Sea Control - Sea Control 419- Commanding a Piece of American History with CDR Billie Farrell

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Links1. USS Constitution Museum.2. USS Constitution U.S. Navy Website.3. "Conning the Constitution," Chris Peters, CIMSEC, September 3, 2012.4. "Sea Control 153: USS Constitution with Angry Staff Officer and Dr. Claude Berube," Jared Samuelson, CIMSEC, January 20, 2020.5. A Call to the Sea: Captain Charles Stewart of the USS Constitution, Claude Berube and John Rodgaard, Potomac Books, 2006.

Hello, and welcome to the Sea Control Podcast, and happy International Women's Day. I'm Nathan Miller. Today we have a very special episode, Sea Control's first in-person interview. Anna McNeil speaks with Commander Billy Farrell, the commanding officer of USS Constitution, about what it's like to command a piece of American history. Commander Farrell is the first woman to command the USS Constitution. This episode was edited and produced by Marie Williams. SimSec is looking for a volunteer to join our technical team and support our web operations.

We're looking for someone with a background in WordPress implementation and support, as well as knowledge in web hosting and networking. Some knowledge of identity management and security operations is also helpful. Please reach out to content at simsec.org to share your background and discuss. I would like to pause here to highlight our local chapters. Whether you're in South Korea, Egypt, Singapore, France, New York, India, or the Caribbean, Chances are there's a local SimSec chapter near you. You can find a full listing of our chapters and contact information on our website at simsec.org.

So if you're interested, please reach out. Finally, I want to take this opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec podcast network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimber's Met. Hey folks, thanks for tuning back in to Sea Control. This episode is coming to you from a very special location. We're in Boston, Massachusetts with the commanding officer of the USS Constitution, Commander Billy J. Farrell. We're honored to be here recording in the USS Constitution's premises, and very thrilled to be here on what is a cold day.

Thank you, Commander, for having us. Thank you for being here. Commander Farrell is a Naval Academy graduate from the class of 2004. She began her career as an electrical officer on board the USS Vela Gulf. She then became the OI Division Officer, and later the Navigator, as her second tour. Her third tour was ashore at ComNav Persecom in Perse 833, post-selection board matters. as the Delay Section Head and Assistant Board Screener. Entering the Department Head Pipeline, she then proceeded to USS San Jacinto as the Weapons Officer, and later became the Combat

Systems Officer. After a tour at the Naval Academy as the Deputy Director for Professional Development, she served as the Deputy M3 for Naval Surface Forces Atlantic, and then later as the Executive Officer on board USS Fixburg. She assumed command of the USS Constitution on January 2022, we're leaving Commander John Benda. Welcome, Commander Farrell. Is there anything else you'd like to tell our audience about yourself? I think kind of a little bit before even the Naval Academy. I'm from Paducah, Kentucky, originally. It's a small town on the western side of the state. Sixth grade is actually when I decided I wanted to go to the Naval Academy. I was flipping through the channels one day, watched the ceremony as soon as it was done, found my parents

and said, I know where I'm going to school. They thought I was crazy. Kentucky, they were like, what's the Naval Academy, but ended up figuring out getting me with the right mentors to help me figure out how to get to that point in my life. Met my husband while we were at the Naval Academy. He just recently retired from the Navy after 20 years. And then we have two little kids, a seven-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. So it's general chaos most days at our house. Thank you. And as a reminder to our listeners, all views expressed are our own and not representative of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. So Commander, how did your background and experience prepare you for the role of commanding officer of the USS

Constitution? So after 18 years as a surface warfare officer, by definition, as most people know, that means I fight and drive ships. That's what surface warfare officers do. And so all of those jobs I had leading up to this moment and this command on those ships definitely helped prepare me for that. And while the ship itself obviously is very different and not what we would consider a modern ship, the skill sets and the hard work and dedication of our sailors that I saw every day for the past 18 years before coming here is the same dedication and perseverance the sailors I have here on a daily basis. And so I think all the different challenges and moving jobs every so often within the community definitely helped stress that and made me focus on learning

things faster and at a higher pace because I had to adjust to my environment. And that definitely was part of taking the job here as well. The differences are what prepared you. That's Interesting. And you have an active duty crew here as well on board the USS Constitution that you have to raise and train. Correct. So we are the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world. And so we are completely manned by an active duty crew, about 80 sailors that are here full time, half of them straight from boot camp for their first assignment in the Navy. The other half are fleet returnees and it is a special duty assignment with the Navy. So they're all screened to come here. So we conduct interviews with all of them.

