How A Bay Area Kid Became The Master Chief Everyone Called For

A Bay Area kid keeps a promise to his mother and steps into a Navy that will test everything—grit, heart, and the courage to say “no” when “make it happen” would be easier. From recommissioning the battleship Wisconsin and learning the hard truths of old powder in big turrets, to swapping coasts, choosing Boatswain’s Mate, and owning the deck with shiny boots and higher standards, Pete Santos charts a career built on character rather than convenience.

We walk through shore security in Italy during the Gulf War surge—12-on/12-off watches, real incidents, and a blunt look at manning that still hasn’t caught up. EOD Mobile Unit duty adds the discipline of systems—3M, HAZMAT, SNAP—and the humility to learn a new culture. Alameda’s reserve center reveals the civilian muscle behind the uniform. Destroyer life on 9/11 redraws the map of normal, and Coronado brings anchors and an initiation that forges purpose instead of theatrics. Higgins delivers BMCS and that coveted OOD letter. Amphibs demand respect for steel, sweat, and Marines who keep you honest.

As a Command Master Chief, Pete frames a clear compass: listen to senior enlisted counsel, tell the CO the truth without varnish, and take care of families where they actually live. ESG7 in Japan makes the politics plain, but people come first. The Fukushima crisis becomes a defining test—midnight airport runs, one-screw underways, ash falling, and a choice to hold the line for mission and home. COVID magnifies leadership styles: corrosive control vs. calm competence. Adm. Cooper changes the weather—awards from memory, sailors elevated on merit, and a command climate that breathes.

We finish with a meaningful pivot: degrees, SHRM-SCP, PMP, and a challenge to leaders and parents alike—paint your canvas on day one. Decide the picture your team will remember, then build the daily habits that make it true. If you value real leadership, raw stories, and lessons you can use tomorrow—press play, share it with a shipmate, and leave a review telling us what moment hit home.

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Transcript

Gary Wise 0:29

Hey buddy, it's Gary. I'm back again. Another word for the Wise. This is another behind the anchor episode, and I'm very excited because I've got a good ship made in mind today. Before I get to that, I want to make sure I remind y'all this show is sponsored by Wise Leadership Solutions. We're out of O'Cala, Florida. If you're interested in talking leadership, we're interested in getting to know you. So if you're interested, let us know. We'll figure it out. Also to Ocala's Church of Hope, uh down there in Southeast Ocala off Merrick Camp Road. We're starting up pretty soon the middle school ministry. Yours truly gets to help out with that. So if you're interested and you have a young person who's between sixth grade and eighth grade, come on through. And last but not least, the Vanguard High School Navy Junior R O T C, the Knights Battalion out of the north side of Ocala. I love to be a knight. Very proud of my guys, my gals. It's a great school year starting up here very soon and happy to be on their team. Now, tonight, shipmate of mine. This gentleman, I've known him. I've known him since I would say 2017, right? But I knew of him before that, even because we were in the same waterfront out there in San Diego. Uh he was my Insec Master Chief, which meant he was my immediate uh level up. He was the guy I went to for mentorship, and we went through a lot of really fun things in our career, in particular during our time together on Guam. So, with no without further ado, let me bring to the stage my man, Mr. Pete Santos. Pete, what's good, man?

Pete Santos 2:04

Excuse me. Uh good evening. How you doing, Mr. Wise?

Gary Wise 2:07

I'm good, man. Good good evening. Good evening, good brother. How you doing?

Pete Santos 2:11

I'm blessed. Blessed to be here.

Oakland Roots And Early Hustle

Gary Wise 2:13

You oh man, I I I thank you so much for taking the time, bro. Um, so before you got to Japan, before I got to know you when you came to Japan, just so you know, your name was already ringing in the streets as far as the Westpac sailors go. The San Diego sailors knew you for sure. When I was ATG San Diego, as a matter of fact, everybody was like, Oh, Pete, Pete, Pete, Pete. And then uh a couple of my my shipmates went to work with you on board the ship you were on. They were DC men, right? And as a matter of fact, I think you know, do you know Danielle Wiley?

Pete Santos 2:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, Warren Wiley.

Gary Wise 2:50

She just did an episode like two or three episodes ago. So she's coming up, she's a CW04 now, getting ready to retire. And uh, so I'm gonna try to get Ben Andrews on here at some point and have him come on here and talk a little bit of stuff, you know. I think I think that'd be a fun conversation for sure.

Pete Santos 3:06

Yeah, those are both of them my sailors, so I enjoyed having them as well.

Gary Wise 3:10

They were the ones that were telling me the most about you at that time. Um, all right, Pete, before we get too much into it, I would like to know, or what I would like the people to understand, is you come from the Bay Area of California, right? And when I say Bay Bay Area, it was Oakland, right? That's where you grew up at?

Pete Santos 3:30

Grew up in Oakland, California. That's correct.

Gary Wise 3:33

Okay, what was it like growing up as a kid? Okay, I was born in 77. You're a little bit older than me, right? So you coming up in Oakland and I don't know, were you a kid in the late 70s, early 80s, mid-80s? How was that?

Pete Santos 3:49

Early 70s and then 80s. Um, I spent my time in uh mid-80s going to first high school in '83. Okay. So I grew up all in Oakland, California. So it was it was rough. It was fun, but um it was a learning curve, you know, curve as you know, when I look at it right now and stuff, it can be it was tough for a lot of folks who lived there, but at the same time, we struggled through it and we made it happen. So and we, you know, as kids, we don't see or young adults, we don't see the struggles as much as the parents do, you know. Yeah, I can see it looking back now, and I was like, for my eyes, they struggle, but for if I really knew I understood it, it's a big struggle for them.

Gary Wise 4:38

So I look at the Oakland area, the Bay Area as a whole different universe, right? In its own. And whether it's Oakland or San Francisco, it's a whole different conversation as well, right? But I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know, coming out of the 60s, I'm thinking freedom fighters, I'm thinking people that are revolutionaries, because that's where a lot of people talk about the Bay Area, right?

Pete Santos 5:02

And that's what you got. You got that from there. Um a part of my history is is every time. I guess I'm proud of it because I bring my daughter back. I was recently there in June, and uh I go by Cal Berkeley, I go by places me and the wife dated, and uh where we used to eat at, what was there, what's not there. So it's my history and showing her where People's Park was at, and that was huge. Yeah. Park was a part of history. Um, how uh you drive along the freeway when the tide is low, you can see the Indian statues up out of the ground, you know, when we were young kids, but now you can't see it anymore. And she, my daughter looking at her, it's not there anymore. I was like, Wow, we see it all the time. So history.

Gary Wise 5:52

Yeah. And so just so you and your wife grew up together.

Pete Santos 5:57

We grew up, uh, we didn't know each other until I was, yeah, we grew up together, but we didn't know each other until I say my 12th grade, her 11th grade there. Okay. We was working together local. We was everybody was hustling, trying to make uh ends meet back then. So we met at Taco Bell.

Gary Wise 6:16

So get that. So and I think that's about to be a dope part of the story, though, because very few of us have connections such as that before we joined the service and are still connected to this day, right? Let's just be honest. We know how that goes, and so I think that's about to be a powerful part of the story. Uh, so here you are in high school, got you a little job at Taco Bell, working your little situation out. Are you what are you doing in high school? Are you liking high school? Are you an athlete? Are you are you a book dude?

Pete Santos 6:49

Nah, I'm neither. I'm I'm trying to figure out life, I guess. So to speak, if I look in retrospect now, um, what I want to do. But at the time I was working Taco Bell, then I was working another job where I was working at the YAWCA for the summer. I was doing summer jobs, I was having double jobs. I was even before that, uh, when I was 13 and 14, I get up and sell newspapers, you know. So yeah, something just instilled on me to get out and work and help around the house and stuff. So that was a big part of it. And uh us growing up together, and and that's how we met because you know, opposite of track. So you know, we finally got together, and after we didn't like each other because she was a manager, shift manager, and I was a shift manager. So my school was in Oakland, her school was in Berkeley, and we worked, I worked in Berkeley.

Gary Wise 7:43

All my family lived in Berkeley, so and they had moved there from Arkansas, so they was they didn't have that much family up there, so and were you working this job after you graduated high school and you were going to college, or was this during high school you said that because you said you met her, you were a senior, she was 11th grade. Did you join the military right out of high school?

Pete Santos 8:05

I had joined the military before I even graduated high school. I was in the delayed entry program. So normal summers, I was gone in August in boot camp at 87. So when I graduated mid-June, July came, and August came right around the corner. It came so fast. So I was cool.

Gary Wise 8:25

What was it about life where you decided as a high school, as a young teenager, young man, like I'm gonna do something out of the box and go join the military? Or did you already have people that you knew who did it? And so you looked at it like it was irrelevant, like it was a reasonable option.

Enlisting, Loss, And Boot Camp Reality

Pete Santos 8:42

I grew up around people, met people who was in the military, um, in the Bay Area. So you meet a lot of people in the military and stuff, have family members dating people from the Navy. But my mom, um, that was the last thing I promised her before she passed in '87. So I stuck to it. So I just said, hey, I said I'll get out of here, I'll join the military and get out of here. The Navy came the before the Marine came and before the Air Force came. So Navy.

Gary Wise 9:16

They got to you first, and you're you just said your mom passed away the same year you joined the service.

Pete Santos 9:21

Uh, yes, yes. She died of cancer, so oof man.

Gary Wise 9:27

I can't even I I would I can't even imagine going through all that right before you ship off to go to the navy, but also she probably had a fight, so rest in peace, man. I'm glad they you know you sound like you're doing good now, but that's gotta have been a loss, especially you're getting ready to go to the service. Uh but were you okay? Like, was you like, all right, I told mom I'm gonna do this. She's that she's all right, she's in a better place, I'm fitting the grow.

Pete Santos 9:53

Yeah, I guess it was something that she did. She instilled stuff when we grew up in a low-income neighborhood and we were single family home. She was the only one in the house, and uh she used to work with the uh school system, and she used to bring food home from there. But you know, we was my brothers and sisters thought that was for us, and it was for the community, you know. So she was like, That ain't for you guys. Oh, the cookie's not ours, huh? Uh the nuggets not ours, huh? So it was for the community because there's a lot of people that was worse off than us, and that's something that she left with us, and it's been my guiding light, and you know, and then my grandmother reinforced it, who kind of helped raise this when she passed away, so to speak. And uh it's been the journey ever since, and it's been fun. I love it.

Gary Wise 10:45

Hey man, so before we get into the navy, real quick, did you us, when you say us, you have like younger brothers and sisters? Were you the oldest?

Pete Santos 10:52

Nah, my brother, I had a brother that was older than me, and I had two sisters that was younger than me. And my yeah, okay, got it.

Gary Wise 11:00

That's it. All right, just just curious because I know when you leave the for the service, that's always part of the challenge, is kind of leaving behind family members, and then it's never the same, you know. You you come back home on leave a little bit here and there, but it ain't never like it was. All right, so where you are, you go to go ahead.

Pete Santos 11:16

No, I think that's in any type of relationship when you leave and go to the service and come back, is it's not the same, especially when your eyes are woke or exposed to the world, sort of speak.

Gary Wise 11:29

Right. So, where'd you go to boot camp? San Diego. Okay, so basic training. What what did was it what you expected it to be?

Pete Santos 11:40

Not at all. Not at all. I was uh, I guess the last part where these uh where you they used to put hands on people back when I was in RTC and stuff. So I've actually seen several times and I just stayed clear of everything. So that was back in '87. It was wow. It was wow.

Gary Wise 12:02

I did y'all have the rifles and all that when you went through boot camp.

Pete Santos 12:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. We had M14s, I think, uh, are the Mons M14s. And we did the 16 count manual arms throughout the entire boot camp. And yes, yes, we did it. It was rough.

Gary Wise 12:20

So when you went to the Navy, did you and back when you first joined, or did you already have did you already know what job you were going to do, or did you come in undesignated?

Pete Santos 12:30

Undesignated. Um, I thought I was gonna be a uh CB at first, didn't know nothing about it. Nobody gave me no information about it, nobody it wasn't as helpful as it is today. Yeah, put it like that. You can get it's like everything is on a platter today for you. So hey, this is where your numbers line up. You'll be a CT or work over here, and you know, I didn't have any of that. So you got to go out there and see what you want to be. I wanted to be a quartermaster. I saw a guy who was sharp, uniform looked good every day, shoes were shined up. You know, it's funny. We haven't this conversation, just had a dream from when I was back in the days that had shine shoes around. So that was my big thing. I love to have shiny boots and stuff, and I got that early, and you know, and look love to look sharp, you know, in uniform.

Gary Wise 13:20

So coming out of basic training, uh, and you hear you you're getting through it, the experience is it's it's it's rugged, it's right, it's tough, right? It's 80s, late 80s. It's two months long or is it three months long for boot camp for y'all? You remember?

Pete Santos 13:38

Had to be two months, okay.

Gary Wise 13:39

Two months long. Did you and no school really afterwards? You get a little steamership handle at school, right?

