← WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
CDR Carne Livingston: The Hands-on Perspective of a Seasoned Commander
00:58:16
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- [00:00]
Marshall Spivak
Foreign.
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Commander Karn Livingston
Quarters. All hands, man your battle stations.
- [00:12]
Marshall Spivak
Welcome to wetsu, a Battleship New Jersey Podcast. I'm your host, Marshall Spivak, CEO and Executive Director of the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial. This podcast is sponsored by ELEC 825, the Labor Employer Cooperative of Operating Engineers Local 825, whose skilled members were instrumental in the in last year's dry docking of the Battleship New Jersey. Today, honored to be joined by a distinguished Naval Officer, Commander Karn Livingston, United States Navy Commander Livingston is a graduate of Washington State University and holds a Master's degree from the US Naval War College. Since earning his Surface Warfare Officer qualificate qualification in May 2003, he has served with distinction across the fleet. His sea tours have taken him abroad on a range of ships from USS Essex LHD 2, 3, the USS Ramage, DDG 61, USS Boxer, LHD 4 to serving as engineering officer on the USS Paul Hamilton, DDG 60 and later as executive officer of USS Portland LPT 27, helping to guide the crew through the complex operations and readiness milestones. Commander Livingston has also brought his expertise ashore in key leadership roles including as Assistant Surface Operations Officer, the carrier strike group one, exercise planner for carrier strike group 15, and instructor of Seamanship and Navigation at the United States Naval Academy. Entering the next generation of Naval officers, In May of 2022, he assumed command of the Pre Commissioning Unit John Basilone, and on 9th November 2024 upon the ship's commissioning, assumed command of the USS John Baslone DDG 122. After a highly successful tour bringing the fleet's newest Arleigh Burke class destroyer to life, the Commander, Livingston was relieved in January of 2025 and today he continues his service at the Pentagon as the OPNAV Surface Warfare branch weapons head op nav 96, shaping the future of the Navy's surface combat capabilities. Carter and his wife are proud parents of three boys who I had the privilege of meeting recently on their spring break trip to the visit to the battleship. Commander Carter Livingston, welcome to wetu. It's a pleasure to have you with us and it's always great to see you again.
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Commander Karn Livingston
Marshall. Thanks. It's great to see you and thanks for inviting me to be on the podcast with you there.
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Marshall Spivak
Absolutely. Let me start off where we start off with every interview, which is why did you join the Navy?
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, you know, I've heard you ask that question a few times on the last couple interviews and I started thinking through how am I going to answer that? And I think the easiest way is growing up my Parents always encourage service, you know, even if it was just, you know, do it, do a little bit of time in service before moving on to the next thing in life. And so I, I knew that I would serve. It was just a matter of what branch. As a kid I wanted to fly jets. You know, I saw Top Gun as a, as a kid and that was my favorite movie.
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Marshall Spivak
That's a popular answer.
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Commander Karn Livingston
So I, I wanted to fly airplanes. As, as life went on, I realized my eyesight was not good enough. And then other factors like grades. I did not have the highest grade, so I wasn't going to be the person that selected aviation. But so I had an interest in service and when it came time to go to college, I applied for both Air Force and Navy rotc. I ended up doing the Navy ROTC program and that's what brought me to the Navy. Awesome.
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Marshall Spivak
I mentioned the impressive list of ships that you've served on, so I want to ask a few questions about some of your favorites. First, is your favorite class of ship to be assigned to?
- [03:24]
Commander Karn Livingston
That's, that's a tough question because as you, as you listed there, I've had three destroyers, two amphibious assault ships, LHDs, and an LPD as well. And there's been different bits of every single one that I've really enjoyed for different reasons. I think. Obviously I'd have to say John Basilone has been my favorite ship. So, you know, if I was just going off of that, I'd have to say a destroyer is my favorite.
- [03:46]
Marshall Spivak
What was your favorite department head tour?
- [03:49]
Commander Karn Livingston
Oh, by far my, my job as first lieutenant on USS Boxer. You know, I was in charge of 110 person deck department. We deployed from San Diego over to 5th Fleet, so over to the Arabian Gulf area and did a, did an eight month deployment out there with the Marines. Had a lot of fun with that.
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Marshall Spivak
Tour over in Bahrain.
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, we had a couple port visits to Bahrain while we were there.
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Marshall Spivak
Yeah, well, and I think I already know the answer because you kind of just alluded to it, but my next question was, what is your favorite ship? Just what has been your favorite ship to serve on?
- [04:18]
Commander Karn Livingston
Well, John Baselone's my favorite. You know, like I said, there's things I like and there's, there's fond memories of every single one, but I think just the, you know, kind of that, that unique opportunity to bring a ship to life and a crew really kind of sticks with you.
- [04:31]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, I'm looking forward to discussing that in just a few minutes. Over the course of this podcast We've interviewed an. A handful of Naval Academy grads, but I don't think we've ever spoken to someone who's been an instructor at the Naval Academy. So I. I'm really interested to hear what does an instructor of seamanship and navigation do at Annapolis.
- [04:50]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, no, that's. That's really one of the. I think one of the best shore duty jobs for a lieutenant coming off of their division officer tours, because you're. You're working in office, but you're teaching midshipmen how to drive ships, how to navigate, how to operate, and just all about ship operations at the US Naval Academy has a training craft called a YP or a yard patrol craft, and it's about 108 foot long. It's got diesel engines and two propellers on it, so it's very, very maneuverable compared to a large Navy ship. But we take them out there on the Severn river and down into the Chesapeake Bay and teach. Teach midshipmen how to. How to safely drive. And it's a. It's a lot of fun for us as lieutenants because in a way, it's almost like having command before we're in command, because we've got all these midshipmen that we're trying to, you know, trying to teach and. And get the. Get the arbor patrol craft safely out in the OP area and back. So that was. That was part of the job there. But, yeah, I taught seamanship, taught navigation, and a little bit of naval warfare.
- [05:46]
Marshall Spivak
Awesome. That's. In January 2020, you joined the crew of USS Portland LPD 27, as the ship's XO. Can you tell us about your XO tour and, you know, especially how you and the crew navigated that during the. During the COVID pandemic?