We ask them if they're afraid of heights because they still climb the mast to help work the sails. And also just to see how they talk and carry themselves, since a huge part of their jobs is doing tours on the ship. We get between 500,000 and 600,000 people a year that come to tour the ship. You've spoken about the importance of maintaining that strong team, fostering that culture, whether it's through communications with the public or interpersonal communications, and creating that positive culture on board the USS Constitution. So could you share more about your approach to leadership and team building? So I think you used a keyword I use a lot, which is communication. Effective communication goes two ways. So I stress to the crew a lot how important it is that they let me know when there's a problem. I can't help if I don't know. And so to make sure that that communication is getting up to me as well. And then making sure I'm communicating down to them.

You know, I learned very early from one of my previous captains about clear commander's intent. And so making sure that I give them the right guidance and right tools and everything that they need to do their job and not necessarily completely, you know, micromanaging making the sausage itself, but all the right things and enough direction that they can do what they need to do and bring me the correct product or bring me whatever it is with my vision as the commanding officer, instead of kind of saying, no, that's not right. Go, go try again.

And so I think that's definitely a huge piece of it. And then the other pillar I focus on a lot is dignity and respect. We are all here. We all raised our right hand to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And we all deserve to do that in a place where we're treated with dignity and respect, because when called upon to fight, it's against a common enemy and not each other. And so we talk about that on a very regular basis. We do multicultural events at least once a month to celebrate each other's background

and where we've come from. because, again, we are a cross-section of society, and the more we represent that and understand each other, then the stronger a force we become at the end. What a great place to do it here in Boston, Massachusetts as well, kind of that melting pot and beginning of America in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely. And the name of the ship itself, that's the other thing, you know, I always focus on. Six frigates, originally commissioned as a result of the Naval Armament Act of 1794, but the one left standing today is USS Constitution. And so anytime somebody comes

here to do a reenlistment or retirement or anything where you really get to reflect on the oath that you either are taking or have taken to support and defend the Constitution of the United States just always gives me goosebumps, and it's always an honor to watch those ceremonies. I'll mention to our listeners that it's actually the retirement of a dear friend of the podcast and much-respected Naval historian that brought us to be sitting here today. So a big thank you to Claude Berube from the Naval Academy for setting up and connecting these two worlds. As the first woman to command the USS Constitution, you have made history.

Could you discuss the significance of this milestone? So I was very blessed growing up in the Navy, even from the time I was a junior officer, that I always had, I was almost always the senior woman at my command. But I had really great men that mentored me. And a lot of times I think saw something in me that I maybe didn't even see in myself where they pushed me to one day command my own ship. In this kind of whole process of the past year being in command here, there's definitely been a lot of time to reflect on that. And there's a picture of me standing next to the ship when I was 16 years old, where

we drove through on a family vacation. And it was 1998, which ironically is the same year a woman took command of a combatant for the first time in the Navy. And so there's definitely been a lot of kind of reflection on that moment. But the other really great thing in this role, and I think we forget sometimes across the military, we go over the horizon, we do the job that's asked of us and we come home and nobody really sees what that other side of the horizon looks like. We're here, we are much more accessible to the public. And so we're obviously the face of the Navy in a lot of ways, because again, 500 to 600,000 people a year come here and they see the ship, but they also get a chance to talk to a sailor in the United States Navy that not a lot of people get to do. And so in the same sense as being the commanding officer here, I really get to highlight how many women we actually have in command across the Navy today. And we have about 30 women in command of ships right now.

And so I really just get to represent them and tell people it's not as rare as they may think just because they don't see it. And so it's nice to be able to carry that story forward and be the steward of the history here as well as showing the future of where the Navy's headed. I think in my research, I also found a statistic, which may or may not still be true depending on the assignments, but there was something like a third of the crew on board the U.S. Constitution is usually typically women. We're actually about 40% right now. And it just kind of is how it works out with numbers and who's interviewed, who applies to come here to start with. So right now we're about 40% women, higher than the Navy average for other commands, but that is where we are right now. I have a couple other examples of some women that had served on board. I think the

first woman to serve on the USS Constitution's crew was an enlisted sailor, Rosemary Lanham, in 1986 is what I saw for an article. And then the first woman to serve as a commission officer on board was Lieutenant Commander Claire V. Bloom, who I believe was the executive officer, and led the 1997 sail, which may have been the first time old Ironsides had sailed under her own power since 1881. Does this sound more or less correct? That's correct. Okay, great. Yeah, and Claire was here for change of command when I took command of the ship. Rosemary Lanham was unable to attend in person, but sent some very nice messages. So there was nothing but a positive outpouring of support from across shipmates that had served on

the ship before. The previous commanding officers of the ship, a lot of them reached out to me as soon as they found out I was coming here. And so it's been nothing but a really overwhelming, positive experience. Given your operational background on other ships, have you found that there's that same sense of history and ownership over the vessels when you're serving on a regular warfighting ship? Absolutely. Every ship has their namesake and obviously takes pride in that. You know, they have a crest that's very meaningful, was designed with a purpose to represent the crew and where the ship came from. A lot of times if ships have been renamed, you know, there'll be the second or third of their name, that legacy continues.

