Naval aviation is a crucial force in our nation’s defense. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing provide unparalleled, credible, sustainable, mobile, survivable, and lethal combat power across the globe. Maritime patrol aircraft complement an all-domain system of air, missile, and maritime power. Carriers represent our nation’s resolve by their presence alone, and their striking power gives adversaries pause. As I write these words, carriers and maritime patrol aircraft are in the western Indian Ocean and the Pacific, conducting deterrence patrols and strike missions in support of the nation’s highest national defense priorities—in harm’s way, delivering ordnance against adversaries.
Naval aviation includes everyone from the aviation boatswains under thundering fighters to the troubleshooters, whose thumbs up is the sign that the mission is a go, to the aircrew who willingly put their lives in the hands of maintainers, many of them just 18 or 19 years old. All are a part of a team whose ethos was forged in World War II and sustains us today. Multiple elements make up that ethos:
Hard Work. We give our all toward mission success. The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in combat.
Humility: Each of us is human, inherently imperfect. The only perfection is in the complete team effort. When we make mistakes, we admit them and move on.
Self-assessment: Critical self-assessment is the basis for the safe and effective conduct of our dangerous business. The highest expression of this is self-identifying our errors so others may learn from them. We learn this habit in the earliest days of flight school and take it with us to the fleet. The recent documentary on the Blue Angels shows how even those—especially those—at the pinnacle of our profession constantly hone their edge through humble self-assessment.
Teamwork: We give our all for our wingmen and the team, and all credit goes to the team. Rank has no place in the brief, in the debrief, or at the maintenance desk. We respect expertise and wingmanship, and we always have our wingman’s six.
Confidence: Nobody lands an aircraft on a pitching deck, at night, without confidence. With jaws out and shoulders back, we face every challenge. We are not cocky, but confident—in ourselves, our wingmen, and our crews.
Persistence: We never, ever quit. Just because there’s a bandit at your six, doesn’t mean they’ve shot you. Even if they’ve shot at you, it doesn’t mean they’ve hit you. And even if they’ve hit you, it doesn’t mean they’ve killed you. We stay in the fight.
Faith: We never lose faith in our shipmates, our wingmen, or our nation.
Philippine Sea in June 2023. U.S. Navy (Markus Casteneda)
I have a lot more runway behind me than ahead, so I call on the next generation of naval aviators to face the challenges ahead, wherever on the globe they lead. The nation needs you as much today as it needed John Thach, Thomas Hudner, David McCampbell, and Pappy Boyington in their day. The future security environment will be one of the most difficult our nation has ever faced. Adversaries are bent on supplanting U.S. leadership, and emerging and accessible technologies and weapons are shrinking time, distance, and decision space. The past has shown us what the ancients knew—civilization rests on a thin veneer. Now more than ever, naval aviation will be an indispensable force to defend our great nation. This is our duty, and these are the values of naval aviation. As a witness to the superb young generation on watch, I have an abiding sense of hope. Let’s get to work.