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, that's a good question, Marshall. Like you said there, the COVID pandemic took a lot of the time on that tour. I checked into Portland in January 2020 as the third XO on board. The ship had been commissioned for almost two years by the time I checked in. I promoted to command Week I turned over zexo. Had a great, great ship, great crew. Had a really good working triad there. My command master chief was really solid. The captain I worked for a guy named Captain Dwayne Sanders. He actually will be promoted to admiral this week. So if that says anything about the caliber of CO I had a chance to work for. But the tour started off great. The three of us meshed really well. We were very excited about it. We were going to be finishing out the workups for the ship and getting the ship ready for its first deployment. So very exciting, very. Just an energetic to be there. And probably about two months into that tour, we found out about this thing called Covid. And we spent the rest of our time managing that, you know, managing. How do you keep a crew healthy and safe while you're still trying to train and complete the mission that the ship was assigned? And we couldn't just shut the doors down, you know, lock the doors and go away. We couldn't just keep everybody home. You know, as much as the families wanted us to do that, and as much as the sailors wanted to do that, we still had to focus on training and readiness. We had to take the ship out to sea. The USS Portland was a test ship for a 150 kilowatt laser. So it was a test system they installed just to test laser technology and how they could use directed energy. So we had a lot of underway periods where we were testing that. So doing all this while trying to keep the crew healthy was a big challenge.
- [07:46]
Marshall Spivak
Yep. I can only imagine how you all navigated that. I mean, it was an interesting time for me, and I can't imagine what it. What it was for. For men and women in uniform across the world who literally had their whole deployments upended, their whole lives upended. It was certainly a time to be alive, that's for sure. One of the questions that I like to ask is, where were you and what were you doing when you got the news that you were getting a command of your own for the first time? And was that something that was always a personal goal of yours?
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, there's probably three good questions in there to answer. I'll answer it three different ways because there was the time when I found out that I'd been screened for command, and then there was when I found out I got slated to John Baslow. And then the other part about, did I ever want to command? I'll start with that one first. That kind of sets the scene for everything. So going back to my. My time in college and early career, I planned on doing four years, five years, transition to the Naval Reserve and then move on to the civilian world and do something else, but kind of do the Navy as a. As a reserve thing. When I got into my second tour, I started to kind of. I changed my mindset. I started approaching it as, you know, I'll do one tour at a time, and as long as I enjoy it, I'll keep doing it. I'll do another one. I think it was during that second tour as a, as an officer of the deck on deployment. And you know, my, my CEO put trust in me as, as all CEOs have to trust their OODs. But he really, it was the first time I really felt like, you know what? I think I could do this. Like, there were, there were some situations where they. I probably wasn't as comfortable. And he's like, you know what, Karn, you got a good handle on this. I'll be up in a few minutes. I was like, okay, this, you know, he trusts what I'm doing. And I think that really just kind of instilled the love of ship driving and. Yeah, just, just being underway on the ship at nighttime, being on the way underway on the ship during a deployment. I started thinking, I think during that tour, you know, what if, if I keep doing this, that's what I want. I want to be a CEO. That was, that was kind of what started that thought in my mind was back as a lieutenant jg. And then, you know, that carried on for the rest of the tours. It's not always a guarantee that you're going to command, though.
- [09:52]
Marshall Spivak
Sure.
- [09:53]
Commander Karn Livingston
You know, you mentioned the, those tours. I had the department head tours and then the two tours with the strike group. And the strike group tours were actually considered a float tours. They were sea tours. So, yeah, Carrier Strike Group one. I was embarked on Carl Vinson. Okay. So we, we deployed that. We worked on the carrier and the only time we weren't on the carrier is when they had like the Internet shut down and we had to go to a building on base striker 15. We, we worked out of a building, but we were the executive agent for training. We, we got underway with every strike group and amphibious ready group that was getting ready to deploy and we ran the exercises. So it's, it's a quasi shore duty, I guess. You know, your CP and your C clock starts every time you go out for an exercise. Um, so but during those tours, just that desire to command really kind of solidified. Um, and that led me up to, you know, my time as an xo. So as xo, I was, I was going into my third look for command. So we. Every Surface warfare officer gets three looks. A few people pick it up on the first try. The first look, you know, there's more, more often people get selected on the second look, you know, on my second look, I got picked up for Exo Afloat. So I went to Portland and then had my third look for command. And that's where I found Out I got selected for command at sea and we were out doing an exercise in Southern California. I don't remember which exercise it was. It was one of the amphibious ones, probably, you know, Iron Fist or something like that. But it was, it was one of the, one of the amphibious exercises and, and we were out there and that was when the results came out that I had screened for command. Now my CEO actually didn't even find out before me. So I got a message from a friend that said congrats. And I was like, okay, where's, where's this list at? Yeah, sure enough, my, my name ended up on the list and you know, I was able to screen for command fast forward. That was in December of, that was December of 18. No, I'm sorry, that was December of 20th. December 20th. And then the summer of 21 is when I got slated. Every time a officer gets slated to command, they have a flag officer personally calls them and tells them what the assignment is. So I was out to sea again and I got a, I got an email from Admiral Kilby. I worked for him at Strike Group 1. And okay, he kind of became one of my mentors at the time. He was the, he was the deputy Fleet Forces. He was a vice admiral at the time. And he sent me an email, said, call me. So I called him. He said, hey Karen, congratulations, the slate's out. You've been slated to USS John Basilone. You know, he told me, he said, it's a pre commissioning ship. He said, so you'll, you'll go to Maine and it's named after a Medal of Honor Marine. And I didn't know a lot about John Baselin at the time, but that was when my education about him started. That was a very exciting underway to find out that I was getting assigned to command the USS John Baselon.
- [12:43]
Marshall Spivak
And I'm assuming you didn't have much experience in any type of pre commissioning unit beforehand. So what was it like? I guess knowing that you're not going to, you've spent quite a considerable amount of time at sea during your career and you've got your command and now you're essentially going for the first couple of years to, to work at the shipyard. What was, you know, how did you sort of navigate learning about the pre commissioning end of things?
- [13:07]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, actually that part was, I was, I was nervous about that part because like you said, every ship I'd been on had been operational. Every ship I'd been on had been old, except for Portland. And I had deployed with every single ship I'd been on and, you know, when, when Admiral Kilby and I were talking about it, he says, you know, I've never done a pre com. I've always been operational. I said, yeah, me too. He said, but, you know, I've heard it' Cool. You're gonna. You get to shape the crew, you get to set the culture, and you get to establish what the life of that ship is going to be. As exciting as it sounded also, you know, that's a, that's a big burden.
- [13:38]
Marshall Spivak
It's a daunting task. Yeah.
