“We've had too many accidents lately — we've had too many funerals — I've spoken at too many memorial services,' said Papp, who has been in his job for eight months. 'Fourteen aviators lost in two years — three aviators just on my watch — as well as a loss of a Marine Safety and Security Team member. We've also had several serious boat accidents.”
Some of the incidents are still under investigation, he noted, but “this is unprecedented. It's unacceptable. And we've got to do something about it.”
Papp said the Coast Guard needs to make sure its members are not just qualified, but proficient at their jobs.
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He said that might mean, “once we provide our people with training and experience to achieve proficiency, we should not be too quick to transfer them.”
Papp also said, “In order to achieve proficiency in our most needed activities and capabilities, we may have to reduce our range of activities and capabilities. This is acceptable. Let me repeat this ' We may need to reduce the number and range of capabilities we've added since 9/11, until properly resourced, and this will be acceptable.
“I openly acknowledge that the Coast Guard does not have the resources to perform at 100 percent in every one of our statutory missions on every given day. I expect Coast Guard leaders to make daily decisions on how to allocate their finite resources across their mission sets — we must set priorities and limits. We will resource, prepare and train to perform the most essential missions professionally, effectively and efficiently.”
Papp also spoke about the need for “recapitalizing our fleet — and by fleet I mean cutters, aircraft and boats — as well as our shore infrastructure.
“No one disputes the obvious woeful condition of our over 40-year-old, 378-foot high-endurance cutters and 210-foot medium-endurance cutters. In my opinion, they cannot be replaced soon enough,' he said. “The good news is that we're making progress — we've brought two state-of-the-art National Security Cutters into operation, the third ship, Cutter Stratton, was recently christened by first lady Michelle Obama in July, and is 75 percent complete. We've just signed a contract for the fourth ship, the Hamilton, and we've also purchased materials to set up the construction process for the fifth ship,” he said.
“But we're replacing our 12 high-endurance cutters with only eight National Security Cutters. Our concept of operation for layered maritime security, particularly in the Pacific, makes it essential that we get all eight,” he said.
A transcript of the entire speech is here.