Pete Santos 13:45

Right, right. Right on some lines and get calluses and go needle gun somewhere. Hey, my fire doesn't I can remember being at boot camp going to needle gun. Somebody else couldn't I want to say the USS Recruit in San Diego back in the days.

Gary Wise 14:05

Yeah, so hey, the needle gun. Yeah, so what was your first ship?

Battleship Wisconsin: Recommissioning And Culture Shock

Pete Santos 14:14

Uh the USS Wisconsin, BB64. Battleship.

Gary Wise 14:21

Say that one again, bro. You was on a battleship.

Pete Santos 14:24

Oh, yeah, BB64 out of uh Norfolk, Virginia. We had to recommission her. So I was part of the recommissioning crew of the battleship Wisconsin.

Gary Wise 14:34

Why'd they bring it back into why'd they recommission it?

Pete Santos 14:37

They brought the other uh they had they had all four in existence, but um that was active duty, right? Not then, but uh they brought her back, and then the uh Iowa was already in service, and uh the Jersey was down in Long Beach, so they all had all four of them on active service. It was at least two of them went to the Gulf War. I knew that.

Gary Wise 15:04

Okay, yeah, I was wondering, I wondered if they was worried about something they was trying to get ready for.

Pete Santos 15:09

Oh, it was the uh the reason they got I know the reason why they got put them back there is it was uh the explosion and the turret that was on the USS Iowa, which was due to no fault the of that sailor.

Gary Wise 15:26

Yeah.

Pete Santos 15:27

It was the worried about yeah, it was the powder that's been in the cake. I mean, that's been stored for over 50, 60 years, the unstable powder that we used to put in there. Yeah, but they were worried about there being malfunction or something with the platforms they were getting out the other ones, or well, here's the thing, yeah, east coast, west coast storage facilities, and they did it uh when I was hinting, you're gonna hear the other word. I went to the Missouri after that, BB63. Hence, Yorktown, they had one over there and they had another spot. Seal Beach, where you get them powders that's been stored for back since World War II. Yeah, that's been sitting there, that's no good and stuff. And once that mechanism breached it, because I worked in one of the turrets in Missouri, so I was a projectile man. So oh yeah, oh yeah.

Gary Wise 16:23

That sounds like that. My my dad would always tell me, keep my powder dry, right? My dad would always say, Hey, keep your powder dry. And it sounded like they they weren't keeping the powder dry, and it was it was going boom the wrong direction, or it could go boom the wrong direction.

Pete Santos 16:37

Yes, we almost had one that went boom the wrong direction. So yeah, we had a mishap one before.

Gary Wise 16:44

So when you get to your first ship, what was that like? You know, see are you seamen to recruit Santos? Are you yes, sir?

Pete Santos 16:54

I'm seaming recruit.

Gary Wise 16:57

And when you get to your first ship, like are they are they expecting you? I mean, you go from you go from Oakland to San Diego to Virginia.

Pete Santos 17:07

I mean, and then to Pascal Goula on that ship because we had to work in the heat. So what happens is they grab you up there, send you to your firefighting school and everything else for the PC U unit up there, the pre-commissioning unit up there. Because that was the other carriers was the George Washington, they have the PCU and the Lincoln, they were all PCU when I came back in. So we all had our barracks and stuff over there. So you had to go through that one, and then they send you past Goulin, then you go work on the ship, and you go to your division. So we had divisions. Wow, we had divisions up to 30 per division, 30 or 40 per division. We had six divisions on there in deck department. We had a lieutenant commander as a first lieutenant. Oh, yeah.

Gary Wise 17:58

I wonder how that's a lot of people.

Pete Santos 18:01

We had some senior department heads, it was like oh sixes. We at least four to five. The chaps, your uh yeah, you had your medical or dental officer was an 06. XO and the cam was 06s. It was it was so top heavy, and then the senior year chain and weapons, all the department heads was with the exception of deck, was 05.

Gary Wise 18:26

So how was how was the birthings on those ships?

Pete Santos 18:31

It was cool. It was well, I was in charge of them, so it was clean. Yeah, it was clean. All the birthing cleaner. I was cabin used to always come down my P Way every morning. I could be bending over sweeping. Santos, good morning. Oh, pop tension on deck. Oh, yeah. Captain John Pass, yeah.

Gary Wise 18:54

Okay, what was it like handling that kind of a ship? I mean, compared to the other ships in your in your follow-up, because they were big ships.

Pete Santos 19:02

It was a lot. Well, it was a lot to it's like kids, it's like a uh adult and want a bunch of kids going. You signed this one, this one, that one. You said we was in voids working. We was we was on working parties, we did stuff for the community. It was down in Mississippi when they had a base down there, um pre-commissioning down there. That was before the Wasp even came back now, who's afloat. And uh, so we was we was doing they kept our hands full.

Gary Wise 19:33

Okay, how long did it take the ship to get actually out to sea?

Pete Santos 19:38

Whoa, when I was there, from when I was there from pre-commissioning, we got out and we got out in '88 a year later. Okay, but I'm pretty sure it was in there a couple years before I was there.

Gary Wise 19:53

Okay, now at that time, are you in the debt dating? Are y'all talking?

Pete Santos 19:58

Oh, yes, okay. Oh, yeah, we secretly married, but we didn't tell nobody at 18. So I just missed my anniversary. We were talking about it a week before in June. We were talking about it a week before, and then we looked at each other and she's like, We already forgot our anniversary again because it's been like 36 years, 37 years, or somewhere.

Gary Wise 20:22

Well, happy anniversary, y'all. That's cool. That's that's a blessing, man. And so was she still in Cali?

Powder, Turrets, And A No-Cost Swap West

Pete Santos 20:29

Oh, yeah, she was back there. Um, that's when we had our first baby, my uh daughter Keanu, who lives in the city.

Gary Wise 20:38

So you're in past gula geobatching, essentially. She was in California with your baby and just working. What's it like in Mississippi as a young sailor geobatching back in the late 80s in Mississippi, man? What's that like?

Pete Santos 20:53

It sucked, it was racist out there because um we had an incident where now it sucked because uh it was still a little racist down there. Yeah. Um, you didn't go to certain clubs or certain you knew you didn't go down these streets or something like that. And the case in point was sad that I remember it. I was past uh African American sailor coming back from Liberty, you know, having a few beers and stuff. And yeah, I remember speaking to him, and then uh he went a couple blocks up and he was killed. So I was like, whoa. I said I talked to that, literally talked to that person right when we was going through the shipyard.

Gary Wise 21:43

Wow. So I mean, again, here you are. You grew up in Oakland, you grew up in the Bay Area, right? Because I mean, I've been a lot of places in this world, and I even lived in Florida for a few years before I ever felt like I was in the South, to be honest. And I went to Jacksonville one time with some buddies of mine. I walked up in a club in Jacksonville, it was a it was a hip hop spot, right? I'm a sailor, I like the music, I'm going up in there, my voice, and it was like the music stopped, right? And so you were going to do that. Hey, you must be in the navy, huh? I'm like, yeah, I'm in the navy, like, all right, y'all come with us. They was Navy too, and I never had recognized feeling out of place before in my life, and like I mean, I've been to Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, right, all over the world, but and I've been to Jacksonville, and my friends are from Jacksville, but that club right there, it wasn't just the club that everybody rolled up into. Like, that was but the Navy dudes that was in the club saw me and they saw my friend, they're like, Oh, and they came and scooped me up. We had a great time, but I remember walking out the club, like, huh? Okay, and in Florida, it's like the farther north you go, the more south you get. South you go, the more north you get, right? Like, because you got like a bunch of New Yorkers and all that down in like Miami area, right? And Tampa's like a vibe, and Orlando are like this vibe, but Duval, it could it could be a little country, right? And that's code for there being just areas of there being some resistance and some weird, some weird emotions, right?

Pete Santos 23:16

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's old Travis Hunek.

Gary Wise 23:20

Oh, and so now here you are in Mississippi, and and you feeling this energy, and this young man gets killed. What are you thinking as a young man at that time? Are you just like this is crazy? I want to bother here.

Pete Santos 23:33

No, no, it kind of correct. Uh, we moved up to Philadelphia ship yard from Pascagoula with the ship to get the the hole painted before we went off to sea. Okay, so uh we actually moved up there, and in the meantime, what I did was listen to you know, you put your ear to the ground, you learn a good stuff. Listen, we had an NCC at uh CS who hey, you want to put in for the swap program? I was like, we're trying to figure out how to get back to the west coast, and we initiated a no-cost swap with whoever a sailor was interested on the west coast with somebody on the east coast, and he said, These are rare, but they happen, and mine happen. It's basically like a no-cost swap where you pick up your your seabag and you just transfer over to the next place. And mine's is on the west coast, so I was going home anyway. You take leave and route, so it's basically me on leave, and I'm just reporting to a new place.

Gary Wise 24:36

Is that how you end up going to the other battleship?

Pete Santos 24:39

To the U.S. of Missouri out of Long Beach. No cost order swap.

Gary Wise 24:44

So I guess when you look back at that year you were in Mississippi, it doesn't sound like it was a good experience, at least for you, when it comes to work, when it comes to culture, when it comes to all that other stuff. Um, were you glad to get back to California?

Pete Santos 24:58

Oh, yeah, yeah. The water sucked down there, it was hot, it was muggy, it was oh my god. It was you find more things wrong with it than it is right with it. So, but now it's a beautiful place. If you I've been down there 30 years later, and it's a beautiful place.

Gary Wise 25:14

I mean, things things change, you know, a lot of things change, and and but back in them days, I mean, it was the world was different, right? There was no technology, there was you weren't able to just highlight things as easily. People were cutting the the 80s was buckwild across the country anyway. Into the 90s, I tell these kids nowadays, like, if y'all was doing this, I mean, in the 90s, 80s, 90s, you could do stuff and actually maybe get away with it. Nowadays, they got you on video camera every which way.

Pete Santos 25:42

Oh, yeah, it's about to get even worse.

Gary Wise 25:45

I'm I'm I'm very thankful we didn't have all this technology when I was a teenager because I might not have had no career.

Pete Santos 25:51

Yeah, listen, it's crazy. The technology they got now, they said they can see you the hoe inside of your car while you're driving it.

Gary Wise 25:58

Oh, yeah. You saw that thing where uh uh Kamala Harris had on a headphones with the wire going into the phone, right? And she's like, Y'all making fun of me, but I got the briefings. She's like, I I was laughing about that because I mean, I again we've both been read into things as well, and it's just yeah crazy what they what can't be done, right? It's just exactly you know, it's crazy what can't be done. All right, so now you're on the second battleship. How much different is the second ship than the first ship, bro? Like you had a fur you had a division of deck department already, a department tour. You got to do some experience, you got to learn some chiefs, senior chiefs leadership, did and then your second ship. You there's always that different lens, right? Because you don't know what you don't know in the first boat, and you're always comparing the next boat to the last one. So, how was the second one?

Pete Santos 26:52

The thing that was different for me, and sorry to interrupt you, was I went to a different division, so every division did something different. Okay, so it I went from fifth division, which was starboard side boat deck, aft to third division flight deck, everything on the flight deck. Uh after the well, we had the refueling station and see everything, and uh so it was a whole different beast. Yeah, okay. How were you a bosom mate at that point yet? I was BM3 there. That's where I got qualified Eastwas. I was the first third-class bosom mate to do that on there, so I I took it in stride. I had a good, you know, I put it down. Nice swass.

Gary Wise 27:50

Why'd you end up going BM?

Pete Santos 27:54

Well, it was I was already deck semen undesignated because the guy that I was gonna follow. Um I didn't go that route and be a QM. So okay, yeah, QM got to be too easy too. So QM, you stand on there, you're taking readings here, you shooting the stars, and I've done that as OD officer that qualifies, so I know how to do that, but which came later on, but it wasn't too fruitful. I mean, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, the door would close down on you, you know, so to speak.

Gary Wise 28:27

And yeah, well, it was yeah, it was a small community back then. They hadn't merged them with the SMs yet, so that was a whole different thing, right?

Pete Santos 28:36

Right. I was there with the SMs and them before I I know so I knew how painful that was. I saw it, yeah, so yeah, it was not too good. So that's I saw the HC HT when they created that. I was in when they created that from you know with the DC and it opened up, and then these guys shut up the ranch, and then he was like, Whoa, yeah, yeah, there was timing there, right?

Gary Wise 29:04

There was there would be timing for people to have those opportunities, and then it would then affect that community though, in the long run, because people wouldn't have the experience or whatever it was. Uh, I've seen that. Um, what is it about the bosummates? Because I love bosommates, man. I was raised by bosom mates. I tell people that all the time. I'm a damage control man, fireman, black shoe sailor, gator navy. My some of my favorite mentors were bosummates, my section leaders are bosommates, my mentors are bosommates, and I remember there was a kinship between like a DC3 and a BM3 because we would get a lot of leadership responsibilities at a very young age, whether it was at like a GQ station or both of hey boats, even a BMSN. If you were a hey boats, it was a it was a piece of pride, man.