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Commander Karn Livingston
If you don't get it right, some of that stuff sticks with the ship for a long time and you really want to set it off on the right foot. So I was a little bit nervous at first on this task, but, you know, that was what the Navy assigned me to do when I, when I got there and started kind of learning, okay, what. What do I really do as a pre. Comp. CEO. And I learned pretty quick that, that my job really came down to assemble, organize and train the crew and get the crew assembled, get them organized in departments, divisions, and then train them, train them for, for underway operations and eventually wartime operations. So when I got my head around that, that helped me really kind of understand where I fit in the mission and what the Basilone team needed to do.
- [14:22]
Marshall Spivak
As we. As you just mentioned, DDG122 is named after Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, USMC, recipient of the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions at Guadalcanal and then being awarded the Navy Cross for actions at Iwo Jima. One of the most decorated Marines from all of World War II, and of course, one of our favorite sons here in, in New Jersey. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of having a, you know, someone of John Basilone's stature as your. As your ship's namesake and how that sort of resonated with, with your crew.
- [14:55]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, having a hero like John Basil definitely makes it easy to get behind and kind of rally behind the namesake. You know, learning, learning about who he was, reading about him and trying to think, okay, how are we going to embody that? I think you remember when we did the commissioning, our battle flag, our call sign for the crew of selfless warriors. And as I was learning about John Basel, and that was really kind of like the thing that stuck out to me was that John Basilow was a selfless warrior. And so we wanted to have a call sign or a name that resonated with us, but also helped kind of define who he was. And so that was the thing that we rallied behind.
- [15:38]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. Can you take us through a little bit about what. I mean, you talked about how you kind of organized the crew when you came in, but can you take us through a little bit about what it takes to get a crew and a boat ready for commissioning or sea trials and certifications? Can you talk a little bit about. About that process? We, We've actually had a similar conversation with our, our friend Steve Halley, who was the plank owner, CEO of the New Jersey. And we sort of heard about it from a submarine perspective. Can you talk us through a little bit about it from the surface force perspective?
- [16:12]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, and it's, it's interesting because the, for commissioning a new ship, you know, up until the Navy takes custody and I take custody of the ship, I actually didn't have any responsibility or authority for the ship itself.
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Marshall Spivak
Right.
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Commander Karn Livingston
You know, my, my authority was all with the crew. That's, you know, that was another, another new thing. But we had to, we had, we had to start with, you know, building instructions. All the instructions that say how you operate and how you do business on the ship have to get written. Now we borrow those a lot from other ships. You know, so you, you dust out, you find the one you like and make sure all the names are updated in there. So it has USS John Basilone, and. And then you review it for accuracy. You know, you make sure that it's still. That it captures. It captures the way you're supposed to do business. And then for me, that it captures my intent on how I want the, the crew to operate. So there's a. I can't even tell you how many instructions it was. It's in the hundreds of instructions we had to, that we had to produce and had to. Had to sign and get released. The other part is the training piece. We had to build the training program, qualification program and get everybody qualified. So there was lots of schools. There were schools we had to go through. There was on the job experience we had to try to build, which we did a lot of that through partnerships with other ships on the waterfront, supporting ships in Norfolk, supporting ships down in Mayport, Florida. And we also spent a lot of time just on board our ship for the people that were in Maine, observing tests, observing inspections, and making sure we knew what we were getting out of our ship.
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Marshall Spivak
Did you have most of your crew with you in Bath, Maine, or did they sort of join in spurts or closer to commissioning or how did you end up with your, your entire crew and how many crew Members serve on. On a DDG.
- [17:58]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, that's okay. So the DDG, the crew, the crew compliment for a DDG is about 310, 312 people if it's fully manned. Most of those people for most of my tour were in Norfolk, so. And the Navy has a couple pre com detachments. They have one in San Diego and they have one in Norfolk. And if you're a Norfolk east coast bay ship or west coast bay ship, it determines where your detachment is. Since we were an east coast ship, our detachment was in Norfolk. So when sailors get assigned, they would report to the detachment in Norfolk and then eventually they would move up to Maine. The footprint. When I say footprint, the number of people in Maine is a pretty small group. It starts off with about 10 people, 10 to 15 people, and then it grows to about 30, and then it grows to about 60 or 70, and it sits at about that 60 or 70 number until that final, that final surge of people near the end. So I'll walk through that process a little bit because that's one of the unique things about precon, so understanding, kind of the way that flow works. The purpose of the detachment is really where you get your fleet schools. So you go down to Norfolk, you've got office space with computers, so there's online training you can do, but there's only so much of that you can do. The best value we got was sending our sailors out to ships, so we would send them to schoolhouses that were in Norfolk, whether it was a firefighter trainer, an aircraft trainer, some of the simulators, ship driving simulators or combat system simulators they have at schoolhouses there. There's been a, been a huge investment in the Navy and being able to train ashore and then also just getting people out on ships. So, you know, even though it's a pre com, I was going to end up with a fully manned crew. Not every ship in the Navy has a fully manned crew. So there's always, you know, uss, you know, one of the other ships is getting ready to head out and they're short somebody, so they'll send a request out saying, hey, I need this type of sailor with this skill set. And you know, for most ships they'll, they'll get told to send somebody. So what we did is we tried to fill those before we got told because kind of the message I had for my crew is looking in a, in a year and a half, two years when our ship gets delivered, we have to be able to operate the ship. So you're going to get More value out of being out there on a ship, getting qualified, learning the job there and then bring that skills back to John Baselone. And so we had folks that would go out for a week, two weeks, a month. We had a couple sailors that we sent on six month deployments. I had two of my officers that were out there on a ship in the Red Sea when missiles started flying. And you know they, so they, they came back with combat action ribbons. They also came back fully qualified. All I had to do is re qualify them on board. John Basilone. And so for my sailors, what they did is they built their confidence, they built their competence and then we were able to build the team together when we got everybody together. So that's really the focus for the people that are in Norfolk is, was, was training and just getting, getting better at their job. And if we can support the fleet, you know, that's a double win. Support that other ship at the same time getting our ready to operate. The group that goes to Maine, like I said, is a smaller number. So our first, our first batch of people showed up to Maine in February or March of 22. It was about two months before I got there. So we had a lieutenant who was the officer in charge up there. It was my chief engineer, John Smith. He, he was the senior guy with a couple chiefs and a couple petty officers. So what I told him was this is actually even before I took command, I said well what I want you to do is start going on some of the assessments and inspections, you know, as they get ready to close out tanks, you should go in there and take a look at the tanks