Photo By Cmdr. Jeffrey Gray | 250925-N-SI684-001 – Great Lakes, Ill. (Sept. 25, 2025) – “Our duty is clear: ...... read more read more
GREAT LAKES, Ill. (Sep. 25, 2025) — Aboard Naval Station Great Lakes, the storied “quarterdeck of the Navy,” a singular message rang clear this week: warfighting readiness is no longer a distant concept but an urgent demand.
The setting could not have been more fitting. Leaders from 14 Navy Reserve Centers (NRC) across the Midwest gathered for the Commanding Officer and Senior Enlisted Leader Conference, convened by Navy Reserve Readiness and Mobilization Command Great Lakes (REDCOM GL). What unfolded was no routine meeting but a deliberate summons—sharpen purpose, accelerate mobilization, and ensure the Reserve stands ready when the nation calls.
Cmdre. Kerri Chase, commander of REDCOM GL, opened the conference with candor and conviction.
“Commanding officers are here to make the hard decisions and have the hard conversations,” she told the assembled leaders. “Our duty is clear: to prepare Sailors to mobilize when the nation calls. Nothing less will do”.
In her first months in command, Chase implemented reforms designed to strip away clutter. Monthly readiness reports were streamlined, data-driven scorecards introduced, and recognition programs revived. These changes, she argued, are not cosmetic. They cut bureaucracy so leaders can concentrate on what matters most: people, medical readiness, and the ultimate measure of success — combat power.
She urged commanding officers to see their reserve centers not as administrative conveniences but as engines of mobilization. “Every evaluation, every medical document, every personnel record is not bureaucracy but a step in building combat power,” Chase said. Her charge distilled the Navy Reserve’s mission into its essence: to supply the strategic depth upon which the fleet relies.
From administrative detail, the conference vaulted to global strategy. Lt. Cmdrs. Elliot Rothrock and Joshua Kolar carried the audience thousands of miles westward into the Indo-Pacific theater. Their unclassified briefing pulled no punches.
“This is the economic heart of the global system,” Rothrock said. “Nearly every product Americans use depends on free and open seas here”.
The region accounts for 60 percent of the world’s population, hosts five nuclear powers, and contains the shipping lanes that sustain global commerce. Yet its stability hangs in the balance as China accelerates military expansion and sharpens its designs on Taiwan.
Rothrock warned that defense planners are no longer talking about hypothetical scenarios. “We are working from timelines that could require mobilizing 50,000 reserve sailors in 30 days,” he said. Slides showed U.S. commitments across Japan, South Korea, and Guam—all potential flashpoints should Beijing act.
His words recalled the 2021 congressional testimony of Adm. Phil Davidson, then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who warned lawmakers that China could move against Taiwan within six years. That forecast, known as the “Davidson Window,” has since become a watchword of urgency. Master Chief Petty Officer Robert W. Lyons, later reminded the audience that the window is narrowing—and the nation’s margin for error is closing with it.
If Rothrock’s intelligence framed the strategic stakes, Chase’s staff drove home the practical demands. Personnel experts from PERS-9 emphasized that accurate records and timely evaluations are not clerical chores but preconditions for mobilization. Sailors with outdated files risk being sidelined when time is most critical.
Medical officers were equally blunt. Lt. Cmdr. Claire-Marie Gould of PERS-95 warned that sailors left in limbo on limited duty rosters represent liabilities the fleet cannot afford. “We want fit sailors,” she said. “We don’t want someone sitting in limited duty status for years, unable to deploy.”
Even discussions of sexual assault prevention and response were tied directly to readiness. Tamara Turner, Sexual Assault Response Coordinator at Fleet and Family Support Center Great Lakes, underscored that trust and survivor care are not ancillary to warfighting but central to unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.
Each form signed, each sailor medically cleared, each report filed—all are links in the chain that stretches from drilling weekends in the NRCs to the contested waters in the Pacific.
The conference’s crescendo came when Master Chief Petty Officer Robert W. Lyons, Command Master Chief of Navy Reserve Forces Command, took the floor. Producing a fragile ticket from the 1941 Army–Navy football game, he reminded the audience that as Americans cheered in the stands, Japanese carriers were already bound for Pearl Harbor. Days later, 2,403 American service members and civilians killed and three American battleships lay in ruin.
“That was an inflection point in history,” Lyons declared. “Pearl Harbor, 9/11—we didn’t see them coming. Our adversaries are again preparing to force such a moment. The only question is whether we will be ready.”
He drew a straight line from the nation’s reliance on reservists in World War II to its reliance today. Then, citizen-sailors surged from small towns and inland cities to fill the fleet, providing manpower that turned the tide across two oceans. Now, the task may fall to today’s drilling reservists to provide the same strategic depth in the Pacific.
Recent exercises have tested that depth. Large-Scale Exercise 2025 and the most recent Mobilization Exercise demonstrated the Reserve’s ability to surge at speed. Within 44 hours, more than 13,000 sailors had received validated orders, complete with billets and destinations. “That is our margin of deterrence,” Lyons said. “Mobilizing sailors is not paperwork. It is survival.”
He pointed to recent combat in the Red Sea, where young petty officers intercepted hostile missiles with seconds to spare. “They are already seeing real combat,” he said. “And the leaders we are building today are the ones who will get us through the Davidson Window.”
Through every briefing, every reform, and every historical reminder, a single refrain echoed: warfighting readiness is priority one.
The conference distilled three dimensions into one mandate. Chase framed readiness as leadership integrity. Rothrock and Kolar cast it as geopolitical necessity. Lyons delivered it as living history pressed into the hands of today’s leaders. Together, they left no doubt: the Navy Reserve’s role as the nation’s strategic depth is no longer optional but essential.
As Cmdre. Chase concluded, “When we do our jobs well, it speaks volumes. Because the day may come when our nation calls—and the Sailors we prepare will be the difference.”
With steel at sea and resolve on shore, the Navy Reserve is preparing to answer.
| Date Taken: | 09.29.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.29.2025 11:59 |
| Story ID: | 549537 |
| Location: | GREAT LAKES, US |
| Web Views: | 277 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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