swam competitively, but swimming has been a thing to keep me in shape,” Ying said. “I swam even when I was pregnant with Torri – up until two days before I gave birth.”

She was keen on having her daughter learn how to swim, although not competitively. Instead, Ying was focused on teaching Torri how to be comfortable with the water when she was a young kid so she could enjoy water sports and the ocean as she grew up.

“I always tried to take her to the pool when she was young to try to get her familiar with it,” she said. “I asked her quite a few times – when we were at the community pool – if she would like to take swimming classes and many times she said no; but eventually one day – when Torri was around 5 – she said yes.”

In that moment, a future Olympian was born. Ying enrolled her daughter in the Arlington Aquatic Center in Virginia, where Torri learned a variety of swimming strokes for the first time. Nowadays, she trains with her college coaches, but when she returns home to the Washington metropolitan area, she always goes back to the place where it all started.

“Every time summer or winter break occurs, she comes home and trains with AAC,” Ying said. “She’s been with them her whole life up until she moved to college.”

Torri is currently attending Stanford University in California. She took this past year off school to prepare for the Paris games and emerged from the iconic sporting competition with three gold medals and two silver medals. Now, she will return to school to finish her bachelor’s degree in product design.

“For me, I get goosebumps all over,” Ying said. “When I think about my daughter competing at this level – I am so happy. This country has openly accepted us and seeing Torri be able to represent the U.S. makes me feel so proud, it is just an incredible feeling all around.”

Ying shared the challenges Torri encountered as not only a student-athlete, but an Olympian too.

“In 2023, her course load was so heavy,” Ying said. “She was basically working and studying 50 hours a week, and that doesn’t include the 20 hours a week she had to commit to training. She was always tired, but she performed really well in school. Unfortunately, though, she did not do her best at the 2023 World Championship. It was a tough year. That was one of the reasons Torri took a year off from school leading to the Paris Olympic Games, so she could focus on training and resting. Her decision has paid off. Kids like Torri have to go through the rigorous academic courses and athletic training and that is a lot to balance. Luckily, Torri tells me her friends and teammates are driven and hardworking people, and that they inspire, motivate and lift her up. That’s why she thanks them so much in her interviews.”

While Torri was racing during the 100-meter butterfly race, her mother pointed something out that may have been missed.

“Torri has a huge determination to win,” Ying said. “After the Tokyo Games, she made it her personal goal to go for gold at the next games in Paris. I am not sure if anyone noticed this, but in the last five meters or so – usually when you do butterfly you take a breath per stroke, maybe one per two strokes. But Torri did not breathe for five strokes and that’s how she got her hand to the wall first.”

Both Torri and Ying thanked everyone at the Carderock Division for their overwhelming support.

“Even when I’m thousands of miles away, I can feel your support and your love and I really appreciate it,” Torri said to a full house of Carderock employees at the Raye Montague Center.

Ying added, “After I arrived back at work, I was surprised to hear that so many of you had been watching her and cheering her on. Your support and positive energy helped make a difference. I received so many congratulatory emails with kind words regarding her success. I cannot tell you how much each of these have meant to my family and me. I especially want to thank the leadership and my coworkers here at Carderock and at Naval Sea Systems Command for all their support throughout the years of this journey. As they say, ‘It takes a village.’ Torri would not have had the success she has had without your support. I am proud to be a part of the Navy team, NAVSEA and Carderock and even more proud to be an American.”

Since the Paris Games concluded last month, Torri has become a swimming icon and inspiration. She departed the states as an Olympic hopeful, but returned as a local and national hero. The next summer Olympic Games will be held in Los Angeles in 2028. Torri will be aiming to compete on home turf with the support of a roaring nation behind her.

Source: United States Navy

“Integrating natural systems into our definition of infrastructure strengthens our operational resilience,” said Rear Admiral John Hewitt, Commander, Navy Region Southeast. “Our partnership with the University of Georgia underscores the importance of leveraging local expertise to fortify these critical assets, ensuring our Navy operations remain robust and adaptive in the face of evolving environmental challenges.”

This new agreement, administered through the University of Georgia’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS), enables Navy installations across the southeast to leverage the university’s extensive expertise in coastal resilience, climate change hazards, and the development of hybrid and nature-based solutions.

By streamlining the process for Department of the Navy installations to obtain services from the University of Georgia and its partners, the agreement enhances the DON’s ability to assess and address current and future environmental risks, ensuring that infrastructure both on and off the installations remains robust and operational, thereby safeguarding training and deployment capabilities.

