This is John Bachelor.

Conversation with Captain Jerry Hendrix,

the United States Navy Retired Aviator at Sagamore Institute,

about what Jerry proposes as a ships act.

We need shipyards in the US to advance and augment

and build more ships for the contest in the Pacific.

However, the debate is, we need shipyards overseas as well. the Western Pacific. Here Jerry comments on what happens if there's a difficulty with one of the warships,

Burke Class for example. Where does it go to get repaired? How far and how long until it's back in the Combat Zone?

Captain Jerry Hendrix, talking about not just building, but repairing the U.S. Navy that needs to be much larger.

More of this later tonight.

But quite frankly, John, you know and I know that most of those yards fall under the missile range umbrella of the Chinese.

So in a hypothetical war with China, you know, Japan's probably not where I want to take my ships back for

repair, which means that Guam is my fallback beyond that is Hawaii, which is two weeks

away from Western Pacific by normal steaming.

And then the West Coast, the United States,

which is three weeks away by normal steaming.

I think that we need to make, and I mentioned that article

in the Asia Times, that we need to be looking at some of these

federated states of Micronesia or for that matter some of our other allies and partners

in the region like Australia to see if we can make some

investment there on ship repair yards but my ships act which would cover part of

that but is largely focused on new ship construction and I think

...