to see what they look like that way, you know what right looks like. So when I got there in May, I think there was about 11 people. And then there was a couple people that showed up the same week I did. So we had about 11 to 15 people that were there in Maine. And it's all. There is no junior people. So it was me, my command master chief and I had some chief petty officers. I had a damage control chief, an electrician chief, my top snipe gas turbine senior chief, he was there. I had my senior Aegis fire controlman and I had a, another chief, fire controlman, Aegis type. So it was all the senior technical ratings, you know, for the systems that are starting to get worked on during that time frame. Later that summer in 22, as the testing continued, kind of the. We launched the ship about two weeks after I got there, put the ship in the water and then christened the ship About a week after it was launched, the next big milestone was Aegis Light off, where the combat system comes together and starts its test plan. And that test plan is, it takes most of a year. It's, I think at the quickest, at the, it'd probably be like a 30 or 40 week test plan, but it usually takes a little bit longer. So I had brought a few more sailors up. So it was, there were still, still the senior people, but I started to bring in more like first class petty officers and second class petty officers that were specialists on those systems for the, for the combat system. So the same thing when, when tests were, the test team was there, hook and ma scenes up and measuring readings from one end of the cable to the other or when they were testing the equipment to make sure everything was working right. We tried to have our sailors there just to observe and learn all they could. So that was, felt like a long time where we had about, you know, 30 to 60 people. And then, you know, that was probably about a year where we sat right about that number. And then we started looking towards, okay, well pretty soon sea trials are going to happen. We need to bring sailors up for operating during sea trials. And then crew move aboard, which right before crew move aboard, you bring everybody up and almost overwhelms the town with that many people. And we can, we can talk about more of that phase too because that's, it's still pretty exciting because I think part of it as you kicked off the question was also talking about the sea trials and how that works. Yeah. So, you know, so I was talking about combat systems light off and getting that system already. And then, you know, we have to do, we have to bring on the fuel and test the fuel system for the first time. And then they have to, they have to test the generator and do a generator line off and then eventually a main engine light off. And these are all the support systems.
- [24:00]
Marshall Spivak
Getting ready, going down and checking all the boxes.
- [24:03]
Commander Karn Livingston
Exactly. And they do that for every system. You know, air conditioners. You know, the first time we walked on board and we felt ventilation coming out, it was like, wow, that's a big deal. You know, the ship is starting to come to life. And so there's a, there's a series of three sea trials. Eventually, you know, when everything is tested, everything works. They've tested at pierside. It's okay, let's go shake it down and see the, the Builder Bath Ironworks actually runs sea trials. And it's, it's overseen by the supervisor of shipbuilding. So the supervisor of shipbuilding is. Is the government rep. And it's a mix of uniform and civilians. The uniform folks there are usually engineering duty officers. Some of them were prior SWOs before they became engineering duty officers. So they are the supervisor. And. And I was really just there as a guest.
- [24:48]
Marshall Spivak
Interesting.
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, it was. It was. It was neat being out on. Being on my ship, but it wasn't yet my ship still the. It was still the builder ship. So the Bath Ironworks brings out a group of operators. They're certified merchant marines, essentially, certified to run engineering plants that bring a deck crew out that's certified and licensed to drive the ship. The harbor pilot for the Kennebec river is one of the pilots for Portland, is the ship's master. He's a. They hire him and he brings a team out there, and he's up there on the bridge the entire couple days we're out doing trials. And they. The first set of trials, we call it H, M and E or whole mechanical and electrical. It's really. Does everything work? Can you support life? Can you make electricity, make water? Can you propel the ship? And so they run through all those support systems. They take the ship out and they run it at full speed. You know, can we. Can we go to full power? Can we run it full power? And everything stays. And all the readings look right. Pretty. Pretty fun, you know, doing that. And then you come back into port, and about a month later, two months later, maybe you go out for the combat system C trials. It's the second round of trials. So in theory, everything is done for the whole mechanical and electrical. And now you're just looking at the combat systems, the radars, the communications, and everything else that helps us operate. It's another series of tests to go through that whole bat. Once all that's done, the third round of tests is the acceptance trials. So the acceptance trials, they bring a team from InServe, the board of Inspection survey, and the Navy demonstrates the ship to inserve. And as long as it passes the test, they're able to accept the ship officially, the Navy's able to sign the paperwork and transfer custody from the builder to the supervisor.
- [26:31]
Marshall Spivak
Okay, so. Exciting moment.
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Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, we had a cake and everything. We had the paperwork in the wardroom. We signed the form to transfer custody. You know, it's exciting because it's one step closer to being USS John Baselon.
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ELEC Representative
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- [27:18]
Marshall Spivak
You know, there's such a renewed focus right now on shipbuilding, from the White House to the Navy to Congress in nonpartisan way. Thankfully, you've had this sort of unique experience of working with Bath Ironworks. There's at least 10 more DDGs that are, you know, announced they're under construction. You know, that. Can, I guess. Can you talk a little bit about how it was working with. With the folks at Bath and sort of being right, right there in. In the middle of that kind of situation?
- [27:45]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah. And there's actually two companies that build the ddg, so there's. There's Bath Iron Works up in Bath and then Huntington Ingalls down at Pascagoula. And I've served. I've served on both Ingalls ships and Bath ships. I've never actually been to Huntington Eagles, so I'm, you know, it's a similar operation down there, you know, But I really enjoyed working with the team at Bath Ironworks. And, you know, even though I probably won't see them very much, you know, as an take the ship and move on, but getting to know the team that built the ship, everyone from the supervisors and some of the area vice presidents down to the people who paint and weld, even the person that cleans up on board. And I had the benefit of my whole manager who was a government rep. He had worked for Bath Ironworks after he got out of the Navy and he worked there. I can't remember how many years he was there before he transitioned the government. So he knew everybody. It was. It was awesome. So every time we were down there, he would introduce me. He's like, hey, this is. He's like, this is Sarah. She works in this area. This is John. He's one of the, you know, he does. Here's what he's involved in. And, you know, he would introduce me to these folks as we walked around. And, and then also what he would do is because I like to. I'd like to recognize them for their work and try to just, hey, thank them for what they're doing. So as we got, as we were going through like, aviation certification or, you know, whatever certification we needed, he would point out people who were. Who are really just kind of helping get it done. And he. He'd let their supervisor know, and then I would give him one of my coins. And that usually made their day because they, they weren't expecting that. And you know, they, they don't always, they didn't always get the interaction with the, the ship CEO. Sure, they're like, oh, wow, you're the captain of the ship or you're going to be the captain. I chat with them for just a minute and get to know them. And it was just, it was fun. It was a neat, neat environment. Being there. If you've never been up there, it's a beautiful town, you know, small town feel up there in Maine. But yeah, it was just a, I enjoyed the two years I had up there.