“We work better when we work together. We are proud to partner with UGA to address installation resilience,” said Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment (ASN EI&E) and the Department’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Meredith Berger. “We’re working to build a climate-ready force, and that includes developing resilient infrastructure that gives our people, systems, and facilities every advantage as they complete the mission of protecting the nation.”

By focusing on advanced infrastructure resilience, IRIS will support Navy Region Southeast in developing adaptive solutions to climate-related challenges, such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events. For example, IRIS’s innovative approaches to flood risk assessment and mitigation will be crucial in safeguarding naval bases and infrastructure from increasingly frequent and severe storms. Additionally, IRIS’s work on energy-efficient infrastructure will help the Navy optimize its energy consumption and reduce its carbon footprint, aligning with the DON’s Climate Action 2030 goals. This collaboration promises to drive forward the Navy’s mission while ensuring that critical infrastructure remains robust and resilient in the face of evolving environmental challenges.

Intergovernmental Support Agreements are public-public partnerships designed to support the DON by allowing state and local public entities to partner with installations to receive, share, or provide installation support services. All the Navy’s Southeastern Installations, along with their surrounding communities, are expected to benefit from this Intergovernmental Support Agreement.

Source: United States Navy

In a ceremony held July 11 at TDSI, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Alex Anderson and two U.S. Marine Corps officers, Capt. Susan Figlioli and Capt. Jordan Figlioli, were recognized for earning their Master of Defence Technology and Systems (MDTS) degrees through the unique exchange program that enables qualified NPS students to earn degrees from both institutions.

“Singapore is a critical Indo-Pacific partner,” noted retired U.S. Army Col. Danial Pick, NPS Director of International Programs. “The decades-old educational relationship between NPS and TDSI is an important manifestation of our partnership. Hundreds of U.S. and Singaporean graduates of our unique dual degree program are serving in important national security positions in both countries.”

For example, U.S. Navy Capt. Andy Berner, Commander of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global, and Col. Ong Cher Howe of the Singaporean Ministry of Defence are both graduates of the NPS-TDSI program.

An island city-state of 6.2 million people, Singapore sits astride the meeting point of the Malacca Strait, one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, and the South China Sea, a locus of international contention with the People’s Republic of China.

With a well-developed infrastructure and high political stability, Singapore is one of Asia’s most important hubs for trade, finance and military operations. For more than 50 years, the U.S. and Singapore have endeavored to work closely together to cultivate a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific region.

Strengthening such strategic partnerships is a central pillar of Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro’s Strategic Guidance for the Navy and Marine Corps, issued in October 2021 and updated in October 2023.

Specifically, the Navy seeks to “strengthen military-to-military relationships with existing allies, leverage specialized allied experience in regional operations, and expand and deepen our partnerships with like-minded democracies around the world,” Del Toro wrote. “We will build opportunities for Sailors, Marines, and Civilians to train, learn, and operate side-by-side with their counterparts in partner and allied forces, and operationally integrate our allies and partners into strategic concepts and warfighting concepts to deter those that challenge us.”

Since 2001, TDSI has fostered the intellectual capital that makes this relationship thrive, according to Lui Pao Chuen, Temasek Defence Professor, a 1973 NPS operations research graduate and 2002 NPS Hall of Fame inductee in large part for his leadership in establishing the NPS-NUS partnership.

“NPS has been a strategic partner of NUS to help build the capabilities of the Singaporean Armed Forces (SAF) in the defense of Singapore,” he said. “The relationship has grown over time. I look forward to greater integration of education and research of the two institutes in the coming years.”

For the MDTS degree program, students spend six months at NUS taking courses in advanced topics including cyber security, artificial intelligence and data analytics. The NPS-TDSI program gives U.S. military students a firsthand view of current defense challenges in Singapore and the broader region, complementing their technical specialization in their NPS fields of study.

Anderson, for example, earned his NPS master’s degree in electrical engineering in addition to his MDTS degree. He is now on his milestone tour as a cyber planner at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) headquarters.

“Countless invaluable academic, cultural and social experiences were taken away from my studies abroad in Singapore,” he said. “Each of the two academic quarters involved multiple seminars and field trips around Singapore which helped apply the systems engineering approach we learned about in the classroom. The professors in the TDSI program were a mix of university professors and defense contractor adjunct professors which offered an additional level of perspective to the course materials.”

“With my valuable experience from the TDSI program, I hope to be a leading player in the relationships we have with Singapore and other partner nations in the Pacific,” Anderson added.

