Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The Vice Chief of Naval Operations testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday about the crisis in readiness that is affecting forward-deployed Navy ships.
The impetus for the hearing was the recent collisions of the destroyers USS John McCain and USS Fitzgerald with civilian ships just two months apart. The incidents killed 17 sailors, inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage, and left both destroyers crippled.
Admiral Bill Moran, vice chief of Naval Operations, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, director of Surface Warfare, and John Pendleton, director of Defense Force Structure and Readiness Issues for the Government Accountability Office, testified for nearly three hours before the committee.
Regularly referred to in the hearing was a GAO report that noted a wide disparity between forward-deployed ships in Japan and U.S-based ships.
U.S.-based ships typically spent roughly 40 percent of their time deployed and 60 percent of their time in training and maintenance. Japan-based ships, however, spent 67 percent of their time deployed, 33 percent of their time in maintenance, and did not have a dedicated training schedule.
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