Leadership On Deck: Undesignated Sailors And Standards

Pete Santos 29:53

Oh, yeah, it was fun making BMS and that was a that was a strong title, and it meant a lot, you know. Had weight back then. Um, I think a lot of things that we do it in the Baltimate world is leadership. It just because you come across different people. And if you're smart enough, what you try to do is grab a little bit from everybody, and then you make it your own leadership. What works with you, what works, yeah, what don't work. Don't no, I ain't gonna be like that. Because we had a being one of the Missouri, nobody liked he was our LPO, and this we loved our senior chief, and we understand why being one was such an a-ho, you know. Yeah, he just every day just scream his heart out. It's like you don't need to do it like that. Yeah, you can talk to people face to face and get through to them. So that was the Navy that was it was transitioning over to a different type of leadership style.

Gary Wise 30:56

Okay, um, well, another thing is y'all get all almost you get all the undesignated seamen, right? Let's be honest. And having come in undesignated, I was undesignated a fireman, and I would tell you that the leaders and like the machinists mate, the BT community, the leaders in the Bosa May community, because you gotta take these knuckleheads that don't know what they want to be when they grow up and convince them to do the job, right? Almost like running a DCPO shop where you get a bunch of people TAD to you, and they don't really want to be doing DCPO maintenance, and you got to convince them to do good. That's gonna help you be a leader. And then they would give these undesignated sailors to these young junior petty officers to manage, right? And and so I can see where there's a lot of leadership lessons there and running these young undesignated sailors. And I love undesignated sailors because for the most part, they'll work hard, but you they'll turn, they'll take a turn real quick and start go want to have a revolt, you know, real fast.

Pete Santos 32:00

Well, you get to know them and you talk to them, and it's leadership. Uh, I can remember DC, I was a DCPO for the lungs, and I had to get qualified because nobody wants to do the work. But I said, Well, won't you turn this into something that make it fun? We used to use a little old Kool-Aid packages in the thing and clean the breast, and then we used to look. I start stopped drinking this stuff. I was like, Hey, if I'm pouring this package in the thing of water and clean the breast to make it shine so bright, get all the vertebrae off. What is it doing to my stomach?

Gary Wise 32:32

Bug juice, yeah man. The bug juice, right?

Pete Santos 32:36

So well, we holy stoned on there too. We did both of them. Used to use holy stones with the sticks and everything. They love that one.

Gary Wise 32:45

On the on the second battleship, did you ever deploy?

Pete Santos 32:49

No, we yeah, two-month deployment, but not an entire six-month deployment.

Gary Wise 32:53

Okay. Um, at the end, so it was two, it was not even two years on the first ship, it was like a year and a half, it sounds like.

Pete Santos 33:02

Yeah, it was about two years on there. Uh, yeah, yeah. Right. You got about an hour and a year and a half was that one, and then I went over to the Missouri, did about a year on there, and my time was coming up because I was on some crazy little contract, and then jumping two ships, and then on two ships under my belt, so it was kind of weird. So I had to uh what do you want to do next?

Gary Wise 33:30

I was I was I was about to ask you that, bro. Are you like I got a baby, I got a wife, I'm fit to dip and go do something else, or are you staying navy?

Pete Santos 33:39

I stayed and then I went to Italy, Siconella's sister. I was a military police for short duty. Oh, yeah, so it was real over there in Signella. It was hey, we had we had some serious uh police work over there, it was crazy.

Gary Wise 33:58

Did did your baby and your wife then the deck go with you to Italy? Oh, yeah, oh yeah, that's good. So well, I was talking to uh another person on one of these podcasts who also did a short security job for short duty. People don't remember that surface sailors, regular sailors was installation for security back in the day for short duty, right? That was a very common first tour duty station for sailors. Now you got these MA's, right?

Pete Santos 34:28

So nobody could have it was mirrored after their class and it lasted that long, and it it was no joke. That school was no joke. I have known it's short shortened since then because of the influx and all that good stuff, and the curricula has changed, but no, it was no joke.

Gary Wise 34:49

Okay, what was it like going? So, did you go to school in Texas?

Pete Santos 34:54

Yeah, I came down here at Lackland. Um, yeah, that's Lackland Air Force Base.

Gary Wise 35:00

Went to school in Texas, got your little game up to be a law enforcement officer, and then what was it like landing in Italy? A young, young family overseas tour. Was it like a good sponsorship experience? Were they picking you up at the airport? How did that go?

Pete Santos 35:16

Oh, everything went just as planned. Uh, they had a sponsor. Um, and then uh yeah, it was crazy because the name of Sanchez is gonna make two, but he looked at the name and he's like, he said he thought it was one of his homeboys. So he rushed over to pick you up, and then later on with years we talked about it. He was like, Man, I thought she was one of my homeboys. But we had a great experience. But uh, they had TLA where they put you in there for like 16 days. If you ain't found numbers, you gotta get extended. We it was all new. Wow, food was awesome. Oh my god, it was incredible.

Gary Wise 35:56

It wasn't so. What do you why do you remember it being so off the chain then as far as the job? What was going on in Italy that made it be such a dynamic job?

Italy Shore Duty: Security Tempo And Gulf War Surge

Pete Santos 36:06

Because we had international incidents, we had uh people that uh we had suicides, we had uh the Gulf War. Um, it changed the whole dynamics of the game. It was we was working 12 on 12 off, and they bring you in a day for training, and then you only get one day off, and then you go back, and then that's when they switch you to nights or evenings. It was like it was it was brutal, and we was working in spots, yeah, for hours out there, and you know, and knee deep water watching top of the line, you know, standing watch over some of the top of the line stuff. Because if you look up in the sky at night, it was for planes and movement during the Persian Gulf War. So we had all equipment where everybody this we was one of those just like stops. We was the hub in the mid.

Gary Wise 37:00

Okay, so everything were you working for MAs?

Pete Santos 37:06

Oh, yeah.

Gary Wise 37:08

Okay, I mean, because I will tell you to this day, we as a Navy have not figured out how to get people to have an adequate rotation on installation security, right? Like as a base master chief, I used to break my head against a wall trying to figure out a way to give my sailors a better rotation than that 12 on, 12 off, 3, 2, 2, 3 rotation, and and protect them from what you was just talking about, right? And then you got civilians that are married up with them, but they're like they've got a they've got a union, they've got negotiation. Sailors don't get all that, right? They just gotta eat it. And so I feel like that's definitely one area that I think that the name, I don't know how the other four branches do it, but I feel like the Navy, man, they got to put more manning in those dang force protection locations, bring back the shore duty for the other rates and let them help supplement those MA so they're not trying to do all themselves and maybe get some better quality of life because it's exhausting, man.

Pete Santos 38:11

Yeah, because yeah, we just put a uh band-aid on it and uh we keep we push resources, but we sometimes we don't think it through when hey leadership change, I need this. Terrorists come, we need this, we need this. We don't think it through, bro.

Gary Wise 38:26

I was talking with I had Lisa Tisdale on here, and she'd been helping me out with these little with these podcasts. And me and Lisa was talking. I say, you know, the thing I hated the most was when you told me about I had an unfundability, I would just lose my mind. Yeah, because that all you're telling me was you know, I need more people. You have a whole study that says Gary needs 30 more people, but you're not gonna give me the people. That is, and you're gonna hold me accountable if I don't do something, but I need the people, you know. I need the people.

Pete Santos 38:57

Interesting you bring that up because I got to the heart of the matter because when I was later in my CMC tour on the anchorage, I talked to the scene the pack fleet commander. See, because he does his homework just he was smart, does his homework on you as soon as he gets it, pull you to one-on-one on the side. We're doing a pre-commissioning dinner, breakfast, or something. He's like, You're hey, master chief. I know this, and you tell me about this and tell me about that. And then, what do you do you have anything that I can help you with? I'd be like, sir, when are we gonna wrestle this manning thing loose from them? And it was all over one billet. They got it since fixed, but when we was over in Japan, Zoom, we got the crux of we got to fixing it right then, and we kind of the what what broke the council's back was the uh the um incidents out there, the ships.

Gary Wise 39:54

Well, I mean, and and I not that I don't I don't want to really skip ahead, but let's talk about that while we're there, right? We've been knowing in the waterfront, whether it was San Diego, whether it was Japan, people were working body swaps to make things work to get underway, right? We right, we know it. We knew it. I remember as a DC man, people will be doing NSERV, right? And they'd be like, Hey, can we borrow your P100 firefighting pump? We got insurve tomorrow. And I remember that I was trained, that's not the right way to do it. The right way to do it is you report your gear is degraded and so you get geared, but people didn't want to do that, people wanted to cover it up so they didn't have to deal with the drama. And I seen all that coming up, and I remember uh having a conversation with somebody one time at some point. The Chiefs mess need to stop fixing crap to get it done and start saying we can't do this because it's broke, sir.

Pete Santos 40:55

I don't know where that mentality came from, but I know it wasn't from us. I know I pushed back as a CMC on a all my tours on chips in the yard, is we had NSERV and we ran towards him to the inspectors, and we documented every single thing that was broke, and we wasn't going to. I said, We are not robbing Peter to pay Paul, somebody's gonna have to pay for this. And I said, if what they're saying from the brief from the two-star, because you get that brief, is true, you document it and report. And I knew ohms like the back of my hand, front to back on the ships. I was because I was a 3M coordinator, so I knew how to go in there and manipulate the reports and look and grab what I want. And I we we did them straight up and we were successful at it.

Gary Wise 41:49

Well, and the thing was, right? If you could self-assess and find the problem and document it, then there was no flag on the plate. You was good, right?

EOD Mobile Unit: Maintenance, 3M, And Culture Shift

Pete Santos 41:58

But you have leadership that excuse me, that want to present to their boss a different picture, and everybody suffers for it. Just like uh I think it was you that got all the reservists that came through, and they was happy to find work because that's what they do, and I knew that from being a first class. Yeah, they get uninemployed, and they always telling me that when they came back, and I was like, Hey, that bridge that you guys worked out was remarkable, and I built relationships with them folks, and you guys did because I was in the airport with them. Uh, it was crazy. I kept running into them sometimes, and it was like, Ashman, boom, this way. That was just like it was all good. I tell the boss, all I said, man, you got an outstanding reserve is going out there, you got an outstanding support system, welcome them. I seen them coming back, and they didn't want to go because of the love they was getting. I was like, but boss, that was just giving them all that, and he would like just smile and I was like, Yeah, I said that's funny. Yeah, I just ran across a picture of Jimmy Genton the other day, too. Awesome, awesome guy stuff.

Gary Wise 43:21

He was, he was so you know what's funny. That was my exo at the time, Pat German, because he was a reserve officer, and the Oso came over, and the Oso basically said, If you want reservists, I can get you preservists. And Pat was like a pit bull, he sunk his teeth in that conversation, and he was like, Gary, I'm gonna get some people you watch.

Pete Santos 43:43

And when I was so many people, y'all had, I don't know, you probably I don't even recall the number.

Gary Wise 43:49

Well, and the thing was, I had to make sure we received them accordingly, onboarded them accordingly, incorporated them quickly into the Ashland culture, and then got them to doing things that was rating relevant, but also would give us real results, and that was what I tasked my chiefs with. But my chief, but my chief's mess was with it, bro. Like, let's be on the app, my mess was we were gangsters, bro. We were they was about that life on board that ship, they were some real chiefs. Um, but I don't okay. We're gonna get too far ahead, bro. We're getting too far ahead. So you're over there, short duty, you're doing all that physical security crap, you're seeing the inside of the navy from a whole different perspective, right? Now you're probably BM2.

Pete Santos 44:34

Oh, yeah, I'm BM2, and then um that's when I went over to the um I did back to back over there with my uh family. We did six straight years over there with two different commands. I went over to EOD Mobile Unit 8 over there in uh Suganella, Sicily. So I just took the 30 plus days free home round trip ticket and whatever else the OTEP was uh when you extend it over there, or you yep you was getting all type of stuff. It was a you take the money, you got this, or you got they was doing everything.

Gary Wise 45:06

So yeah, the all the two expensive what and going to an EOD mobile unit, what are you doing as a BM? Are you driving boats? Are you working what are you doing as a department?

Pete Santos 45:18

Okay, maintenance. I was the maintenance LPO, I was a 3M coordinator, I was the Hasmat coordinator. I went to school back in the States, they sent me the 3M coordinator. That's how I was a young 3M coordinator. I knew the micro snap, I knew the Ohms and G. I knew it from all of the systems that deal with Snap. I was I made myself an expert on it, and then Hazmat has Waze Coordinator. I was an expert in that, and I was running maintenance. Uh, all the boats in charge of all the boats, all the vehicles, everything um calibrations, everything.

Gary Wise 45:58

So what was it like going from security, insulation security to going to work with the EOD community? Was that a huge culture shift?

Pete Santos 46:09

Yes.

Gary Wise 46:10

Yes, I bet.