And I think it's one of the things I love about the Navy the most is the heritage. And even for me here, you know, some days I put on an 1812 uniform and I get to wear that, which is obviously very different. But even when I put that next to our modern service dress blues, I can see where the origin is. I can see where that history started. And so to be able to connect those dots and even the ships themselves, you know, when I give tours on the ship, trying to tell the public about kind of that experience. And yes, the gun drills on USS Constitution and the War of 1812 are very different than the gun drills we do in 2023. But that's absolutely where it started. Captain Isaac Hull ran gun drills with his crew to make them more proficient.

And so they would actually run the guns in and out, loading them with cannonballs and powder. Because we had significantly less ships than the British, we could actually afford to physically do those things and expend the ammunition and become more proficient and learn to use the recoil to reload faster. So the concept started way back then. Today, we do the same thing. It's just simulated with computers and missiles flying through the air in a different way. But the concept all really went back to that and making sure you were the most combat ready. And you actually have a cannonball sitting here on your desk in front of us. What's the story there?

So that's a 32-pound cannonball. That would have been used on the spardec of the ship in the Carinades. So they used 32-pound cannonballs there. On the gun deck below were 24-pound long guns. And so the thing with being stationed at Constitution is everywhere you look, there is a piece of history and a part of the ship. It really is embedded in everyone that serves here or has served here. Speaking of the people who serve here, you've made sure that they are being taken care of in terms of their training and maintenance programs on board the USS Constitution. You've received praise from both your crew and your superiors for your innovative training and maintenance programs.

Could you elaborate a bit about these programs? So the maintenance, I'll kind of start with that because we actually have a lot of maintenance going on on the ship right now. It was a little unexpected, but we are still a ship. And so there is still a significant amount of work that has to happen to keep her up and running. The ship went into dry dock 2015 to 2017 to get a lot of work done. And we actually have Navy History and Heritage Command has a detachment here on site of civilians that do a lot of the heavy lifting work. They have really the long-term experience to keep the ship in really great shape. And we partner with them pretty regularly but right now we actually have a section of rot in the main mast

and so in the next few months we actually in order to fix that have to down rig the whole ship we have to take everything down to get to that section of mast and so it's going to be interesting you know people are going to come visit the ship's going to look a little weird but it's also a great chance to educate the public on kind of the naval architecture and why the ship is designed that way and why we have to take everything down to repair it and then the other one right now is the captain's cabin the captain's cabin has a huge support beam that also found a section of rot in it and so they're taking everything apart right now to figure out how to repair that so we do weekly maintenance meetings where we talk about it we come up with a plan of attack

figure out what the crew can do to support and then we go from there and the other thing i get asked a lot about as far as the wood on the ship a lot of people know that the hull was made of combination of live oak and white oak which made it very strong which is why it earned the nickname Louisville Ironsides, when cannonballs were seen bouncing off the side of the ship. The Navy today grows the trees that we need to actually repair the ship for the haul, as far as the oak goes, at a base in Creighton, Indiana. Twice in the ship's history, the American people have saved the ship where they thought she was going to be scrapped.

And then the Navy said, let's invest some time and money and grow these trees so that we can always have it. It's called Constitution Grove. And so it's definitely a special place. I haven't been yet. I'm hoping to go later this year at some point to visit, but we'll see. And then as far as the training goes, it's a little bit of both for the crew here. So I absolutely have to make sure they understand the history and they can get their tours and they're an 1812 sailor.

But they're also still a sailor in the Navy of 2023 and making sure that they are ready when they leave this assignment to go join the fleet again, ready to do the job that's asked of them. And so it's a balance. And so we try to focus on both. They're equally as important. And again, sometimes connecting the dots for the sailors on why the Navy of 1812 isn't so different from the Navy of 2023. Our mission maybe hasn't changed all that much as what we would think. The Constitution was built for freedom of the seas, open shipping lanes, and anti-piracy. All things the Navy still does today in 2023.

All the services have different recruitment programs right now. And the message that you're sending, the presence that you have here, this is going to be a huge draw for the young generation to see a connection to our naval history as a nation while being here. I'm very curious about what role the USS Constitution plays in active duty recruiting efforts. And do you and the crew get the credit? We are recruiters in the sense of, I mean, every sailor recruiter, everyone's always a representative of the United States Navy. But we are not like a recruiting depot necessarily where anybody's going to come here and say, I'm ready to sign up. we can direct them that direction for sure. But especially I would say absolutely spring break kind of through the end of the school year, we get tons of school groups through here. They come

from all over the country and they come to the ship. They come to Boston to experience the history. But one of those things is to come here to the ship. The other thing we do, the Office of Navy Community Outreach does Navy Weeks across the country to focus on some areas really that are inland that don't have access to ocean or that don't see exposure to the Navy that much. They do, I think, about 20 of those every year in different cities. We also support those. So we also send a team out to go into the middle of the country and to really share, again, that heritage and be the face of the Navy and to talk about what we do. So we come out at a couple of different ways and try to reach the most people we can.