- [29:45]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, I'm sure what you're just saying was so appreciated because I know just at the battleship in Camden, we, you know, we were built just down the river in Philadelphia at the Navy yard. And we still get people who come on board and say, you know, my grandparents or my parent or my, my grandmother, my grandfather. We have actually a lot of women who were, were a part of the crew who, who built the battleship. And there's such a pride in that, right? I mean, there's such a pride. You have pride in bringing the ship to life as, as the skipper, but the pride of the folks who are, built the ship and did the painting, did the welding and all that. So I'm sure that that really meant a lot to them, for sure.
- [30:22]
Commander Karn Livingston
It's a, it's an important industry. We need, we need ships. We need, we need shipyards to build Navy ships. We need shipyards to build our merchant ships. And you know, just like the Navy and all the other branches of the military are trying to recruit our talent for, for our active, for our active duty, our enlisted and our officers. The, the shipyards are trying to recruit their, their workers and the tradesmen and women who will, who will continue to build ships. It's another way to serve.
- [30:51]
Marshall Spivak
Yes, it is.
- [30:52]
Commander Karn Livingston
And the folks who work that industry should be very proud of what they do.
- [30:55]
Marshall Spivak
Absolutely. Without a doubt. I wanted to know, sort reflect on the responsibility that comes with commanding a warship like, like a, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. You know, in today's sort of geopolitical environment, you've got many different conflicts going on all around the world. You, you mentioned some of your crew, you know, served in the Red Sea combating the, the Houthis and those organizations over there. You know, can you talk about that sort of responsibility that comes along with that and how you, you sort of handled it and viewed it?
- [31:25]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, this kind of goes back to the goals I had, the charge I had in command, where the assemble, organize and train. And I always told my crew that the training piece is we're training to operate at sea. You know, when we take custody of the ship, we're sailing down the river and we're taking it to our commissioning site and to our home port. But we're also training for operations. The Navy was built to provide prompt and sustained power, you know, for, for sea power, for combat at sea. And the departments, the divisions, every sailor on the ship is built around that combat organization. And so I tried to have those, those conversations with my crew and just keep reiterating that you might not be the person pushing a button on a console that fires a weapon system, but even my engineers, keeping power and lights on enables us to, to fight. You know, my supply team helped us stay sustained and ready to be able to fight, you know, whether it was through parts and logistics or through food and services. You know, so, so for me as a CEO, you know, I didn't, I didn't get to take my ship on deployment, but, but knowing that, that I was trying to get a crew ready and combat ready and battle minded and that really, it weighed on me because no one else was. You know, it was my responsibility. You know, I had a bunch of people to help me do it, but at the end of the day, how well the crew was ready really, really weighed on me. And that was the trust that was placed in me as a to was to get that crew ready. So it's a, it's a huge weight. I'll tell you that. The, the day of my change of command that afternoon, you know, as, as sad as it was to move on, it was like a huge weight was lifted because, you know, it was now like I wasn't in command anymore. The decisions didn't rest on my shoulders anymore. And I, I don't think I knew, I don't think I expected that, that feeling that same day.
- [33:16]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, I was hoping we could shift for a second and talk about commissioning week. I had the real honor and privilege of serving on the Basilone commissioning committee. It was, I think I was on the USS New Jersey commissioning committee for the submarine for like four and a half years prior to our commissioning week. And I think I was on the baselone commissioning for all of like eight weeks, nine weeks, I think it was. But we, we pulled it off and it was really just a tremendous, tremendous commissioning day and week. And, and of course it happened in, in New York City. And I remember it was probably three or four days before I was doing, doing one of the commissioning week activities. But seeing the pictures of the Basilone sailing into New York harbor past the Statue of Liberty, I mean just an incredible sight to see. An incredible, you know, really, truly picture perfect moment. And of course the, the commissioning was next to the US the former ex USS Intrepid, the retired Essex class aircraft carrier. You know, how cool of an experience was it to. To bring this ship into, into Manhattan?
- [34:23]
Commander Karn Livingston
Oh, it was that, that was exciting. I had been there once and I was there as a lieutenant jg on my first destroyer for fleet week. Okay, 2006. So this was my almost. It was not quite 20 years later, but 18 years later, you know, bringing the ship in and you know, pulling in there to Pier 88. It was, it was exciting. It was so much fun being in New York as you know, being part of the committee. Just the whole everything around commission is exciting. Yeah. There's a lot of energy the entire week, the activities leading up and then certainly the day of too. Yeah, that was, that was a pretty great feeling to that morning. Get the first glimpse of New York and get our way into the traffic and start to make that transit in and yeah, just what a perfect day. The weather was perfect pulling in that day.
- [35:12]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. And the painting that was commissioned for the commissioning day with the ship, it was almost the same picture that I saw on Facebook a couple of days before and it had the big 1st Marine Division battle flag flying.
- [35:27]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah.
- [35:28]
Marshall Spivak
And it was great. A few days before the commissioning, we at the battleship hosted the crew on board for a special dinner and tours. Wanted to know what your, what your crew thought of being on board the battleship New Jersey.
- [35:43]
Commander Karn Livingston
The ones who were there loved it. They just being on a piece of history like that, I mean for who can't love going on board one of those battleships. I remember feeling the same thing when I went to see the battleship out in Hawaii. One of my sailors enlisted. But it was fun going out there, being able to walk around the battleship New Jersey. For me it was a different perspective. Certainly impressive seeing just the size of that ship. But when I walked up to the bridge and I think I told you this when we were there about a month ago, thinking, standing up there, being like, wow, this is open water, you know, this would be okay to drive, but that's a big shift to try to bring into port and just very impressed at just the magnitude of it and all the people who'd been there before us and then thinking about how the legacy of our ship, John Basilone, was carrying on that same legacy that the battleships had from their long career of service from World War II and beyond that.
