What does the civilian job of Secretary of the Navy entail, exactly?
Ray Mabus: A civilian secretary leads both the navy and the Marine Corps, and the civilian secretary’s job is to recruit, equip, train, and maintain the navy and the Marine Corps. Buying the ships, weapons, recruiting sailors and marines, training them, promoting them, assigning them… My job is basically everything except operations. There are more than 800,000 people in the navy, the Marine Corps, and the Reserves, and we have a total budget this year of about $170 billion. What are the primary allotments of that money? Taking care of people—healthcare, housing, families. But also buying ships and aircraft. The aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush was just launched, and, with the strike force that goes along with it, it cost in excess of $10 billion. The carrier strike force is composed of all sorts of ships—aircraft, submarines—that have to be built, maintained, crewed, so you’re looking at really substantial investments. We have 11 carriers out there today.