Pete Santos 46:13

Yes, it was weird. Was it? Yeah, I kept it. That's where that's where no, I was doing it before I was in security and I was doing it on ships, but uh me and the captain used to battle shine shoe shines. We that's where we do command inspections, but uh these guys was we have some good people who went sealed, dev grew after that from there. Uh these guys did a lot of diving around there, they had a lot of tasking. They had to go swim pier, swim this, swim that, swim this, and they always had suits. So they used to give me the stories about how they used to uh get their suits lost in the mail, and they used to say, Oh, this was Armani on the Lost and Clank found and get the nice suits back. I was like, Y'all guys are crazy, and they wild parties, and but they go out there with the 50 cal gun shoots explosing. We was able to go with them. I had an opportunity to get my uh parachute wings. I told them, uh-uh, new, new people went and got them. I sent people there, went, and I think we had a guy who broke their ankle or something, landing, but for the most part, we had different we had it was body first names, and everybody's body first name, except the officers and stuff. But it yeah, the chiefs and enlisted was uh it was like I was like, what? No, that no, it's not right, it just couldn't click. No, that's not right.

Gary Wise 47:44

It's like so and that's back in the day when they had they had source rates still, so they were all various rates, and then EOD was like an additional warfare device or a specialty, if you will, right? Um, I I remember I didn't I I finally got around EOD community when I went to Guam, and there was a lot of good things, but like you said, for a traditional surface sailor, it was just a different kind of a vibe, right? It was just right not what I was used to for sure.

Pete Santos 48:14

And that was my link to know that if you ain't in your source rating or if you're not on a ship or you're not an ATG or something, as you you can that's where we got screwed over in your rankings, yeah. First class, I was first class too. I made first class there, I got capped there.

Gary Wise 48:34

Oh yeah, oh yeah, so it was good for you there, yeah.

Pete Santos 48:38

But after that, it wasn't because they took away from one of their own, and uh yeah, and it and he was a dirt bag, but and everybody knew it, but still eval rankings. No, you couldn't do nothing to peace them cats, even though you was a top-notch and they couldn't touch you.

Gary Wise 48:59

Yeah, but you made first class petty officer there, and now you're looking at at that point your career navy, and you're you're learning the game, I bet by that point a little bit more. The pros and cons. And you've been out of the bosom mate community for a hot minute because you went security for three years, and then this maintenance job for three years. So, are you like, I need to go back to being a boatsmate to make chief? Is that what you're thinking?

Pete Santos 49:23

No, no, what what we do then was we put family first again. So I went to uh I went to that's when I got with the Navy Marine Corps Reserve Center in Alameda, California. So it that one puts us back home around family, okay. Young family, got the daughter growing up uh around her grandmother, great-grandmother. So it was a good experience for my uh oldest daughter. You know, went to some of the schools and stuff around there in uh Berkeley, California, and stuff. So went there and then I that was too much for me. I had to run out of there.

Gary Wise 50:01

So EOD was considered a sea duty for you, it sounds like for rotational purposes, yeah.

Pete Santos 50:07

Both of them, the security and the EOD, because they were overseas, right?

Gary Wise 50:13

Not a very big base, even today, right? It's just not known as it's not Rhoda, it's not Naples, it's it's two bases, people don't realize it.

Pete Santos 50:22

It's two bases in between each other. You got the naval air station portion of it, and then you got the base, all the facilities over here. You got a lot of facilities here, but you got a lot of them over here. It's only a 10 to 15 minute drive, but you got two bases over, and I mean two NAS Naval Air Station One, Naval Air Station Two.

Reserve Center Alameda: Training And Perspective

Gary Wise 50:43

Okay, I'm gonna have to get out there something checking out. So, what was it like working with the reservers?

Pete Santos 50:50

That's where you learn what they really do on the outside and what they did on the inside, and you be in awe of what some of them people do right for the for out in civilian communities. I've met people like that. Uh there was a DCA 05 and no reserve, but they were Apple. Um the guy who used to do who did the program for the Navy's Eval worked out of the reserve center, and he used to always used to be uh eval program where you say just send me ball caps to this address, yeah. You know, thanks.

Gary Wise 51:31

So okay. Um, when you go to the reserve station, you go there as a first class petty officer. Are you do we they had TARS? I would imagine, right? The actual like full-time like support for the reservist. So, how was that with the TARS? Here you come, uh straight stick sailor. How do you get a billet like that? How does that work?

Pete Santos 51:52

Instructor instructor instructor, and then um I went up there, I was in charge of the training department. So I was the LPO, and I was in charge of the CPR. Every training they had, I brought pay for instructors to come there. Well, the part of the training, I was a CPR instructor. We had so much going on. We had computer training, we had anything we can did. I just had uh like a little basically a little card or check to get this training here to get them, you know, certified before they go out to a fleet. We had requirements back then that we had to meet, so we got them there and I was in charge of it and got trained.

Gary Wise 52:34

Are we about are we about like 1997-98 around this time?

Pete Santos 52:40

Oh yeah, closer to yeah, getting ready to go to 2000 because I extend it there. Okay, yeah, and you you did four years there, yeah.

Gary Wise 52:50

Pretty much three and a half, four, almost four. Okay, so do you leave that duty station at the reserve station? Are you still a first class petty officer? Right, BM1, BM1, but it's good do like you said, it was good duty station for the family, good opportunity for your kid, for your child to see California family, get to know people. What do you think? I mean, now here you are. 10, 12. Are you 11 years in the Navy at that point? 12 years? I'm at the 10 year mark. I'm at the 10-year mark. 10-year mark. So 10-year mark, what are you thinking now? Are you do are do you even want to go back to the fleet as a boat submit or are you trying to cross rate?

Pete Santos 53:26

I didn't have a choice. I had to go to USS somewhere. So I left the family in the Bay Area, went down to long uh San Diego on a USS Elliott DD 967 out of San Diego. So I left them up there. And uh and then I think we yeah, I was on there for a couple years.

Gary Wise 53:50

How was that after your only ships being battleships? Now you want a destroyer, that's much smaller, right? Deck departments probably much smaller, right? I mean, you're but and the first two ships they did a little bit of underways, it sounded like, but nothing crazy. But on this DD, are you getting some deployments in now?

Pete Santos 54:13

Oh, we're rolling. That's when what 911 happened.

Gary Wise 54:20

You were on that ship at 9-11, actually.

Pete Santos 54:22

I was on that one as a first class. We was eating breakfast on the Mestex. Yeah, and uh, I was a first class, and it was like, uh gonna be a while. So when that happened, we was up and running up and down the east coast, not pulling in.

Gary Wise 54:42

You were you on the DD at a Cali, they took you to the where they take you to?

Back To Sea: Destroyer Life And 9/11 Patrols

Pete Santos 54:48

No, they uh after not when 9-11 hit, these none of the ships was pulling in. Okay, they was patrolling the eastern and western sea south to shoot anything out the sky.

Gary Wise 55:02

Okay, so you guys run away patrolling the west coast at that time, just making sure it was it was good to go. And um when you get back to the ship as a BM1, what do you look? What are you thinking about the navy at that point? Are you looking at the chief's best? You're like, Oh, I want to get the chief's mess. Are you do you care really? Are you more worried about just being a good BM1?

Pete Santos 55:26

I was in between and stuff, you know. Um, I saw I had a GMCS who sharp. I can see his face. I like his style, wanted to be like that. You know, you had them cats that made it that you was elbowing first class, but now they chase. Yeah, some of them, you know, yeah, they changed, some of them you're like, uh now you think they're better than them, you know, all that good stuff and everything. So you was like, I gotta get up. I'm gonna see what's behind that door.

Gary Wise 55:58

So and that that was still the the dungaree days, right? Yeah, I I I remember you showed me that one picture of you. You had an old picture of you, it was a BM1, and you was in like some short sleeve dungarees with like uh uh you had the iron on crows on there, and I oh yeah, I joined the Navy in '97. So I mean, I got a couple of years of that generation, but not a lot. But I can I thought it was very I thought it was almost like seeing a picture of your granddad back when he was a kid. You're like, oh, look at him. He looked at him, he's a young Libra Snapper, but I can imagine you back then in dungarees, just figuring it out, running your little running your show. Were you the were you like first div LPO, second div LPO?

Pete Santos 56:39

Yeah, I came in there with now. It was uh we only had fifth division. I mean, I only had uh deck division, so we was under ops, we was like an OD, and you know that sucked being on the ops, but it depends on who your operations was. He knew where all this bread was, but for the most part, we had Chief. All he'd like to do is get drunk and go crash out, give us an assignment. So I was new, getting my feet wet, but I had a couple of dudes and um two BM2s, three of them just took me by the hand and said, Hey man, I'm new at this. Yeah, I need to walk me through this cat. Went through everything, everything. So sliding chat eye, unrep stations, breaking them down, this and that. Here's what you're supposed to be doing, here's what I'll be doing. And I, you know, I went UI. I made myself go UI and rolling cats, and everywhere I've been, I did that, even uh on amphibips. I made it a point. So then I left, yeah. Once the Elliott did that one, and we went over to the uh USS Coronado over there. Elliot, and I went over to Coronado, and I picked up uh while I was there, and then I ended up making chief over there.

Gary Wise 58:00

What's it? What was the Coronado? An Oiler?

Pete Santos 58:02

It was a AGF 11. It was a command uh command uh flagship for third fleet. The third fleet had back in the back. It was through they had a uh used to have a weld deck as well to shut and close. Some of them, the one on the west coast was done right. The one on the east coast had a barge stuck in there and they had all this high-tech gear. On the one on the west coast, they didn't. It was a part of the ship and it was done right where they had offices, all this. It's like the Blue Ridge. If you ever seen the Blue Ridge, yeah.

Gary Wise 58:37

I know what you're talking about now.

Pete Santos 58:38

I've been to that ship where they had it's like they try to turn it to an LCC, but they can't because the Blue Ridge was the last of the LCCs. They had two of them. Well, no, the Mount Whitney, though, yeah, the Mount Whitney.

Gary Wise 58:51

It was the Coronado was, yeah, Mount Whitney's like Blue Ridge, but the Coronado was an Ogden class or an Austin class LPD that they converted over to being a command ship.

Pete Santos 59:01

So they did two of those, the LaSalle, which I've been on part of that one. I had to work on that board, just how I know. And the second one was the Coronado. It's crazy. It's funny. I uh yeah. What year did you put on anchors? It was on the Coronado. I put on anchors uh in 2002, three.

Gary Wise 59:25

Okay.

Pete Santos 59:25

So I had uh yeah, picked it up. Oh man, Coronado. That's when I met uh Mk Pond before he was Mick Pond, Rick West. And I was like, Yeah, made it all on the pier with just me and him. Yeah, forget that. He was the submarine squadron at CMC back in the days over.

Gary Wise 59:49

When you look back on your chief's initiation process, uh what did what was your uh what was What was your takeaways?

Coronado To Anchors: Making Chief And Initiation

Pete Santos 1:00:01

It was brutal. But it was brutal because other people that you come up with with, you always got I can't get right, or somebody who don't it don't click, just like uh recent. It's a mindset. You have to put yourself in the mindset, you know, and it's and my mindset was you didn't put this on, I did this. My wife did this, my daughter did this. That the studying I was doing, the hard work I was putting out to see for them because I put used to put pictures goal settings was family. That's in order for me to make rank was them pictures of them, and that's how I achieved the rank and uh everywhere. And I thanked the people for where I was at, and uh so they can't take it, so they couldn't affect me, but they affect the other people, and that was hilarious in my head. I I didn't get it. I was like, Why are you guys letting this bother you? You can't take this away from me. And yeah, it used to upset people during the initiation, and they had some veggie mite, it was all like all the stuff, you know. It was it was whack because we was the last ones to go through it, yeah. So there and before the it changed over to initiation and stuff, and it was kind of crazy. So I just had a ball. I had a ball, but it was for other people, it was hell night.

Gary Wise 1:01:31

Yeah. Do you remember? Was it did it feel like a long process or was it quick? Like, like, was it like I feel like I made Chief come back on Westpac, and it was I felt like it was like early July almost or like mid-July, and then we didn't get pinned till September. And and but nowadays it's like they find out the first week of August typically, like they just came out today, I think, or yesterday, and they'll get pinned September 15th. I don't mind the timelines, I just feel like there's been differences that went on, and truthfully, as a CMC, like bro, make it as make it reasonable, but let's go ahead and get this done because it's a lot, it's a lot, I think.

Pete Santos 1:02:12

I think the focus, the direction it went, it can be to the old guys. Are we taking it away from that? But look where we're going to now, where we're advancing. I would say leadership and understanding people and how to get into the same mindset, which I did all the time, which worked for me, is I can assimilate being like them or that, or understanding where they come from, or they have an avenue to speak it, you know, instead of fighting it sometimes. And I don't know, just no, no.

Gary Wise 1:02:46

I I I look at all the chiefs initiation process. I got I got initiated in 2006 and got the chance to do a lot of initiation, and I was always very involved in then chief's initiations all my career after I made anchors, and I'll tell you that was what really developed my leadership. What I do now for a business. That the process I put people through, or what I got through, because I made it when Kim when Campa was in McPond, right? So that was what I came through with, and every year we got better and better and better and better, and but the process that I other people I hear their horror stories or whatever it is, I'm like, damn, sucks to be y'all. My mess was we were good, like we had great, and the cadets or the chief selectees would have great experiences, right? They'd have these breakthrough moments and just be like, Oh my god, like I've been dealing with that since I was a kid, and y'all managed to make me deal with that somehow. And it wasn't to be mean to people, it was because we really cared, like, and that's where Campa brought it at.