- [36:36]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, we, well, we took the ship to dry dock last year, as you know, and the, the art of ship handling as you talked about during your time at the, at the Academy, was certainly in perspective all of last year, bringing four separate movements in and out of three different ports, including a dry dock. It was an interesting, it was an interesting experience and not, not an easy one to handle, especially without propulsion and engine systems. Especially. So, so. Yeah, well, we're, we're certainly glad and we were really honored to, to host the crew. I know it meant a lot to our team. When we have such a, such a complement of sailors, you know, active sailors on board, it really, it helps bring the ship to life, honestly. And we're, we're certainly proud of what we did. We just hosted on board a couple days ago the commissioning ceremony for our, our Rutgers University Navy ROTC. 12 new Ensigns and, and lieutenants in the Marine Corps. And the admiral who was, who was there for the ceremony reflected on how great the battleship looked. And then I, and which obviously means a lot to us and we take a lot of pride in that. And, but then to step foot on your ship and get a quick tour in New York with our crew. We gave you, we gave you tours, then we got your tour and it was really cool to see what, you know, a brand spanking new Arleigh Bur class destroyer looks like. And it was just a really cool experience. So did you have any other, or did your crew have any sort of other really great events or experiences you want to mention from Commissioning Week?
- [38:12]
Commander Karn Livingston
You know, they were just excited to see New York, you know, besides the trip out to the battleship. We took a crew down, we took a group of them down to Raritan, New Jersey, so down to John Baselin's hometown. And we built a really good relationship with the town of Raritan and with the Baselin Memorial Foundation. So we try to send people down there at least every year from the parade they do in September. So it was fun to connect with, with, with our friends there. You know, we had another big tour that went to the Statue of Liberty, which was, I saw some amazing pictures from that day. And then I think just getting around the city and seeing everything there is to see in New York. I know they were, they were all excited and happy to be there.
- [38:48]
Marshall Spivak
I know we, we sort of talked about it a little bit earlier. You Know, we talked about what, what it, setting the standard and setting, you know, being out having the opportunity to sort of shape the crew, shape the boat and the culture. You know, what did it mean to you to be the first skipper of a newly commissioned ship?
- [39:06]
Commander Karn Livingston
Oh, yeah, don't mess it up. You got to get that culture right. You know, the. I try to focus on just doing the job the right way and bringing that same mindset to the rest of the crew. You know, it's a huge honor, you know, to be the first cos. My name will always be the first one on that plaque there. You know, when, you know, when the Navy has the list of ships and all the COs that have been on there, my name's gonna be in the top right. You know, and there's, there's several other people who've who were pre comp cos and being able to meet, being able to meet some of them over there. Afterwards, I started reaching out to other, other pre commissioning COs. You know, our former Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, he was at our, at the commissioning ceremony. He pre commed a ship when he was in the Navy, you know, so him and I shared some thoughts on just the excitement of precomming.
- [39:58]
Marshall Spivak
I loved hearing about him talking about that during his speech on commissioning day. Yeah, he was so excited all week and I was talking to him the night before and telling him what we, you know, that we had the crew on the, on the New Jersey and he had just presided over the submarine New Jersey's commissioning a few weeks earlier. And there's some really, really cool experiences.
- [40:20]
Commander Karn Livingston
Well, he told me we were going to make the bathloom commissioning the second best commissioning.
- [40:23]
Marshall Spivak
Commissioning outside of his.
- [40:25]
Commander Karn Livingston
I'm assuming he's, he said, and you know why it's second best? I said, yes, sir, I do. So that was, it was fun to have him a part of it. And I was, I was glad that you, that you joined the commissioning committee with our, our chair, Frank Russo over there in New York. Yeah, it was just amazing.
- [40:41]
Marshall Spivak
Any particular moments stand out to you for Commissioning Day? That was sort of a favorite moment of yours.
- [40:46]
Commander Karn Livingston
The, you know, you talked about the same thing with Commander Steve Halley. The. John Baselin is in commission and I'm in command. Being able to turn and say that to make that report to Admiral Caudle or Fleet Forces Commander. He was there as the, as the CNO's rep. And yeah, I thought I was going to start crying, so I practiced it. You know, we, we rehearsed it so many times that the day prior I said it. I said it. You know, I went through my whole script. And so I was. I had fun, you know, the. I had fun with the commissioning ceremony.
- [41:14]
Marshall Spivak
Hard not to.
- [41:16]
Commander Karn Livingston
I. You know, I'm sure some people could probably be very rigid, but I was. I was enjoying it. I was enjoying the entire ceremony. And I think that part, though, you know, making. Turning and making that report, I mean, like, all right, you know, the ship is in commission now. Yeah.
- [41:31]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. Well, you obviously know that's my favorite part of the commissioning ceremony.
- [41:35]
Commander Karn Livingston
The other part for me was that the part with the crew bringing the ship to life.
- [41:40]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, you know, I was just gonna say that too. Whole.
- [41:43]
Commander Karn Livingston
The whole crew turned and pivoted at the same time and then did that. That battle cry that the ship did, you know, right after they all came on board, it was.
- [41:53]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, yeah. Now I noticed. I noted at the. At commissioning day that when, you know, when the order from the. From the sponsors were given, you a great, great sponsors for. For your ship, you know, there was a lot of Marines that also came on board at that time. Did you have Marines as part of your crew or was that just a special thing for that day? Because of who? John Bas.
- [42:15]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, that was. That was a special thing for that day. We've wanted to have Marines involved in the commissioning. John Basilone pretty much, you know, since I got assigned there. And so when we knew we were going to have some Marines at the ceremony, we're like, we're bringing them. We're. We're mixing them in with the crew. We want them to be part of that. Yes, that was, that was very intentional. It was. It was fun having them there.
- [42:35]
Marshall Spivak
That's great. This is the wet suit podcast. We eat this stuff up or, or something like that. And I understand that you told me you had a similar ish motto on the. John Basilone. Can you tell us a little bit about the origins of that, what it means and sort of, you know, what it meant to the crew and how the crew embraced that slogan.
- [42:57]
Commander Karn Livingston
That's another one that goes back to right after I took command. My main propulsion assistant, before I received gas, he came to check in with me and. And he said, you know, he really. He values, you know, ownership and, you know, his team caring. And I don't. I don't know that I think he got the phrase from somewhere else, but he, you know, so his last name was Gass G A S S. And he said, I want to use this phrase called Hogas H O G A s. And I was like, interesting. He's like, well, you've heard of like gas, you know, the give a, give a care. We'll, we'll say that. And I was like, yeah, but you know, you talk about, you know, having that gas factor and, you know, you got, you got to care about what you do. And he said, well, he's like, what I want to call it is a high octane, you know, so it's high octane.
- [43:43]
Marshall Spivak
Give a love that.
