Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
CSG-10’s staff operations officer tells Scoop Deck, “We do maintenance on a ship very well. But we often forget to conduct maintenance on ourselves, both personally and professionally.” (Photo by Lance M. Bacon)
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Scoop Deck has a good interview with Capt. Tom Dearborn, staff operations officer for Carrier Strike Group 10. The heart of our discussion is on the forthcoming deployment, in which Truman will be joined by four U.S. warships and the German destroyer Hessen.
Disaggregated ops will remain the name of the game when the strike group arrives in the Fifth Fleet AOR. Dearborn said he expects maritime security operation to increase, and commented on the fact that sailors are increasingly proficient. Much of that success he attributes to enhanced training to include use of mobile vessels that mimic pirate ops.
The captain doesn’t feel the multi-mission mindset is detrimental to strike group security, pointing out the increased capabilities of platforms, reach-back and C4I components. In addition, the Navy is using more “independent deployers” – ships that can be aggregated with the strike group if necessary.
As is expected of a captain with two years on staff, Dearborn’s primary focus is the sailors and officers who comprise the strike group. In his words:
One of our most precious resources are the men and women who volunteer to serve in the Navy. Sometimes we forget that. … We do maintenance on a ship very well. But we often forget to conduct maintenance on ourselves, both personally and professionally.”
