Navy secretary favors women on submarines

Women have a place on submarines, cigarettes do not, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said Tuesday afternoon during a visit of Kitsap facilities.

Mabus, the Navy's top civilian leader, addressed policy changes and the Navy's future during an interview at the Puget Sound Navy Museum.

Integrating women onto submarine crews is "absolutely the right thing to do," he said. Congress has a few more days to reject the change, otherwise women will be serving beneath the sea within two years. Mabus said he's gotten nothing but positive response from Congress and the community.

Women graduating this spring from the Naval Academy and college ROTC programs would be the first female submariners, after 18 months of training. They've shown a lot of interest, said Mabus, who became secretary last May.

They'd start out on Ohio-class subs - 10 of the Navy's 18 are based at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor - because the boats wouldn't need to be modified. There'd be a minimum of four women per sub. A senior female officer would probably transfer from the surface nuclear fleet to mentor the young officers, Mabus said. It's been 20 years since women began serving on surface ships, and the experience can be a road map for a smooth transition.

Women would join smaller attack subs later. Existing ones would be modified for them, and new ones would be designed for coed crews.

"We plan to do a little bit of both to make sure we don't have some subs women can go in and some they can't," Mabus said.

Long before women come aboard, cigarettes will be banned. The Navy announced last week that all submarines will be smoke-free by Dec. 31.

"This is absolutely the right thing to do, not only for the nonsmokers but the people who smoke today," Mabus said. The Navy will give smokers all the help they need to quit, he said.

The Navy has trimmed its fleet way back to 296 ships, which has been adequate because today's fleet has greater capabilities, but there comes a time when one ship can't be two places at the same time.

"We have a demonstrated need for at least 313 ships," Mabus said. He, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and other strategic leaders have determined a need for 324 vessels, which the Navy plans to reach by 2023.

The next generation of ballistic-missile submarine is being designed because the Ohio-class boats will begin to be retired in 2027, Mabus said. Although four of them have been converted to carry conventional weapons the past few years, there's still a need for "boomers," Mabus said.

"We're going to continue to have a need for an effective, survivable deterrent," Mabus said. "A Trident sub certainly fits that bill and will be important for us as long as you can see in the future."

Taking care of sailors, Marines and their families is the Navy's top concern, Mabus said.

"It's what gives us our edge," he said.

Mabus, who toured Navy facilities throughout the region the past few days, said he saw "how important the area is to national defense, what a good community relationship we have here, how the Navy and Marine Corps has been welcomed, and how they like it and come back here to retire."

Tuesday morning, Mabus spoke with families enrolled in a Navy program that offers a helping hand to parents of special-needs children. Seventy-four families are signed up, and six are on a waiting list. The program - Navy Exceptional Family Member Program Respite Care - provides up to 40 hours of free help a month so parents can lead more normal lives.

It's a two-year pilot program here and in four other parts of the country. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, who helped get it off the ground, and program participants want it to expand and become permanent.

Michelle Pritchard, one of the program's originators and chairwoman of a complementary support group, told Mabus she couldn't go grocery shopping, on a date with her husband or get a haircut because two of her three sons are autistic.

"It makes us very happy," she said of the program. "Our quality of life is much different. It makes you a human being."

Lutheran Community Services Northwest rounds up the in-home help through a contract with the Navy. The caregivers can become like grandparents to the kids, the parents said, and angels to the parents.

Mabus said even without a special-needs child, his wife needs respites, and having been a single father, he understands how hard it can be when a spouse is at sea.

Mabus and Inslee said they'd work together to try to expand the program.

---

Information from: Kitsap Sun, http://www.kitsapsun.com/