Pete Santos 1:03:46

Campa understood that, and I was a CMC when Camp was there, so I enjoy the way he brought to it and stuff. Everybody, it's like the CNO every are all these flag positions, they bring uh something they want to do, they gotta accomplish. And sometimes all the MCPons, if you knew the history, each mik pond has something, and Mick Terry Scott's was his college and all that good stuff, and Dwayne Bush got this, and Hagen got this. But if you go talk to them, cast it is hilarious on what they brought, you know. I the stories that they tell you on what they brought, it was outstanding.

Gary Wise 1:04:30

I was talking with a buddy this morning, actually, he was still in the Navy, still a CMC, and uh hearing the drama they're dealing with out there, and uh I was like, bro, we need uh we need like a camper to come back in. Like we need a we need a dark horse to come through that on no one see coming, and that's gonna re-invent like knock all the bullshit out of the way because things are out of the box right now. And he was like, Nope, it's gonna be this guy, it's already done. Watch it. I was like, I know he's right, like I know he's right. Like you can watch these admirals now and watch like where they go and they little anyway. I that I love campa for that exact thing where he was just out of the box and he brought some serious value to the mess, and because it wasn't about him, it wasn't about him.

Pete Santos 1:05:14

A lot of these cuts it's it's about them and what they're gonna um do afterwards, and and I've seen it because you know, I just I wonder, you know, it's like a it's like do you think a question for you is is uh a chief when they get collateral duty, should they have more than one or should they have four or five?

Gary Wise 1:05:36

For me, is that a question for me?

Pete Santos 1:05:38

Yeah, that's a question.

Gary Wise 1:05:39

So I would say as a CMC, as a chief, man, I'm on as many collateral duties as I can as I can handle because I was hard to do that.

Pete Santos 1:05:47

Right, right, right.

Gary Wise 1:05:49

But as a CMC, I would take care of my guys and not allow them to take that much of a burden on because number one, being the chief is a hard damn job, and if it ain't that hard for you, you're not doing it right. So I'll feed you so you can so you can do good, but I gotta manage my talent appropriately so no one gets burnt out, and then for the ones that they pull on their weight, we're gonna talk because I'm gonna put you on that dot, right? I'm gonna put you on that dot, I'm gonna make you tell me no, bro, and then I'm gonna call you a punk, right? Because I mean, that's it.

Pete Santos 1:06:23

And my thing was my thing was, what are you giving me as that chief? If you give me a hundred, all right, let's talk. You ain't gonna have more than one. Because if the guy I had in question was he was trying to pick up a rank, and that's what he was betting on, but he had three to four collateral duties. And I said, So you tell me you got this one, this one, this one, and then you're trying to be the department LCPO. I said, You spread too thin because you ain't giving me enough, and yeah, you ain't giving me 50 in one, bro.

Gary Wise 1:06:58

You're not giving me, you're not giving me the board, yeah. And I can't do that. I hey, I sat at the board one year in the military, right? And I was in the tank. I'm like, we're not making collateral duty senior chiefs, we're making senior chiefs.

Pete Santos 1:07:12

I thought I was like I said you could uh yeah, as a CMC, you got that's your program, but not unless I had a command senior chief, and I'm always remarkable, and the cabin, you know, something is you know, command uh whatever.

Gary Wise 1:07:28

I because and I'll tell you, for me too, I used to feel like for command programs, I would always have a chief typically and a first-class petty officer to be his shotgun, his backup automate, right? I didn't need two chiefs to do it together, right? Because they would always want to be buddy buddies with their friends, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Santos 1:07:49

You got that quick going on.

Gary Wise 1:07:52

I gotta rank y'all against each other at some point, and I know better than to do that because again, I'm managing talent, and I think that and the other thing was this is something I saw coming up. Like when I was at ATG, for example, I did my float training group San Diego time, very competitive Chiefs mess there, right? I mean, oh yeah, oh yeah, surface sailors, very competitive, and I did very well there. But the thing was, my CMC, that dude had no problem telling me what was what, right? When I got around CMCs that wouldn't tell me the truth, I didn't know how to handle it because then I didn't trust them because I'm like, bro, they playing games, and now now the chiefs, because and how I was taught as a chief, we all can say what we got to say in the mess, and we're gonna have that conversation. And when people start being like, oh no, this is not what we want to talk about, Gary. Go the other way, bro. I ain't stupid. What?

Picking Style Over Swagger: The Chief’s Mess

Pete Santos 1:08:47

I have CMCs that threw shade or they call it direction, distraction, misdirection on me, and I fall for it because I always lead with my heart. But then again, you know, that was to me still the best way to lead because if I start knowing that somebody's throwing shade to distraction and it makes me go a different way, then sometimes my fate that's me, whatever, might change. So I'll just say, 'cause somebody asked me, why you help that person when they always throwing your name into dirt and stuff around there? I was like, well, I won't cross that bridge again. They the one that burnt it, I just don't go back towards it and stuff.

Gary Wise 1:09:26

So I I you know something else I came to later in life, it was thank God for unanswered prayers, right? Because there were some things I thought I really wanted. I'll be thinking, I mean, yeah, damn meditating about the ish, right? I can't stop obsessing about it, and then I didn't get it. And when I look at my life now, I'm like, I'm so glad, thankful I didn't get that thing.

Pete Santos 1:09:46

Because you see yourself doing it, and you see yourself grasping it, and you'd be like, He didn't, but you don't want to. Well, he liked grown kids. Well, that's not I want to really. Well, he didn't want that for you. That's not what he wanted. Wasn't for you, yeah. For me, it's that's been my last two years, you know.

Gary Wise 1:10:07

I'm looking forward to hearing about that, bro. So you make chief, you're on the coronado. Where do you go to next?

Pete Santos 1:10:14

Go take uh right there, billet redistribution, USS John Paul Jones, 32nd Street forward deploying in two weeks. That was a brand new.

Gary Wise 1:10:27

Okay, so they you're a new BMC, and they're like, Oh, you're off the Coronado now, you're going to the JPJ, and you're moving it to Yokosco.

Pete Santos 1:10:34

Yeah, but here, no, you're San Diego.

Gary Wise 1:10:37

San Diego, it was in San Diego, but it's going to Japan, right?

Pete Santos 1:10:41

Or just no, no, that was years before. It's like uh they said, here's the thing: you're not going to JPJ. I was like, why is it three ships in my uh orders? You see swapping three ships. Oh so yeah, JPJ. We had to go to Dubai. Our whole ship crew live in hotels and scattered out through Dubai for a couple weeks until they finished pulled in. We took over. JP, they left, went to another ship, USS. It was three ships. So the COs got credits to being the CEOs of three different ships. DG. I I got a friend of mine, Vice Admiral uh Kitchener. I just I talked to the other day. Yeah, he was the CO of three different destroyers.

Gary Wise 1:11:32

I believe it. I believe it.

Pete Santos 1:11:34

That was old Swell Boss.

Gary Wise 1:11:36

Okay.

Pete Santos 1:11:37

So it was it was just different and then we see swapped over there, got there. So we ended up on the Higgins, and um he was the CO. Commander.

Gary Wise 1:11:50

How long did you do the that tour? The DDG three swap DD. Is that a three-year tour, two-year tour?

Pete Santos 1:11:56

Three-year tour. I did three deployments, I think, on there.

Gary Wise 1:12:00

Yeah, I'm smashing them on there, and that's like oh the oh two, oh, three, oh, four time frame, oh three, oh, four, oh, five.

Pete Santos 1:12:07

Oh three, oh yeah, two, three, or four, or five. Yeah, and then I picked up senior chief on that mother. So I made chief, yeah, and uh or the brand new chief and I made senior chief right there. Yeah, that's it was success and it was a uh historical succession of the JPJ. They said a lot of people were advanced. If you had JPJ, it is just something with that name, it's a history, if you know.

Gary Wise 1:12:37

Oh, and they probably gave y'all a lot of credit for that C swap thing, too, man, at the board. Like that was had to be a challenging period of time. Oh, it was yeah, but to make BMCS on a DDG, right? First time up. Yeah, you had to have been a player in the mess.

Pete Santos 1:12:58

I slipped up to the front, everybody advanced, and I had my O D letter.

Gary Wise 1:13:04

Okay. So after you make senior chief petty officer, what are you thinking about doing with your career at that point?

Pete Santos 1:13:10

Uh going straight out to Amphibia, so I went to the USS Pearl Harbor.

Gary Wise 1:13:15

Ah, okay. When did you get to the Pearl Harbor?

Pete Santos 1:13:21

I can't. Ooh. Right over in 06, I believe.

Gary Wise 1:13:26

Okay.

Pete Santos 1:13:27

I ended up doing back-to-back diplomas on that baby, too.

Gary Wise 1:13:32

Okay, so you were there with Wiley when she was like DC, I fed Wiley and DC. DC one DC one wiley.

Pete Santos 1:13:40

Yeah.

Gary Wise 1:13:40

And then she came back to you again on the Anchorage as your chief.

Pete Santos 1:13:44

Yeah. Name A Cief.

Gary Wise 1:13:48

Yeah.

Pete Santos 1:13:49

She yeah, we hooked her. Yeah, she was she was a baller. She was a baller. We loved having her on the we pulled strings to get her on the anchorage.

Gary Wise 1:13:57

Nice. Um the Pearl Harbor. I remember I was on the Ogden at that time, so we were on the same piers. Um, but I remember the Pearl Harbor was had had a rough couple of years right around that time.

Pete Santos 1:14:11

After I left, they did. Well, well, here's the problem. They went to the yards to try to fix our four mains. You don't do that to an amphibian. And it was a known fact. They try to replace all four main engines. You don't do that, so they did it, and then we uh no, they did that on the uh com stock. So we used to call it the com stock. Uh, because we did a deployment to South America. We got lucky to do some exercise down by South America, go through the thing and then go around the bin and everything. So yeah, but we came back and we did another six months, came back for two months, and three-star third fleet came up. So, hey, you guys gotta go to Gulf. And that's when they had that boiler implosion. And we I was there when they ran aground.

Gary Wise 1:14:54

When the black when the when the Pearl Harbor did, yeah.

Pete Santos 1:14:56

I was there when they ran aground. Oh, because I was just finna transfer when I had lookups for my OD letter from my second OD letter ran aground, and I was like, Oh my god.

Gary Wise 1:15:10

So where'd you get your first OD letter at? Was it the Higgins?

Pete Santos 1:15:14

Oh, yeah, the Higgins.

Gary Wise 1:15:15

Oh, that probably contributed to seeing a chief as well. That's kind of a big deal, yeah.

Pete Santos 1:15:20

But it what's the name? Um, did Pearl was offered a I did uh everything from in the um amphibops from line handling to well to the basic duties, and when you are under all those guys, the sideboards on the side, the well decks and everything, yeah, even to where the DCB at where the galsing and everything up in there to well deck control, yeah, to qualify well deck control, and then I was working on my OD and then we ran aground. I didn't get my letter, so I was gonna leave. I told my wife I'm finished, I'm through. She said, Nope, go get it. So two weeks left. I wasn't got it. But they had to give me D bar control too, because it only had one. So I got my D bar control letter, and you have to be OD qualified to get it. So it kind of fell into succession. That hey, boom, boom, boom. This dude, man, it's like you need hey, so I said I'm gonna wake nine before I put it for the CMC.

DDG Grind To BMCS And OOD Letters

Gary Wise 1:16:22

How was uh how was your well because I'm a gator guy, I did three amphibians during my my career. The only ship I did do that was not an amphibi was an aircraft carrier. All the other ships I read was the ATG when I was when I was an assessor, right? But I did three gators, and I'm like I'm proud to be a gator guy. It's just a different kind of a navy, right? It's hard, it's tough. Ain't nothing class, ain't nothing super special about it. We just have to, we we we gritting it out, right? We we get with the Ford truck, boom, boom, boom, boom, we're coming, right? Right, but it's strong sailors, right? Deck department and engineer and run the damn ships, and it's it's a tough life. So, how was that for you going there as a BMCS to an amphit for your first time? I I heard you say I had to learn from all my sailors that I could do all these positions, UI, but how much different was the mess than like the first the Higgins, for example?

Pete Santos 1:17:16

I was bigger, and then um it's just different people. I went over there and I I had a ball. The Satos like when you're working side by side with them and you teach them, you learn it from them too. So I that was my leadership where you get hands-on approach, and you know better than them. When we go down, I inspect birthing or you know, the heads, I clean the toilets too, I'll show them how it's done. So when you do that, you get people that want to work with you, and we have fun together. So if we got amphibiops off the coast of Jordan or somewhere else, and they got a Kentucky fried chicken, or they got a McDonald's, or if they got a Burger King, whatever they got, I'll give them some money. The people don't even the crew, my boys don't even know it. You know, I got a whole crew of them, and I got them stuff just coming back, and they like that just going crazy over here. So that's all it's just fun, you know, and how the ball is doing it and stuff.