- [43:45]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, you know, he, he brought that in as part of the engineering department. And so when we were going through our certifications, you know, that was something I would highlight. You know, we'd have all hands calls. And I was like, hey, our engineers out there, they've got that hog ass. They bring it every day. And of course, you know, they wanted me to say it out loud in the group. You know, they were, you know, signed, so I'd throw the hog ass in there when I could for them. Yeah, so when I heard about the wetsu, I was like, you know what, that's awesome. They'll be excited to hear that. Because I don't think we knew that when we came and visited the battleship when we were there for the pre commissioning party.
- [44:20]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, we launched this podcast after commissioning and actually this is our battle flag, our WETSU battle flag. We actually just found a second battle flag from, from the Beirut campaign. But what is the importance of having these type of Wetsu ho gas, you know, mottos, rallying, cries, whatever you want to sort of describe them as, you know, you've served on a lot of ships and you know, what's the importance of sort of that, that rallying cry that essentially helps bring this, the crew together?
- [44:48]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, it's, it's that ownership level. And you know, whether you're talking WETSU or whether you're talking hogas, it's a, it's a level of ownership. You know, you can call it extreme ownership, you know, it's. But it comes down to owning everything. You know, that at the end of the day, it's yours. You know, the ship, the mission, the people, and you're going to do it the best way you can. And so, you know, whether when things are good, when things are bad, like you're going to come in there and you're going to give it the best you can. You know, I always told my folks I wanted them to know their jobs, do their jobs, and then treat everyone with respect and dignity and so that knowing your job and doing your job it's, it's, it's personified or displayed through that, that hog ass or through that wetsu.
- [45:32]
Marshall Spivak
Is there any particular sort of WETSU hog ass moments that sort of stand out to you from time on baselone or maybe just from, you know, one of your other, one of your other ships that you served on?
- [45:43]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, well, you know, I'll say in the process of getting the ship certified to sail away is really where we saw it and every single certification, you know, the, the, the crew is tired, but they came in there with energy, they came in there with excitement and they did well. And at the end of the cert, the, the inspection team like, hey, you guys are so much, you guys are great to work with. You're very respectful. You care about what you do. And then the next week, the next inspectors would be out there. We get done with that one, you know, eventually, you know, and this is the. So from the time we moved aboard, the time we sailed away was 84 days, which was, it was a, it was a record. We weren't trying to set a record, but, but it was a record, which it did anyway. And it was, it wasn't easy. You know, the crew was, they were getting pretty tired. They were getting, they're starting to get worn down. But you know, that ownership and that care for the mission was, was still there even when they were tired. And so I'd say it's not just one moment, but really that whole move aboard sail away time period, seeing the John Baselin crew like just dig in and, and get it done and do it the right way. And, and you know, when, the day we sailed away, that was actually some of the stuff that got talked about when we had the BCNO was out there and the supervisor shipbuilder was there and the supervisor actually was commenting on the Basilone crew and said, you know, this crew has a sense of ownership that they hadn't seen in a while and just how well they'd done with everything. So it was.
- [47:05]
Marshall Spivak
Oh, I'm sure that was, I'm sure that was so great to hear on your part. Yeah, that's great. I mentioned earlier, I met your sons a few weeks ago on the battleship and I asked a similar question to Steve Halleck and I'll ask it to you. You know, how do you balance the sort of really incredible responsibility that you have, you know, as skipper of a newly commissioned vessel or really any, any vessel there that is to, you know, sort of balancing that work, home life and, and you know, at the same time Also trying to meet these sea trials, meet these certifications, check all the boxes, get this ship ready for, for commissioning and to enter the fleet. How do you balance the responsibilities of, you know, your, your duty versus, you know, your, your, your home life?
- [47:52]
Commander Karn Livingston
So that is a challenge. I'll start with saying that it's a challenge. You know, my wife and I have been married 16 years and most of that time has been assigned to ships that we're deploying. And you know, our oldest son that you met, Jacob, he just turned 14 for pretty much, you know, his whole life I've been in a sea duty capacity. And what I try to do is when I'm not, when I'm not gone, so when I'm not out to sea or travel somewhere, you know, if I can try to, try to be there for those family events, whether it's an appointment or, you know, kids appointments or school or helping run errands, you know, I try to balance that. You know, it's like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna leave work a little bit early, you know, on this one day. It's not every day, but trying to make sure I'm there. Because when those deployments come and I'm gone for six months, eight months, whatever it is, it's, it's just the family doing it. So. So I've really gotta be intentional to invest back into them when I'm home. But I have to be deliberate about it because it can be easy just to stick with the work schedule and stay late, but the work's still going to be there the next day, right? So teaching myself to, teach myself to be like, you know what? I'm at the point, I'm at the logical stopping point for the day. You know, that late day is going to come. But today doesn't have to be the late day. So I'm going to get there and help out the family. So I'll say it hasn't always been perfect, but there's been times it's been better. Certainly the. When I was at the pre com, I was able to be home every night. So that was one nice thing about that job is I was home every day until we moved aboard the ship, which is around the time I moved the family to Maryland. And then we kind of treated that like a deployment. So they moved down to Maryland, I moved on board the ship and you know, I started working longer hours because family was here and they weren't with me. And so I just kind of focused on the mission there. And then once that time was Over. It's like, okay, it's time to get back home and reconnect.
- [49:42]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. You were relieved in January after your highly successful tour bringing the John Basilone to life. You're at the Pentagon now. Can you tell us a little bit about what your new assignment is?
- [49:53]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, so this is my first tour in D.C. and like you said, I'm on the Chief Naval operations staff, or OPNAV, and I work in the Surface Warfare Directorate. N97 specifically where I'm at is I'm in the weapons and sensors, which is N96 Charlie. And I'm the branch head for weapons. So it sounds like a lot. What it really is is that we're the, we're the resource sponsor for all the weapons the Navy have. So in my portfolio I've got all the missiles. So anything that comes off a ship. SM2, SM6, standard missile, sea Sparrow is this surface and submarine, specifically surface ships. Yeah. So if it comes off a surface ship, it's part of my portfolio. There's another office that handles everything for submarines and there's also an aviation branch as. Yeah. So I've got, so I've got the hard kill weapons. Tomahawk is part of my, part of my portfolio. And then guns and ammunition, so the 5 inch gun all the way down to the 9 millimeter. So it's pretty, pretty exciting portfolio to be in.
- [50:51]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah.
