Aviation machinist’s mates conduct preservation maintenance on an F\/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to the “Wildcats” of Strike Fighter Squadron 131 aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea on March 27. (U.S. Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nNT: The last time I was on this carrier was before getting underway during Large Scale Exercise. At the time, there was a lot of talk about being in the 6th Fleet, but always being prepared for things to change. And you mentioned in your first response a little bit about how things changed after Oct. 7. Can you share what that was like, realizing that the carrier might head into the Middle East for the first time since 2021?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill: When we\u2019re doing our our work ups, it ends in a capstone event called Composite Unit Training Exercise, or COMPTUEX, about five to six weeks long involving the entire strike group consisting of four destroyers, a cruiser, the aircraft carrier, the embarked air wing and staffs, anywhere between six and 7,000 people overall involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We prepare for a range of threats, some of the most high end threats, to some of the threats that are currently in existence that we have dealt with over the past 10 to 20 years. So you create a range of a threat so you could be deployed to any theater \u2013 7th Fleet in the Western Pacific, or in the Middle East. I think we got sufficient training in that process, because there was a lot of variety. We were evaluated. We did well, but you never know what to expect, right? In every single conflict I\u2019ve been involved in, there was always a learning experience that had to happen. After day one, you start to look at, okay, what does the enemy have, and how are we going to counter it? We\u2019re professionals. We sit down, we plan these things out. And if the plan doesn\u2019t work, we debrief and we immediately change it, right? We have kind of this rapid learning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also had organizations back home, technical organizations, part of the Navy, that could say, \u201cHey, you need to use this tactic or this technique or this procedure, and it will help.\u201d So you have tremendous support stateside to feed us information. So learning was constantly happening, and it was very effective. So I can\u2019t really say that we were surprised by anything. It\u2019s the expectation in our culture that you will see things that you didn\u2019t expect, and then you do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NT: You mentioned that the leadership of this strike group has 25 to 35 years experience, and yet you\u2019d never seen anything like this kind of conflict. What was that learning curve like, and how did you adapt as the deployment went on to some of these threats?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill: We had all been involved in other combat operations, right? For me, for example, flying the E-2 Hawkeye, I was used to doing command and control \u2013 both in training, in combat \u2013 of running the air battle, right? So that was kind of intuitive for all of us. So in that sense, there was no, no surprise, right? It was easily adaptable for us. One of the things we had to look at, though, was how is this going to impact the crew, being in this environment? So a lot of questions came our way. How is the crew doing? What are you doing for the crew? And it became an item that we talked about with media locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would say things like, \u201cHey, the crew is doing great.\u201d And occasionally I\u2019d have a sailor that would come up to me say, \u201cSir, I don\u2019t agree with you. I\u2019m not doing great.\u201d That\u2019s partly because we\u2019ve all been on short and long deployments. Even if you\u2019re not doing combat, being at sea in an austere environment like the Red Sea, where it\u2019s hot, the water\u2019s hot, so the engines aren\u2019t as efficient. It impacts your quality of life. And this is a known thing by sailors going back centuries. It is a tough life by itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNaval air crewmen return after conducting search and rescue training aboard an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter, attached to the “Dusty Dogs” of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 7, in the Red Sea, Feb. 15. (U.S. Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nNow you add the complexity of warfare, I would say the warfare element was inspiring to many. And I talked about that \u2013 we felt like we had mission and purpose. We were actually doing something to make a difference in the world. We were affecting the enemy. We were showing American resolve by being there, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You know, I would say to sailors, \u201cWhat if America said, \u2018You know, we don\u2019t care. We\u2019re not going to show up.\u2019\u201d That\u2019s not what we do with the United States Navy \u2013 we care about freedom and navigation as part of our core mission going back to 1775, right? So, a lot of discussion about that throughout the ship to remind the sailors that they were really contributing to something significant, and also mentioned the fact that, \u201cHey, what is going on is unprecedented for the U.S. Navy at least in modern history going back 70 years.\u201d That was what contributed to morale in the positive. It might have been the one thing that sustained us through an extended deployment in the aggregate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we\u2019re looking at all these things as we\u2019re evaluating how we did, what we could have done better \u2013 there\u2019s always room for improvement on any deployment. But that was a big takeaway: the mission and purpose matters. And how do you measure it? How do you measure morale? I joked back in the day that I can measure morale by counting smiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s really hard to quantify. You can get it through feedback from sailors, so you have to now elicit feedback. I would bring sailors in this very room right here, 10 to 15 sailors a couple times a week. Through over the past almost year-and-a-half now, I have seen more than 2,700 sailors come through this room. We talked about morale, how the morale was, what we could do better \u2013 listening to sailors try to get that feedback. And then explaining my philosophy, and I had expectations for them. They were required to love and value each other. And I realize sometimes, if everybody\u2019s your brother and sister, that doesn\u2019t mean you actually get along with them every time. But the expectation is they are your brother and sister, so you still love and value them, right? And at the end of the day, if someone\u2019s going after them or they\u2019re getting attacked, you\u2019re going to jump in front of that system. That\u2019s the kind of environment we wanted to create \u2013 that\u2019s sort of like the warrior mindset or warrior ethos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NT: Speaking of morale, I understand that the ship had Wi-Fi during this deployment and I wanted to ask how that contributed to morale and also combatting disinformation.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill: Wi-Fi is a game changer here, right? And I realize that there are operational security concerns, there\u2019s times when you have to turn it off. It could expose you to hacking and all these other things that we worry about, and we have plans in place to mitigate that stuff. But as a human person, when you\u2019re having a tough day, who do you call? Right? Do you call mom and dad? Do you call your spouse? Everybody has their call person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes the connectivity doesn\u2019t work. We had some connectivity issues with Wi-Fi. When you have 5,000 people trying to get on a system with only a handful of satellites to connect to, it was a challenge, but I\u2019d like to see the Navy continue this process in a very careful, measured way to provide those resources to sailors so you can allow them to connect to their external support networks. That might be the thing that gets them through a tough day. We all have tough days. This is normal human behavior, right? What is the thing that can get them through? If Wi-Fi is a conduit for that, then let\u2019s invest in this, right? The technology exists now. It\u2019s less expensive than it was, say, 10 years ago. Let\u2019s take advantage of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAn Information Systems Technician cleans an antenna aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea on April 10. (U.S. Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAlso, the Wi-Fi opened up an opportunity to get into a little bit of more social media, right? So I was never a social media guy. I was always wary of it. I\u2019m not the kind of person that likes to show pictures of myself, and very reserved in that sense. But I decided to take a risk, working with my public affairs officer, I said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we use one of the social media sites, and I\u2019ll actually talk about my leadership philosophy or something like that.\u201d But it actually took off in a weird way. Parents got involved because they\u2019re worried about their sailors, right? Just like my mom was. And so I would get hundreds and hundreds of requests to see pictures of their sailors, and I couldn\u2019t keep up with it. I didn\u2019t have enough time in the day for something like that. But every day, I would try to bring up one sailor and show them off to the world, and just show the world that these are normal, ordinary young folks doing extraordinary things, and some people found some beauty in that, and so we just kept it going, right? Also, I gave them a cookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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