Gary Wise 1:18:15

So the one thing about the amphibians, as well, there's a lot of real estate, yeah. Right, like those sides, those are some those are some big sides, right? You want to go out there and it's a lot, it's a lot of real estate. I think a lot of people don't understand how much work the crew has got to do to maintain a ship of that size because our cruise size ain't that big, right?

Pete Santos 1:18:37

But then, yeah, I went to the Cleveland after that was as a because I uh picked up well, how did that work? Yeah, I went to the Cleveland after doing a couple deployments. I was like, wow. So I went to the Cleveland because I'm trying to pick up nine stay out to see. You know, I've looked at Jim, Honey, McPund, Eval, I looked at uh a couple other BMCMs that was, and I was a BMCS, and I was looking at what they need to do, but take it to another level. So yeah, I just went to the LPD Cleveland, uh seven out of San Diego, and just did my thing over there, and then I picked up nine first time up. So I was like, okay, let's do this. Somebody looking out for me. So they guess them deployments work, yeah, because I was a P on the uh on the the Pearl Harbor, and I got that's when I was telling you about some distraction. I got screwed out of number one, and and you know, we neither here nor there, it still works for me. Uh and I know what happened, but I can say nothing. You had no proof of it.

Gary Wise 1:19:48

Do you know what my thing is? I had a I did a thing last night with one of my former COs. We did one of these conversations conversations, right? And he asked me, He said, Gary, do you hate, do you love to win, or you do you hate to lose? And I said, Honestly, I don't really mind if I win or not, and I don't really mind if I lose or not. I'm not really that guy. What I care is is the game fair. If the game is fair, I'm good. I'll play the game, and if I win, I win. If I lose, I lose, I'm Gucci. Nothing ain't fair. I'm fit to go wild. I'm gonna go wild, I'm gonna call it out, I'm gonna air it out because I hate when it's not fair. I like it to be fair and square. And I remember when I was on board uh George Washington.

Pete Santos 1:20:33

Hey, hold on before you say that, because I I I'll be losing my train of thought. Here's another one, a guy who said um he mentioned he said um the difference between finite and infinite, and he was saying was um you got guys who win, win, win and stuff, and that's what they do. And then you got the guys who on the other spectrum that learns how to win. Which one you rather be? I would rather be the one that learns how to win. He says sometimes you're gonna need those winners, but you don't need them all the time. But if you why won't you learn how to win? Learn everybody learn how to win so they can all win, you know.

Gary Wise 1:21:15

And I feel like the guys that learn how to win, they better at handling when it goes against them, they better at handling the adversity, right? Because them guys that are just used to winning, when they get rocked, it jacks them up for a minute, right? They're not used to that, right? And I I wake up thinking I'm gonna win. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic as heck. I think I'm gonna win, but I'm okay, I don't mind because I learn, right? I'm gonna learn something about this. Um, but but I hate when it's unfair, and part of when I went CMC, like you, I wanted to become a master chief of my rate first before I went command. I just felt like um that was, and I was looking at a command senior chief program, I'm not gonna lie, but my heart wasn't into it. I was just looking at it because it's what everyone was getting pushed to do, right? And I remember it, I got dealt an unfair hand. So on board George Washington, I'm a DC senior chief at the time, and I'm that was my shit, man. Everyone called me G Dub because my initials is GW and the George Washington. It was my ship. Everyone out Gary's shit in G Dub. I got told by the Master Chiefs, Gary, you number one senior chief. That got you're not supposed to tell me people telling you, right?

Pete Santos 1:22:30

I just CMC, Jeff Clark.

Gary Wise 1:22:34

After Jeff, I met Jeff when they had the fire. Matter of fact, I just talked to Jeff. I'm gonna have Jeff on here too, right?

Pete Santos 1:22:42

He just that was my mentor when I was coming through.

Amphib Life: Pearl Harbor, Cleveland, And Hard Lessons

Gary Wise 1:22:45

So Jeff just spoke at Ty Giles' retirement ceremony. I went up there to Mayport for that, and I met Jeff when the when the GW had the fire. I was part of the investigation team that went over to there from ATG San Diego, and that's what blew me up in the DC community because there was some master chief DC men over there, and they was like, Who this short do from ATG San Diego, young chief, but I'm a pistol, right? I was over there, I'm the carrier guy. And that was what got me, that's what got me to George Washington, because it was like not even, I'd say not even seven, eight months later, I get a phone call. I thought the USS George Washington needs a DC chief, and they want to know, would you come to George Washington to be their chief? I had told my wife after the investigation, I was like, look, that ship right there, they need help. And if I was to give orders to that ship, I would make I would that would be it, that would make my whole career. And it was Japan again, and I did Japan my first tour, so I knew Japan, right? Right, she called me up. My wife called me up. She was so sad because the detailer had called my house. The master detail called my house. He told my wife, he asked my wife to call me because the George Washington water. She called me up crying. She's like, You did this again. She's like, 'cause my wife knows whenever I say something out loud, like I the universe might be making this move, right?

Pete Santos 1:24:08

Yeah.

Gary Wise 1:24:09

She she said, once I say it out loud, she starts. Oh no, like, no, no, no, no. Maybe we need to talk about this. I'm already thinking about it, but I had nothing to they call me. Um, but I had Marty King and I had Sean Bromstead, where my twist that guy, yeah, yeah. And so I'm trying to get both of them on here as well. I talked to Marty yesterday and I've talked to Sean as well. Um, they both were great guys, man. But Sean, who Bromstead. Bromstead. Sean went from he went from the GW, went to back to the aviation community. He eventually, his last duty station, I believe he was the co-com, I think he was strat com. And then he retired. He walked away, bro. Hung it up, walked away, like left the whole ball game and became became an HR professional up in like Wisconsin, right? I can't wait to get him. And he was a former IT, but Sean was good people, man. And they had such and Marty was an AO, so they had much different styles, and they had much oh, yeah, I know.

Pete Santos 1:25:11

I had an AO.

Gary Wise 1:25:15

And he was a forward deployed AO, he was a Japan dude for sure. He was a made man in Japan for sure. Um, but uh no, it was it, they were good guys, but but my eval I got. I remember I get my eval, and I'm the number one MP, and my chief engineer is just like, he don't know what to tell me, right? And he's like, senior chief, I don't tell you, and I was like, sir, it's fine, I really don't care. It is what it is. I'm not I don't do this for the trophies, whatever. But I'm walking out of that. But my captain was mad at me because I had pulled my command senior chief package, I had to put a package together, I had got a very good e-bout from him at going for the command senior chief program. I was an MP, I wasn't even a ranked MP, but I was a strong writer for the command senior chief program, right? And I pulled my package out because we had had the earthquake in Japan. Uh a lot of underway time inserve, and my wife and I decided that it just wasn't a good time for me to try to go to the CMC program. I needed, I needed I was I was I was pegged, right?

Pete Santos 1:26:21

I was it you and the Reagan over there at the same time.

Gary Wise 1:26:26

The Reagan, so GW was in port in a yard period, bro. We had we were mid-cyclist availability. The Reagan was deployed covering up the theater, right? Right, so we're the ones that after the earthquake happens on Friday, they come back and tell us on Wednesday we're getting underway on Sunday. So we got underway on Sunday with one reactor, one engine, one screw. And I advanced hey, me and Ty Giles, bruh, bruh. So it was snowing ash, right? It was snowing ash outside, and it's radiated ash, and everyone's just like, what the hell? It's like it's like fires, like the fires in San Diego, right? You got the you got the ash coming down, right? And uh, we were doing a GQ on Monday morning for ATG, and I hear an alarm going off that I never heard go off before, and I see this big nuke mechanic go running by me. I'm like, hey Nate, what's that, bro? It's like Gary, it's all bad, bro. It ain't good, it ain't good. It's a radiation alarm.

Pete Santos 1:27:32

Yeah, chemical biological radiological.

Gary Wise 1:27:35

Well, for it's the nukes radiation alarms because it's supposed to measure their radiation leaking. So now the problem is we can't tell if we're losing radiation or not because their radiation is landing all over the ship coming through the ventilation. So and so I I call my wife because you gotta remember, bro, those earthquakes on Friday were hella big, like big earthquakes. They had that whole tsunami up north Japan, Fukushima, all that. And then we had like 70 aftershocks over the weekend that was like sixes and sevens, bro. They was earthquakes, they weren't no aftershocks. So my wife, bro, my wife was ready to go. She was like, Send me back home. And I told her, I'm like, look, we just got back with deployment. Hold on, we'll let you know. They called it so Monday, the alarms go off. Tuesday, they have us all go to a meeting and they say, How long y'all need to get underway? We tell them we need 18 days to get the ship to go to sea, right? I call my wife, I'm like, Look, babe, we got 18 days to figure this out, we'll we'll go from there. But they're telling the people the people don't go outside, the kids don't need to go outside, don't wear your shoes in the house because it's snow and radiation, right? Right, it's just falling, and we're we got people there sweeping it because we don't know yet how bad what it is, right? Weakened, yeah, because it's it's ash, people are just sweeping. We didn't know at that time what was gonna happen. That was even before the alarms went off, right? So then we come back in on Wednesday morning, we all meet up in the wardroom three on the carrier, and they come down and they basically say, We're getting the ship underway on Sunday morning, get everything done, you got to get done. We don't have any more information yet. We don't know if we're evacuating families or not. Boom. And I I come out, I call my wife, like, get a ticket. You and Hayden are leaving. Call it, call, get a ticket, I'll drive you to the airport. So she gets a flight out on Friday, and I go to the DCA. I'm like, sir, all I need is to drive my wife and my son to the airport on Friday morning. And after that, I'm locked in. I'm not going nowhere. I got it. And he was like, he says, Senior Chief hunt definitely, and can you do me a favor? Can you drive my family to the airport on Sunday as well? I said, Yes, sir, no problem, right? So Ty Giles, who's just retired as a CMC.

Pete Santos 1:30:00

Yeah.

Building The Anchorage: Certifications And Pride

Gary Wise 1:30:00

He's got the lead car. I'm behind Ty. Me and Ty are boys. Ty, Ty is my we're birthday brothers, like we're very tight. And Ty is driving his wife and their son. I'm driving behind him. It's two hours up, two hours back. So we get to the airport. Me and Ty walk our families into this airport, which is like the Tower of Babel in there, bro. It's like everyone's evacuating Tokyo because this radiation is falling. No one knows what to do. We hugged our wives. We kissed our sons goodbye. My son was like two and a half. Thais old as some was like three. And we walked out, bro. Tears dropping off our face. Like, damn. And we and we left them alone there. And they they handled their business. They got with other spouses. They circled up the little strollers. They threw their kids in there. They all took care of themselves and they got out. So then I drive back through all the traffic all the to Yoko. As I get back to Yoko, I pick up my DCA's wife and his her his son. I drive them all the way to the airport, another two hours, drop them off. As I'm driving back, my sailor calls me. Senior, my sister's here. She's got a flight, but she can't get up on the train. So I come through, scoop my sailor's sister, who I never met this young lady before. Got her, I Uber her all the way to the airport, drop her off, get back to the base, grab my sea bags, go to the ship. I'm getting on the ship at midnight, bro. And Marty, my CMC, is on the quarter deck. And he's like, God damn Skittle, where you been? I was like, bruh, yeah. And we got on the way on Sunday, man. We got on the way on Sunday. And then they started evacuating families right after we got on the way. But it was a voluntary evacuation. You know how that goes. It's voluntary. But you know, when you say that, everyone's freaking out because they don't know like what do I do, right? Yeah. That was a good one, man. That was a good one for sure. But I pulled after that whole thing, my wife and I wasn't sure like was she gonna come back to Japan or not? Because that was kind of scary, right? And I had told my wife, well, hey, we only gone for three months at a time in Japan. Like we did six months straight that first time, and then we had the earthquake, and then we come back from the earthquake and we get underway like a month later for a full patrol, right? So we were we were gone a lot that year, and but luckily she came back and she fell in love with Japan, and that made it better in the long run. But because I pulled my command synony package back, that eval, I kind of got some hate, but then I still made master chief off that eval, which worked out, you know, in the long run. Oh shit. Hey, so when you're you were on uh the ship you moved on the cleveland, you make master chief. Where do you go to after the Cleveland, bro?

Pete Santos 1:32:52

I went my first tour was a 06 billet CMC on the Cape St. George.

Gary Wise 1:32:57

So you went straight from the Cleveland to CSG to Cape St. George.

Pete Santos 1:33:01

Oh, yeah, because it was the Gary had Gary, I relieved Gary Mendis, but he had already left, so it was gapped.

Gary Wise 1:33:09

So in those days, real quick, Pete, could you just go to an 06 tour as your first CMC tour?

Pete Santos 1:33:16

No, it was all uh it was still 05s. I don't know how I got that's what I mean, as far as you know, you get the luck of the draw or whatever, you know. And and I didn't see myself getting it. And I heard rumor I was going to destroyer, and then next thing you know, somebody said, Man, this the CO requesting Kate, they want you over there, and you strong guy over there, and they looking at you, use a boat's mate, get on over there. I was like, Okay, okay.