And even we've been trying to increase our social media presence as well and trying to get to that younger audience to share this legacy because they're the next generation that's going to inherit it. The ship just turned 225 this past October. So we had a huge celebration for that. We had about 160 prior crew members all came back to get the ship underway with us for the day. It was just a really phenomenal day, but we have a whole year that we're still celebrating that. And part of that tie is we're celebrating all the state's birthdays in conjunction with

our birthday, whether it's material that was used to build the ship, people that have served from their state, Navy weeks that we've gone out to represent the ship in those places, but really hopefully to drive home to that we really are America's ship of state and represent the entire country. Could you please discuss any of the challenges you've faced during your tenure as commanding officer of the USS Constitution and how you've overcome them? I think in the big sense, the kind of the shift of operational commands to more public affairs was definitely a challenge. It's very specific to the role of commanding officer here. But I love being a surface warfare officer. I love being in the Navy. And so it's a really great way for me

to share that story with people and be here and do that. And then again, the rest is kind of the, you know, figuring out some of the challenges I didn't, wasn't expecting necessarily, like having rot in the main mast that's made of wood and what that looks like and having to figure out how to get that maintenance done and then, you know, turn it into a positive outcome for the public. So there's definitely challenges along the way. And I think that's, you know, command in general, I think my first all hands call with the crew here, they asked me what I was most surprised by. I kind of said, I don't know yet. There will be something, and I don't know what it is, and then we'll figure it out. And so I think that's every day in command, there's always the possibility for a new challenge to present itself.

It's both the thrill and the privilege of command. As mentioned, you've served extensively in the operational fleet of the Navy and at several personnel and training readiness capacities, which give you a unique perspective on the current and future needs of the service. We've touched on it a little bit already, but what do you see as the importance of preserving and honoring the legacy of the USS Constitution? So I think it does go back to the fact that she's one of the original six frigates of our Navy. So after the Revolutionary War, we disestablished the Navy.

We said, we don't need it. It's expensive. Everybody we're worried about, they were there. But then lo and behold, as we began doing trade, we started sending ships over, they were getting taken captive, or our sailors were being impressed into service. And we said, wait a second, maybe we do need a Navy. And so that's when we reestablished the Navy in 1794 with the Naval Armament Act. And so when you look at Constitution and what she's done in 225 years, and again, she's really the start of us being a maritime country in a much broader sense. by all accounts she was not supposed to win some of the battles that she won and so yes she was she was designed well she was built with strength and resiliency in mind but that strength and

resiliency also came from the sailors and that's the same thing again that we carry forward today and so so many people will come to the ship and just when they set foot on her you just see how in all they are being able to actually experience that firsthand and i think again 225 years old even though we're a young country there's not a lot of things that are still left from that time period. 10 to 15% of the heel of the ship is still original, you know, and then you'd start talking to people about how the ship was constructed. Paul Revere did all the coppersmithing on the ship. And so you just have names in history that are all represented in this one place on this one ship. And then to look at her legacy and what she did. And even after she

was done with battle, she did an around the world tour to show the American flag and to continue that legacy and spreading that message across the world of what we represented. And so it's absolutely important to keep her in the best shape we can and to continue that story and that legacy so that all the generations that come after us have a chance to experience it firsthand as well. If you've not been to the ship, please come visit. We are open. Check our social media. That's usually where we have ours during the winter. We're generally open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 to 4, based on sunset and less busy time of year. We get more maintenance done. In the summer, we're open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 to 6 normally. But again, check out our social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Just search USS Constitution. Come walk the decks of history for yourselves. Experience the ship. Come talk to the crew. They're all excited and motivated and love what they do and love being here. And so I just encourage anybody to do lots of virtual experiences as well now, too. So there's always a way that we can connect with you and experience history.

Thanks, Commander. And I'll just second that even though you've got the open ship during the summer for tours, that's the easiest time to come see. I would encourage any of our listeners to come by in the winter for a scheduled tour because there's something about walking down the pier. You've got right now this wonderful smoke coming off the water in the Boston Harbor right around 10 a.m. when the ship opens for its first tours. And it feels like she's out at sea sailing in the fog. What a wonderful place to be recording this podcast. And thank you, Commander, and to your crew for having a spot for us today. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning back in to Sea Control. Thank you. © BF-WATCH TV 2021