Good evening, everyone! Distinguished guests, and to all of my Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard teammates here, although I think I also need to recognize our Army, Coast Guard, Navy, Marine Corps teammates – maybe even Space Force and Air Force from the Color Guard. So, thank you very much Color Guard.

It really is a pleasure to be here with all of you tonight to celebrate New York’s Fleet Week, to celebrate our Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen, all of our Joint Force teammates here tonight, and celebrate the Navy’s long and proud relationship with the City of New York - one of the most important and historic cities in our great Nation.

Before I begin my remarks, I’d really like to take a moment to recognize Medal of Honor Recipient Jack Jacobs who I just had the privilege to meet for his “gallantry in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” while serving in Vietnam in 1968. Thank you, Jack for all you have done.

I would also like to thank the Intrepid Museum Board of Trustees for preserving our Naval heritage by maintaining this historic ship as a living memorial to the tens of thousands of Sailors and Marines who served our Nation onboard. I’d also like to thank the incredible staff of this museum for telling our Navy story through the lens of this incredible warship that earned the name, as you already heard tonight, of “the Fighting I” – that survived five kamikaze attacks, an aerial torpedo, and served in multiple wars: World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War.

Like the crew of the Intrepid who worked tirelessly to ensure the integrity of this ship, each of you on this team, have worked hard to tell the millions of American people that visit the “Fighting I” each year the story of her crew’s service with honor, courage, and commitment. For that, I am very grateful.  And I’d like everyone to join me in a round of applause to the team that does this every single day – that’s Al and the Representatives of the Intrepid Former Crewmembers Association, and for Mel and the USS Intrepid Board of Trustees, and again, to all the staff – thank you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am truly honored to be here, and I am very humbled to receive the Intrepid Freedom Award this evening. Forty-two years ago, as a freshman at Northwestern University, I signed up for the NROTC program with the allure of free textbooks, 100 dollars a month, and the chance to win a scholarship. At the time, I planned to serve my minimum four-year commitment, get out and then follow my dream, which was to be a journalist reporting all around the world, but especially in the Middle East. But as you can see my life took me on a slightly different path.  

And today I’m really honored to serve as the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations, leading an amazing team of over six-hundred thousand active and reserve Sailors and Navy Civilians. And I’m honored to receive an award that trailblazers before me, like Madeline Albright and Margaret Thatcher, have also received. But like them, I owe this award and really my every success, to the great Sailors I’ve had the opportunity to serve with over these many years.  

So, tonight I want to talk a little bit about those Sailors and the role they play in underwriting this city’s and our Nation’s security and prosperity. I could think of no better occasion to do that than tonight, during fleet week, and in this venue, and in this city.

So, you all know that New York City has a long history as a Navy town, even before the beginnings of our great Nation. In 1524, Portuguese explorer Giovanni Verrazano sailed westward in search of the new world. Following his first sighting of land off the coast of Carolina he sailed north and would eventually encounter a very large opening that he believed to be a lake but was in fact a river - the Hudson River.

Little did he know that the narrows he sailed past would end up bearing his name and be the sea-based-way to the world’s largest and most important port in the 20th Century. In the days of sail and steam, and up through the 1960s, ships coming into New York Harbor from the Narrows would steer north up to the mouth of the East River to the piers of Brooklyn and to the piers of the East and West sides of Manhattan, one of which we are moored to now.

And for those of you that don’t know, the Brooklyn Bridge - the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge - was built not for looks, although beautiful she is, but to connect these Brooklyn piers with these Manhattan piers, for ease of trade and ease of movement. While I could go on about the commercial importance of New York’s harbors, let me instead talk about this city’s contributions to our Navy.

Not too far from here, the New York Navy Yard, or Brooklyn Navy Yard, as you New Yorkers called it, operated for 165 years, building 160 ships that included the Civil War era ironclad USS Monitor and the historic World War II battleships USS Arizona and USS Missouri.

During World War II the Brooklyn Navy Yard would be used as the staging point for people and equipment for the Allied war effort in Europe, earning the nickname the “Can-Do-Shipyard” for repairing 5,000 American and Allied battle-damaged warships.

Even after the war, this shipyard would become New York’s largest single industrial employer, employing 70,000 people at its peak until its closing in 1966.