Gary Wise 1:33:46

So and how long were you on Cape St. George for two three years? I did two two two deployments, three deployments on two deployments. Oh, yeah, okay. And then is that where Ben was with you? Was he on Cape St. George with you?

Pete Santos 1:34:04

Ben came later on, and yeah, that's when we had the these this virus. Oh my god, double dragon virus. Me and Ben was laying on the couch, and we oh my god, we was like babies, felt like crying up in there. Oh my god.

Gary Wise 1:34:20

How was that having your first Chiefs mess as a CMC? Bro, was that a different feeling?

Pete Santos 1:34:26

It was different, and and but I would you try to remain humble because you got two senior mass chiefs, and by definition, you're the most senior guy on there.

Gary Wise 1:34:40

Yeah, so you had a top sniper and you had like a paccom, you had a facm.

Pete Santos 1:34:45

Yep, I had a yeah, maintenance master chief, and they both provide me with great counsel. I never went up to the CL without talking to them, and I because my in the uh he was not engineered, he was engineering, but he wasn't. He was became a 3MC, but he was the EMCM and he was awesome. Nice him and the uh uh Crawley.

Gary Wise 1:35:12

Okay, Crawley, got it.

Pete Santos 1:35:13

EMCM Crawley, he was awesome, and then I had Steinkler as my FCCM, and they was older, and they showed me different ways of seeing things from different perspectives, and that's what I took to the cafe. And it was great.

Gary Wise 1:35:29

How was the have having a CO that had the experience of being now in 06? How was that?

Pete Santos 1:35:35

Oh, it was great. That guy went on to make two-star. Oh, both of them made admiral. Both of those guys made two-star admirals out of there, so they was uh very it was very successful. I had a great relationship with them with XO. Um, yeah, both of them, it was just awesome. I had long-lasting relationships with the first, even uh both COs and then my XO's, I keep in touch with it.

Gary Wise 1:36:02

So when you get done with your first CMC tour, how many years do you have in the Navy at this point?

Pete Santos 1:36:08

I don't even know what it was. I was young then so I'll say three. I was like 26, 27, 27 years, 26, 27 years. Was it 26, 27 years already? Yeah, because I didn't come to Japan because I did two more CMC tours prior to that.

Gary Wise 1:36:31

Okay, so what did you do after the Cape St. George?

Essex, Marines, And The Reality Of Gator Navy

Pete Santos 1:36:34

I commissioned the Anchorage, and that's when we recovered the Orion. So we was we was doing big things on there. We we was an we were like the all-star team of the waterfront. We was like the dream team, and we that was built from the ground up. We had a ball, me and the captain. We still talk to this day. I spoke to him last week, and uh from there, yeah. I went to the uh he transferred out, but he had cancer, so he had to leave and treat it. So he was the CO, he was the executive producer of the last ship, the TNT thing he was uh assigned to surf for, and he was the executive or special surface select uh envoy to those guys and how he was so he was getting his treatments going to Hollywood every time, so he was chilling. So then they gave him the Essex. He was the XO and he had to fleet up, so he he was in remission. So then he came up calling. I was on the anchorage. I said, Yep. So I came over there. That's cool. That one on deployment. That's yeah. So then when we had some, we had a great time, did you? Yeah, learning to work with Marines is different, and uh, it's the same brotherhood, but it's just you know, them some dudes is a true, man. They don't care about nobody stuff.

Gary Wise 1:38:02

But I love I I feel like they're dialed in, man. The Marines, whenever I asked them to do something, they were like, Yes, come ask chief, we got it, and it'll go freaking go.

Pete Santos 1:38:11

I did, I had the same thing, but yeah, I had on the amphib and uh the anchorage, and then about on uh L6 deploying with them cats is a whole nother story when you got your HT uh complainers, they might keep breaking stuff in there all the time. The crappers and the putting the stuff down there. You gotta hear that every day, and oh my god, it was it was painful and stuff.

Gary Wise 1:38:36

No, I get it. I I uh yeah, I got a special place of all we have to clear out everything.

Pete Santos 1:38:42

I mean, throw away everything.

Gary Wise 1:38:44

So idle idle hands, right? They get down there, they get to fiddle it around with stuff. So, how long were you on Essex? Is that only two years?

Pete Santos 1:38:54

A year and then some change. I just deployed with them at one time because back then it was like, hey, you uh once you deploy, if you deploy on a big deck, you don't need to go through if you went through the yards with him. I went came in when he was in the yards. So you did the yards, then I deploy with work up, then training, then deploy with him. And it was like, hey, got some. They start calling your name up for the you start going into the leadership mess, and that's when you start your name starts circulating who they want. Pete, you know, you thinking about the what are you thinking about? I'm like, okay, what what goes next from here?

Gary Wise 1:39:34

So yeah. Well, I mean, I can see where 76 lined up good for you. I mean, you know the gators.

Pete Santos 1:39:40

I was offered 76 before, three years prior to, and I didn't take it because it wasn't other under my taking. It was like because again, distraction, they want somebody else in there. ESG3. You don't qualify for ESG three, but you qualify for ESG7. I say, How can that sell? How is that so? And rest is rest in peace for the person that telling me that, yeah. So, but uh yeah, I'm like, that don't make sense. They both they yeah, no, no, no. I no, I didn't tell you in your face they the smoke, and then you you you know what it is, yeah.

Gary Wise 1:40:22

So brother, I here's what I'll tell you. Part of when I made the decision to retire, and there was several reasons, but one of the reasons was I didn't need other master chiefs trying trying to control me and my family's future, right? Yeah, that for me was a problem, right? I didn't trust the intents process, I didn't trust I liked it when there was this you could get all the candidates that want the job, could submit their information, and then that the boss would review the packages and pick their guy. And yes, the CMC that's there might have an inside check because he's the guy, but this whole new thing where it's like a bunch of master chiefs can only pick who gets to do what's what, and they're gonna oh well you can't go to there, but you can go over there wink week. But you know what? Let the ESG3 guy pick, bro. Let them pick. You ain't gotta pick for me.

Pete Santos 1:41:19

Yeah, I did that happened to me when I was a junior sailor. Uh, when I was military police, the security officer said you don't control how you call for your orders. I'm like, because he was mad because I called for my orders, I got my own orders to EOD, and I was like, You don't control this my name. This I'm thinking that I wasn't gonna say it to his face, you know. I'm like, yeah, whatever.

Gary Wise 1:41:45

I I uh a few times in my career, uh so like when I got I got pulled off Ashland to go to Seventh Fleet, right? They made they made magic happen for that. Like all of a sudden, the right person makes a phone call and orders are in the mail, right? Then I'm and so then I'm in Guam, right? And the Admiral walks in my office. The admiral walks in my office and says, Hey, the pull of my CMC, I want to be my next CMC. Would you come work for me? And I was just like, I really don't want to do that job, but I'll come work with you. But I I don't want to be a region mass chief. That's not dude, many, yeah.

Pete Santos 1:42:28

Right, yeah, he's a good dude, he was a good man. I like him.

Gary Wise 1:42:31

But he had wrote, I had wrote with him all through COVID, and he saw how I got down, right? Which I'm glad it didn't happen at the end of the day because the guy that relieved him, I'm not cool with that dude.

Pete Santos 1:42:40

He'll both yeah, because uh Manoni hooked my other boy up when he got a second star and he was acting for a minute, he did the interview for my homeboy. Nice, and he got the force job over there.

Gary Wise 1:42:55

So you get so you just so I'm trapping, you you're on the Essex, so you've just done Cape St. George, Anchorage, now Essex, right? And what are you looking at now as far as duty stations? Are you looking at I mean, are they what's going on with that?

Manning Truths, Inspections, And Saying No

Pete Santos 1:43:16

Right. I interviewed with John now, Vice Admiral now, who was uh retired chief of naval personnel for the job at ESG 7 because all my COs was all they was all U.S. Naval Academy Academy graduates. Yeah. So I think they was on the same class or the because they ended up all making admirals, but um, they was like, hey, you need to pick this guy. He's like, hey, Master Chief. Uh, had an interview with him at ESG headquarters. That's when I selected ESG 7, not the three years prior. Two, it was on my own bidding. The wife was okay, and then he was like, Hey, you know, if you interviewing all my guys love you, so I it was I think before you got there, right?

Gary Wise 1:44:04

No, I was there. I I had been there about I'd been there about six months before you got there. Um, because then they pulled the guy out before you he got moved to go up north to Yokoska. Yeah, Toby.

Pete Santos 1:44:19

Yeah, Toby, because that's what Toby, that's what he did back in there. So he was just following that routine there, and that worked out for him.

Gary Wise 1:44:29

It I guess. I mean, here's the thing, right? I I got my own opinions.

Pete Santos 1:44:36

Hey, hey, and I told you, man, that's like, hey, man, I don't judge book buttons cover anything. I let if if you go playing these games, I I couldn't do it though. I can't do these games. I couldn't do it. Me neither, bro. I need to be on the ground and walking with people.

Gary Wise 1:44:55

Well, my thing was when I got Master Chiefs, you start thinking they're like flag officers, bro. That was a problem for me. So, like when I was working up there with Toby, I would like send an email out because like he be on travel, and so you got the boss say, Hey, Master Chief, I need you to get this information. So I go back. What I'm supposed to do is send Toby an email when he's on travel so he can send the email to the other. No, I'm a master chief, they master chief. But then what they don't know is I'm on his inbox, like I'm getting all the emails on his inbox, and I'm getting I'm reading the emails he's getting from these other masses. Hey, what does Gary think he's doing? Email and something we work for him, bro. Blah blah blah. And I'm just like, dog. I now I'm like, y'all are shifty, bro. Like, what are we doing?

Pete Santos 1:45:40

Like, so I didn't I didn't, you know, I'm like I didn't I don't play politics well. I I don't if you want me to go and see what's the problems, I'm gonna find them and come with a solution, boss. Here you go. And that's what I did. We did in Sasebo, at least from what I was told. I go what uh off what other people say. Yeah, I didn't play, I'm not nobody's boy, I don't want no boys. I don't like the the clicks. I just want to treat people regardless of race, color, creed, treat people as human beings and respectable. Don't try to tie my hand behind my back when I'm trying to help you. And a lot of people got get it taken into context and stuff. And I know uh it was bumping his and Stephen Brown all the time for stuff on base. And I don't, I'm not your boss. I know this because I've done tours, I don't have any authority. My boss is a one-star admiral, he asks me questions, he details me, and I go get the answers. And I take them straight back. I don't filter. Well, and that's one thing I noticed as a CMC. I don't filter. Well, when it comes to the CO, I give him straight conversation. Here's what these dudes say, and this is what the attitude was, or what have you, and it worked because why am I gonna shiver coat some up? Boss, I don't think we gotta do no, no, boss. Don't want to hear that. Boss wants to hear what's going on because he can get fired, and I can get fired.

Gary Wise 1:47:11

I remember the situation you were in. If your boss was in Okinawa, but you were up in Sasebo purposefully because all the sailors and their families was in Sasebo, and he you and the deputy's job was to make sure that maintenance was getting done right and was to make sure that the families were taken care of so that when the sailors got operationally deployed, that wasn't a problem, right? And oh, by the way, and Admiral now and the training, getting all those training. Hey, Admiral now Dalton wasn't so much like this, but Admiral now he would come to Saspo and call himself the Sasebo Admiral. He was like, I'm the Admiral of Sassbo.

Pete Santos 1:47:51

Why you think? But see, here's the thing, though. When I got there, they was working on moving and down near. Yeah, now the position cmc position is in Okinawa. Is it really? Yeah, because they came with Febron 11. Febron has the myop, so to speak. That's the they have a CMC. I told them that's your whole people up there. You only go down there for the Marines, so the officer should have been in Sasebo in the beginning.

Gary Wise 1:48:22

Well, pretty soon they're gonna move that Admiral to Guam, bro, because the Marines are going to Guam.

Pete Santos 1:48:27

Yeah, that's what's gonna happen.

Gary Wise 1:48:29

But I'm gonna tell you something else, bro. The all these flag CMC jobs are almost as bad as all these flag officers.

Pete Santos 1:48:35

Here's the thing going back, and it remembered it. What you were saying when it was playing these uh what it was talking about CMC programs, MTMs. You were telling me about that, and this, and I was going through it before when we had the CMC detailer and this and that. I said, That's what you got now is a product of people playing boys and hookups, and yeah, and it gets to the point where now they shut off something on there. I forgot they changed the program. I was talking to somebody over there, Jeremy or somebody, and uh they did some changes to it. And I was like, That's the product of them playing boys and putting people in positions and spaces and hookups and all this stuff. I said, you know what? I said, you know, it still rifles me of how CMCs running around here with PhDs. I said it tells me I like to go in there and just look at the command and see how it is. Does it it just runs without them or what?