Three NPS students are currently enrolled in the TDSI exchange program and are studying in Singapore: U.S. Navy Lt. Alex Misenheimer, Lt. Alan Hatlestad and Marine Corps Capt. James Villaneuva, all of whom will return to Monterey in the fall to complete the NPS portion of the program.

For Hatlestad, a Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) officer studying Physical Oceanography at NPS, the TDSI program has strengthened his technical knowledge of engineering systems relevant to METOC.

“My time in the TDSI program has been enriching,” he said. “The professors typically have many years of either military or industry experience in their respective fields. I appreciated the emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, which I think emulates real-world military exercises.”

“Upon my return to NPS, I will carry on with my fourth quarter with a new cognitive toolkit and framework for thinking,” Hatlestad added. “Having worked together in the same classroom for several months, I have made friends with my colleagues and counterparts from Singapore and Israel, and look forward to the next year we will all spend in Monterey.”

Source: United States Navy

When Navy Medicine Readiness Training Command Bremerton hosted the Honorable Shawn G. Skelly, Performing the Duties of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, for a familiarization visit, August 28, 2024, the first stop in touring the military treatment facility was with the staff who administers the Medical Board department.

Overseeing the extensive workload of the department is April Dinucci, Medical Board department supervisor, physical evaluation board liaison officer and one of approximately 40 civil service staff still aligned under Navy Medicine after the official transition of all administrative and management functions at NHB to the Defense Health Agency was completed in 2022.

Her role is crucial in assisting and guiding servicemembers dealing with serious injury, illness and needing lengthy medical care.

“Our Medical Evaluation Board staff aid all Wounded Warriors in the entirety of all medically related processes. We are the experts that handle the medical administrative nuances of physical and mental health cases from cradle to grave. My staff are here to assist from the onset of Limited Duty until the member transitions from service,” said Dinucci.

Along with collaborating with Navy Wounded Warrior, Dinucci and her Medical Board team also coordinate with the Disability Evaluation System Counsel Program, VA military service coordinators, command deployability coordinators, Navy and Marine fleet forces leadership, branch service headquarters and the Physical Evaluation Board in Washington, DC.

“We’re physical evaluation board liaison officers,” exclaimed Dinucci, who along with being a PEBLO is a disability counselor and subject matter expert in the Disability Evaluation System, Limited Duty and Temporary Disability Retirement program(s).

As the department name suggests, Dinucci and her team handles medical evaluation boards and serve as the main point of contact for questions or concerns regarding case status, findings, benefits, personal – and personnel – inquiries and demands.

“We’re the experts in disability evaluation,” Dinucci said, noting that Navy Wounded Warrior provides expanded coverage for service members on LIMDU or enrolled in DES as well as providing vital non-medical assistance for personal and social needs.

Compiled data helps explain NHB’s Medical Board department demanding workload. For Fiscal Year 2023, the Medical Evaluation Board staff managed 712 LIMDU cases, with an average of 307 open cases each day being actively processed by the Med Board team. Combined with the approximately 250 Disability Evaluation System open cases to determine a servicemembers fitness for duty, that’s nearly 560 open cases being tracked by the Med Board team.

Possibly the most challenging aspect for Dinucci and her team is when providing medical support for those going through the process, as well as coordinating with Navy Wounded Warrior, is dealing with time management and expectations by servicemembers and their families. There are never enough hours in the day.

“When someone is placed in an MEB the expectation may be that their case will conclude in 90 days. The reality is that timelines [can] exceed nine months. This is for the administrative process. Treatment times vary and are impacted by a multitude of factors that often increase the overall timelines even further,” explained Dinucci.

NHB’s Medical Board department routinely organizes assistance and training primarily across the five-state region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The department is divided into overlapping responsibilities:

Medical case managers: assist in the medical needs of the member, such as discharge planning, durable medical equipment and specialty services.

“They are the heart of our medical team.” added Dinucci.

Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officers: advise personnel on their fitness for duty status, explains rights and entitlements and handles documentation in determining if a servicemember in entitled to disability benefits.

“We are the axle in the wheel of the Disability Evaluation System process,” Dinucci said.

Limited duty coordinators: responsible for placing members LIMDU, notifying commands, updating re-evaluations, conducting monthly case reviews.

Fleet Liaisons: manage personnel casualty reports, decedent affairs and command notifications of hospitalizations. They also handle such distinctive needs as helping coordinate a family requiring bedside assistance for a hospitalized Sailor or Marine.

Hon. Skelly was also provided the opportunity to meet-and-greet with Mental Health staff and Urgent Care Clinic personnel during the visit.

Story originally posted on DVIDS: NMRTC Bremerton Med Board Supervisor recognized during high ranking DoD visit