And while this city’s commercial importance would wane, the city was born again as the global financial capital of the world and the heart of our Nation’s economy, but still reliant on the sea, albeit in a different way. And although bulk carriers are no longer transiting this city’s harbors, they’ve been replaced by billions of international communications and trillions of dollars in financial transactions that stem from this city and transit the vast expanse of our oceans each day, not on the surface, but below it though undersea cables.

This global network of undersea cables provides the high-bandwidth connections needed for a wide range of activities that are vital for our modern society. And like the rest of our Nation, this city must have the uninterrupted flow of these communications and financial transactions for our stability and economic prosperity.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s your Navy-Marine Corps team ensures the safety and security of this city’s financial system and all of its services. It also ensures that the goods that flow to our other ports like Newark, Baltimore, and Los Angeles get there safely, so they can reach this city’s stores and provide us the goods we need.

It’s clear, the United States is and always has been a maritime nation. Our security and prosperity rely on access to the sea. Your United States Navy preserves this access, which not only provides 90 percent of global trade, but generates 5.4 trillion dollars in annual commerce and supports 31 million American jobs. This has been your Navy-Marine Corp team’s mission since our Nation’s creation, and it continues to be so, even as our Nation finds itself at an inflection point in history - competing with the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Violent Extremist Organizations all of which have the potential to negatively impact our Nation’s security.

There’s not a day that goes by that doesn’t show the great work of our Navy on the world stage. Our Nation is a beacon of hope and democracy all around the world and our Navy shines that light brightly. From the Western Pacific to the Eastern Mediterranean and from the Red Sea to the Artic, our Sailors are operating forward to preserve the peace, respond in crisis, and are standing ready to win decisively in war, if called to do so.

A few weeks ago, I visited Sailors onboard the ship that Mel just talked about, the USS Carney, and I got to welcome her crew home from their historic deployment to the Middle East. In their seven months at sea, the Carney destroyed Houthi-launched weapons, including land attack cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, and unmanned systems under the banner of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, a defensive coalition of more than 20 nations that is upholding the rules-based international order and providing maritime security in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

They also launched two defensive strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen degrading and diminishing Houthi capability to continue these attacks. They also rendered assistance to a merchant ship, the Swan Atlantic, that was struck by one of those Houthi missiles. And then, when they were sort of on their way home from the Eastern Mediterranean, they intercepted Iranian drones and Iranian-launched medium-range ballistic missile that were launched towards Israel - demonstrating our long-standing security cooperation relationship not only with Israel, but with other Allies and partners across the region.

And this is pretty amazing, in total, they conducted 51 engagements, saved countless lives, ensured the free flow of commerce, and stood up for that rules-based international order and the values that we hold dear. And that’s just one ship in one area of the world.

With an average of 110 ships and 70,000 Sailors and Marines deployed at sea on any given day the Navy-Marine Corps team is delivering power for peace, deterring potential adversaries, and again standing ready to fight and win our Nation’s wars. No other Navy in the world operates at this scale, no other Navy in the world could build, train, deploy, and sustain such a lethal, globally deployed, combat-credible force at the scale, tempo, and pace that we do.

Ladies and gentlemen, just as the “Fighting I” serves to tell the Navy story, I ask that you too go out and share the stories of the USS Intrepid, the USS Carney, the Brooklyn Shipyard, and perhaps even, the USS Bataan that’s right across the pier from us, in your own spheres of influence.

Help me tell the American people about the value proposition of your Navy, about all we do and how your Navy plays an outsized role in ensuring America’s economic prosperity and our Nation’s security. Help me connect the people to our maritime heritage, so we can honor, recognize, and celebrate those generations of Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen who have gone before us, onboard this ship, and others like her. And finally, help me inspire our next generation of Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen to pursue a career in our Nation’s Sea services - either in uniform, or as a civilian, or as a shipbuilder, or in research, or in policy. 

So, I really thank you for all the support that you provide to our Sea Services every single day. It really makes a difference. Thank you for this award and the opportunity to recognize our Sailors, and for my opportunity to be here with you tonight. I hope you all enjoy Fleet Week and the chance to meet our amazing Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. Thank you very much, and I hope you have a good night.