Invest in National Security
By DANIEL B. BRANCH JR., Navy League National President
As I wrap up my two-year term as National President at the
end of the month, I want take this
opportunity to thank all of our
Navy League volunteers and professional staff for their outstanding
support during my tenure.
We have made significant progress on several fronts in 2010 and
2011. Support for the sea services
in the form of increased contact
with our lawmakers on Capitol
Hill, activities with and on behalf
of our wounded warriors, and
growth of our Sea-Air Space Exposition are but a few examples.
Meanwhile, our Navy League
Councils continued their outstanding grass roots support
of the sea services, the troops and their families. In 2010,
they gave 2,078 Sea Services Awards to the troops, $59,000
in scholarships for the troops and donated $542,000 to
local wounded warrior activities. Councils also participated in 46 Individual Augmentee (IA) “welcome home”
events, hosted more than 107 ship visits, and interacted
with 572 adopted ships and units of the Navy and Coast
Guard, to name just a few of their activities.
But important challenges are on the horizon for all
of us concerned with national security and sea service
readiness. The No. 1 concern in the near term is maintaining our national security posture and preparedness in the face of anticipated steep cuts to the federal
budget. Our future security demands that we not hollow the military and dramatically downsize the fleet as
was done just after the Cold War. We need to reinvest
in our Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard equipment and infrastructure after 10 years of warfare in
Central Asia and the increasing demands made on our
forces during humanitarian assistance and disaster
response missions.
The Navy today is fully engaged, with half of its
ships at sea and 43 percent forward deployed. There
are 12,000 Navy personnel on the ground supporting
U.S. Central Command and 15,000 supporting at sea.
Crews and their families are stretched thin, even more
than at the height of the Cold War. Yet the fleet today
is about the size it was in 1916. While the fleet is much
more capable today, the threat
spectrum is much larger than at
any time in our history. Clearly, the
fleet is too small.