- [50:52]
Commander Karn Livingston
You know, just resourcing what the Navy needs right now, but then also looking at what do we need in the future. What's that next? What's that next weapon we want to work on? So it's a, it's a different type of work than I've ever done, but it's rewarding its own in its own way. Yeah.
- [51:08]
Marshall Spivak
What do you miss most about sea duty when you're ashore? And then on the opposite side of that, what don't you miss at all?
- [51:15]
Commander Karn Livingston
I don't miss being away from the family. So that's that part I definitely don't miss. What I do miss is I miss the sailors. I miss the sailors, I miss the officers, I miss the chief. Just the connection and tightness you get with a crew on a ship. That's the part I think I miss the most.
- [51:33]
Marshall Spivak
Just.
- [51:33]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, I still get a little bit of that working with people in the Navy and then working with people who are retired. It's not the same thing. It's different.
- [51:39]
Marshall Spivak
So it's a different feeling. Yeah, certainly. And how are you enjoying? I mean, you spent most of your time at sea, you know, at sea Deployments. You're now in the heart of really everything at the Pentagon. So what's it like going from serving on these type of ship deployments to now working at really, the center of the world for the military in Washington at the Pentagon?
- [52:01]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah, it's. Well, I had a little bit. Almost a little bit of depression, you know, at first, because it's, you know, going from. From being in command of a ship to. That's no longer my world for right now, but it is. It's an exciting feeling going in there and working. And there's. There's so many people that work there. There's so much that happens there that I have no idea because it's outside of. It's outside of the shop I work in, you know, and if I didn't. If I wasn't intentional, I probably. I'd see these people. But there's. There's so much other work happening there that it feel actually very small. It's big what we're doing, but I also feel like, you know, it's just. It's one piece of the defense industry and the department.
- [52:39]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. Oh, it's a different feeling, I'm sure. You know, I wanted to ask you, what advice do you have or have you given to, you know, aspiring officers and who are aspiring to, you know, to command their own ship one day?
- [52:53]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah. I think the biggest piece is don't give up. And, you know, by doing that, you'll help build that resiliency in nature. So when. When things aren't easy, you know, if you get kicked, you fall down, get back up and keep going. And then, you know, you decide. You decide when it's time to move on, to do something else. So I think that's. That's probably the biggest piece. Just don't give up on it. But then as you're. As you're doing, as you're pursuing that goal, you know, take. Take that ownership in it. Do your best to learn everything you can about it and then. And then do the right thing. Do the right thing.
- [53:23]
Marshall Spivak
Every day in April, you received news that you were selected for 06, a promotion to captain. So congratulations and thank you. And Bravo Zulu to you. How did you hear about the news, Your promotion and when? I guess when does those promotions really come into effect?
- [53:44]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah. So they. Yeah. So thank you, Marshall. Yeah, I did. I did get selected for captain. They will start promoting people in October and it's all based on seniority. So.
- [53:53]
Marshall Spivak
Okay.
- [53:53]
Commander Karn Livingston
For where I'm at on the list, I am. I'm I'm fairly high on the list, but they only, only promote like 10 people a month roughly.
- [54:00]
Marshall Spivak
Okay.
- [54:01]
Commander Karn Livingston
So basically I, I think that my promotion will probably be in April or May of next year. Just traditional, you know, kind of history, the way that the promotion numbers go every single month. I'm guessing that I'll be a springtime promote, but I'll know that better once they put out the phasing plan. They'll publish that later this year.
- [54:20]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. That's great. Well, I've had three people who I knew and consider friends. You, Steve Halley, and a guy. Guy named Joe Ben, who also piloted the battleship on all the movements that we talked about. He's a strategic sealift officer. All three of you made 06. And so this must be something in the water this year.
- [54:39]
Commander Karn Livingston
Yeah.
- [54:40]
Marshall Spivak
So again, congratulations to you on that.
- [54:42]
Commander Karn Livingston
Thank you. Yeah.
- [54:45]
Marshall Spivak
Anything else you want to sort of leave with that you want people to know about your time in the Navy or about the Basilone, about, you know, your, your service or, or anything you'd like to sort of leave our, our listeners with?
- [55:00]
Commander Karn Livingston
Well, you know, one, one thing I was thinking about, you know, and just kind of, you know, after I was there visiting the battleship and I brought my kids there serving on board, you know, several ships now, you know, I really appreciate and thank you for the role that you and the, the Battleship New Jersey Museum play on. Thank you on, on maintaining that ship and keeping that ship there to, to show the American people about the Navy. You know, even a small piece for me as a, for me as a career sailor, it's just, just awe inspiring seeing a ship like that and, you know, hearing the stories of the sailors who served on board and knowing what the battleships did for the US Navy in wartime. So there's that piece of history and legacy that we have there, but then also connecting it to what we do nowadays. You know, in a way, I see that as the role you all play there is, yes, it's preserving history, but it's also inspiring that next generation of people who will either serve in uniform or serve, you know, not in uniform by encouraging others to serve or supporting through other, through some other means. And that's kind of the same obligation I've got on active duty is to share my story, to share, you know, about the sailors I've worked with, the things we've done, the things we've enjoyed and the things we've learned and inspiring that next generation through our stories to consider service. So that's probably the thing I would, I would leave with is just keep, you know, keep, keep sharing that story. Keep, keep sharing the service and inspiring young kids and old kids to, to, to support the Navy.
- [56:37]
Marshall Spivak
Thank you. I, well, first of all, I appreciate that. And you know, a lot of us are not, I'm not a veteran. A lot of us are not veterans. We do this because we're patriots, because we love this. We love the battleship, we love the Navy. But you hit the nail on the head. I mean that exactly our mission, it's to, to make sure that people know the service and sacrifice that went in to a ship like this, who served, you know, in 19, who had 19 battle on campaign stars and served in World War II and Vietnam, Korea, Beirut, Persian Gulf, and making sure that people understand the sacrifices that our sailors make and also especially that their families make. And that's our core mission at the battleship. And I'm glad that it's doesn't go unnoticed. So we, we appreciate that greatly. Commander Carl Livingston, it was a real pleasure to talk to you. We are grateful to you for your service in the Navy, to our country, to our USS John Basilone community, and most of all, we're grateful and thankful to have you here on the not the Hog Ass podcast, the Wetsuit podcast here at the Battleship New Jersey. So thank you very much, sir.
- [57:44]
Commander Karn Livingston
Thanks Marshall. It's great to see you again.
- [57:46]
ELEC Representative
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