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Really thrilled to be joined this afternoon by Malcolm Nance, a figure that is familiar to a great many of you who are watching, who've taken the time to join us. So I just want

to get right into it. Malcolm Nance is an E8, a retired U.S. Navy senior

chief. Malcolm, why don't you tell us what it means to be a senior chief in the U.S. Navy

about that rank, and specifically how important those enlisted ranks are to the functioning of the U.S. Navy,

to the military, from a comparative advantage perspective over our global adversaries, both

the Chinese and the Russians, one of which you've gotten an up-close look at that we'll talk

more about as we have the conversation

deep in this afternoon. But welcome. Real pleasure to have you with us. Well, thank you.

Especially thank you for asking me what a senior chief petty officer is. First off, a senior

chief petty officer, any chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy is a god.

And if you ask anyone in the Navy, there's unlike the Army Air Force and the rest, there are enlisted

people. These are the people who are the junior people that come in from the bottom, starting at

E1 at boot camp, and they work their way up to the maximum you can go is E9,

which is Master Chief Petty Officer.

Then there comes the officer wrecks, which starts at 01 and goes up to, well, however many

...