Gary Wise 1:49:33

Well, and when they several times when when is the last time they go to sea on a ship, right? Because you got dudes that would be in DC for like seven years straight, yeah, right? That's not a thing for me, bro. Or like here's my other thing that I don't that I don't like, and I I am I believe they should look at the talent management of the command senior enlisted leader program for the United States Navy, period. Because first of all, we can't even do damn promotion boards by ourselves anymore because we leak all the damn shit, right? Right, you don't think that's not happening in Tim's, right? You think that they're not leaking, people are not leaking, how corrupt it is, and then oh, by the way, it's it's you got multiple chimney problems. You got oh, this is a community. So if I'm Arab AirPac, Airland, I'm a C and I C guy, I'm a gay guy, but whatever. Then you got communities of like, oh, these are the Norfolk people, these are the San Diego people, yeah. They don't know you, and all that's still a problem, bro.

Japan Waterfront: ESG7, Politics, And People First

Pete Santos 1:50:35

All that's I tried when I was at my commands, I broke those. I said that we can't have those because it's at the end of the day, because I had um I lost the ALCS, a death, and and they did something that really upset me in the captain because they always saying I owe us, and they said it after dude passed away. But he he was a very good dude. I still know a very good friend. Um yeah, people you got that these masking stuff, and this and that stuff. I it I just try to prevent a lot of this stuff from going on.

Gary Wise 1:51:14

You could do that in the unit, like of a ship, yeah. I think where our where the name and the navy's in trouble right now, I think. Cultural the navy, I think, is in the worst position of the whole DOD because they've completely lost sight of who they are as a service, and they're there, there are these like four or five different subservices in one group, and then I will tell you this the CMC, why one of the many reasons I left the Navy at 25 years. I walked away at 25 years. I could I besides being done because I was cooked, I'm not gonna lie to you. COVID cooked me, Guam cooked me, Ashland, Seventh Fleet, all that. That was all that was tough. That was tough work, and I saw my kids were getting older, I saw opportunity to make get more money out in the civilian sector, I saw mental health. I was like, ooh, I'm I've I'm pushing it. I know I'm I'm I'm orange, I'm red. Do I want to keep going? What for? Do you get more money, Gary, when you retire? No, you don't. You're not gonna make E10, right? All those things. But then when I got so the admiral comes and says, I want you to come work for me. Okay, I'm like, all right, sir, I really don't want the job, but I'll come for you. People off the island say, no, Gary can't do that because my captain and name based Guam, Captain Grimes, was like, Master, there's nobody better than you for that job. You know, Guam like the back of your hand. You know the people here love you because of COVID. That would be a huge win for the joint region for you to go up there. I was like, Well, it'll give my family another 24 months, I guess, on Guam. Whatever, I don't care. I'm in, I'm interested. And I would have gotten a transfer before the new CO came in, and that was kind of a problem because there was drama there with his from COVID, from the COVID challenges, right? Because he was CO of a ship that was in Guam. And so I was uh I was open to that, but no, the powers that be, the Master Chief Mafia, the intense people. No, Gary can't do that. All right, whatever, right? Whatever, okay, fine. Then I get a phone call. Hey, Gary, uh, we would love for you to go to Naval Hospital, Guam, bro. It's gonna be this. I'm getting a call from the flag CMC off island in the States, right? He calls me up, Gary. I heard you wouldn't mind staying on Guam longer. I talked to the people there, you they think they would love to have you go there, whatever. I'm like, Well, you know what? I like Guam. I wasn't hurting. Maybe I'll go do it. I don't know. Oh no, the mass chief mafia from off island. Oh, Gary can't leave MBG early. No, no, no, no. He got to do 36 months on naval based Guam. Can't do only 24 months, can't do only 30 months. I'm like, hold up, flag on the play, bro. Flag on the play, bro. I got pulled off Ashland exactly at 24 months. I know all you got to do is a minimum amount of time on station and they can rock you. And oh, by the way, if the right person makes the call, because it was Jim Honey that got me Naval Base Guam, right? When my wife was in going through her medical stuff, yeah. Remember that right? That was Jim, that was Jim and Lisa Tisdale that got me to Guam. Right, and I'd only been at Seventh Fleet for like 15 months, but I wanted to hell up out of that spot because that place was corruption, that place was horrible.

Pete Santos 1:54:37

So, yeah, so after when after Sassebo, though, that's when I went to carrier's trade and work with the Admiral over there. That's when I came back when we had the quarantine, and we had to put all them thousands of sailors in the uh hotels, and oh man, man, Mike Marshall.

Gary Wise 1:54:56

That was another let's go over that real quick. Hold up, but so how was it at your at working with that admiral on the carrier? How much different was that from doing the amphib admiral?

Pete Santos 1:55:06

It did because well, Admirals want to know if you can, you know, you're around the same age with them, that if they can just have a conversation with you, and and and you know, you can have a beer with them, so to speak, and that's what they want to feel comfortable with.

Gary Wise 1:55:25

So I remember we were drinking that one comment, but CSG.

Pete Santos 1:55:32

Uh the Admirals all come from the different walk of life, like Admiral Cooper, he's still four-star nominated from the takeover central command now. Oh, yeah. So I just talked to him a couple weeks ago. He on this third grand kid and stuff, and uh he's solid, he was a good boss for you, bro. He was he brought, I told him, came in his office one day. I said, Boss, thank you for turning the gray skies blue. He said, What do you mean? I said, It's been a dark cloud every since before you got here. Yeah, he said when Admiral now left, we had a dark cloud over here. It was tough and Dalton, me and Dalton went at it. You guys just didn't see it. And but I came to we can go at it. He'll go off on me, and he think I'm gonna take it. Yeah, I'll we'll finish it hour or two. I'll come back. Boss, you want to go do a walk around? Be like, yeah or no. I'll be like, Oh, because the should have watered on the bridge with me, but a lot of people who we I have never seen so many people. You guys go, but I've never seen so many people um hate that man. And well, I think he got a second start is because he took over for the character because Admiral Williams got fired, and I was a friend of his. So he just it was just it's crazy. It's a cutthroat world out there with when you're a flag officer, but uh yeah, it wasn't that one.

Gary Wise 1:57:03

It's a cutthroat world for a flag CMC, too. Let's be honest, it's a cut through world for a CMC, period.

Pete Santos 1:57:09

I was stressed to F out. I was, but I learned how to deal with I something clicked, and I just said, Hey, it's like I was like Rein X. This shit was rolling off my back, yeah, because his leadership style was corrosive, and and you uh would never work for a guy who had a company like that. Yeah, but Admiral Cooper came in, he was like, Wow, amazing!

Gary Wise 1:57:33

Yeah, I remember when Admiral Cooper would come up to Zakuska, and he was a young admiral working working with the vice admiral, and I remember him just he had that energy like a young second-class petty officer that was a go-getter, right? Like he, yeah, and I remember lifelong friends, lifelong friends.

Pete Santos 1:57:52

That's what he said.

Gary Wise 1:57:53

I remember thinking we would clean for days on end for this one star to walk through. Then I'm up there with this three-star, and this one star acting like a petty officer, he liked trying to get stuff done, and because it's like the restarting again for them, right?

Pete Santos 1:58:07

Like, and I push sailors in front of that guy. One sailor, we pushed, he got a navy comm from and cat and admiral's like, Man Chief, look at this. He said, Call the Commodore up and y'all have a conversation. Tell me what y'all think. I called Commodore, I said, Commodore, what's going on? He's like, Master, what's up? So we got this com. Boss told me to talk to you. What you want to do? He said, Master, you know, this dude. I said, You talking about him, the sources? I was like, Oh my god. I was like, oh, so we both go to Irma. Like, okay, I'm sorry. And then he's like, I got one better. I'm he always do one up on us. And because it was all beauty, you know, beautiful love, is caring for the sailors, uh, and that's where you saw it. So when he did that one up, he uh he he read everything from memory with no paper or nothing, and it was the exact for a calm. And I was like, because I seen so many comms, I know exactly what the words say, but I ain't gonna memorize all that. And that's what he did, and he called him up, and the whole mind community stood up and cheering it. It was like somebody just graduated. It was like, oh my god, see, this is why I do this every day. I said it ain't to pay, it ain't that, it's just right here, and that dude, him and his wife Susan. Oh my god, I can't say enough about her making me. He's a good dude, man. Yeah, he's solid. He is uh the concept. I love that guy.

GW Earthquake, Radiation, And Family Evacuation

Gary Wise 1:59:42

Hey, when when you look at your tour on the air on the aircraft carrier, was it was it defined by that covet period? Was that just because that was a big operation you guys were in the middle of, bro?

Pete Santos 1:59:54

Yeah, it was sort of defined it, but it didn't. Disrupt the friendships that you had. And I still see people, the new CO the Abraham Lincoln was XO. So he was the exo then. The CEO is successful, who was relieved of command, has wrote written his own book. Thanks to Pete Santo's suggestion. Oh, yeah. I told him he was like, No, I'll never do that. No, no, no, no. I'm like, because I knew him Brent when he was in uh Blue Ridge. So I knew him from back then, so we had a relationship.

Gary Wise 2:00:36

I knew him from there too. So the night he walked off the ship, his CMC called me up. It's like, Gary, can you get him a bottle of bourbon? I was like, say less, bro. It'd be my honor to get that man some whiskey, bro.

Pete Santos 2:00:49

I did it too.

Gary Wise 2:00:50

And it was like all of the they was he had COVID at that time too. He had COVID and we took him the bottle. And and and yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Santos 2:01:00

He was up in the hotel. Yeah, he had to do his member.

Gary Wise 2:01:05

And Captain and Admiral Manoni went down there to visit him and all that, man. Like that was a tough time, bro.

Pete Santos 2:01:11

That's what I did to uh Admiral Baker when he because he knew he was fired. And he told me uh something different. Go ahead, man. You can eat. Um we bought him a $70 bottle of liquor out of exchange, some of the expensive one. Yeah, and that chief, you know, remember that chief I was with? I don't know if you remember that DCC.

Gary Wise 2:01:37

Uh what was Filipino guy? Yeah, didn't he pass away? Yes, yeah, yeah.

Pete Santos 2:01:46

Yeah, yeah. That was the one I was riding around with the entire that's who I was staying with the entire time.

Gary Wise 2:01:51

He was on Ashland, too. He didn't tell him on Ashland.

Pete Santos 2:01:56

Yeah, his thing was he uh I served the guy, and this uh tell you how humble people are, and it humbles me. That guy who we're talking about, DCC, who's passed away. I'm glad we're talking about him because he it crosses my mind. He had the Navy Marine Corps life saving medal.

Gary Wise 2:02:12

Oh no, he was on George Washington with me. That was where he left the minesweeper after that.

Pete Santos 2:02:20

And you know what happened on the minesweeper? We're in the ground and they cracked in half and he saved all the people, yeah, yeah, as a DC one.

Gary Wise 2:02:27

Yeah, Mackatange, I think his name was.

Pete Santos 2:02:29

Yeah, Jeff McIntang.

Gary Wise 2:02:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was tracking when he passed away, man.

Pete Santos 2:02:35

Yeah, we were roommates and everything, and and everything. And then, you know, I retired, but uh they didn't know we still kept it. I still got email text messages all the way up till he uh to a month before he passed.

Gary Wise 2:02:48

Was that your last tour? Was that aircraft carrier tour?

Pete Santos 2:02:51

Your last tour, yeah, carrier strike group nine, because I asked uh Russ. I said I just need to get back to the states to sell the family. You know, I ain't got time for this. The I didn't tell him that, but I ain't got time for the politics and stuff. But yeah, yeah. So yeah, I was up for the surf war position. I didn't get that job. I went over to a friend of mine's, and he was good people's, and but at the same time, it was a blessing in disguise. So, but you know, I don't regret it. The people I met, the leaders I've been around, the young ones, and it's just it's been remarkable. And it's just it still pushes me to continue to do good and keep pushing things in life because you everybody has a canvas that they got to paint when it's at the end of their their lifespan. So at the end of the day, is your canvas the way you want it? Or should you make changes? Well, it's too late. Do it now. My big message is with urgency because one day you're gonna be here today, and tomorrow you're gonna be gone. It just happened to a few cats I know, and I just wow, yeah. You know, and and leaders, you know, I don't change anything because you're every place prepares you for the next place, yeah. The stepping stone in life, and that's the way I look at things, and I take it that way. And hey, if people want to say, um, this not go ahead, it doesn't bother because they said about the next guy, they're gonna say it about the next guy. It's your performance that sets you apart from him. And when I got into Sassago, it was a bunch of coffins floating up around everywhere, and that we had to fix. And Coop was like, Go ahead, or actually, Dalton was like, What is going on here? And that's why a lot of the things was going on. I was the brunt of it, too, and stuff. And everybody thought I was good with him. I'm like, Man, that dude's like that to everybody, man. That's like he didn't break me, but he broke a lot of people, yeah, people, and I don't I don't respect that. You don't have to treat people like that.

Gary Wise 2:04:58

Yeah, he yeah, I I yeah. What so what have you been doing since you retired, bro?

Pete Santos 2:05:04

I school. I uh I didn't have a degree when I retired. Um, I pushed all my sailors and them forward. I made it like a big purpose in life. So I said, hey, let me go back and reflect. And something hit me. And I said, let me go uh completed my degree, and I'm now I'm getting into a uh business, you know, degree plan, and also about you know, thinking about starting my own business or whatever, you know, whatever the case is. I see a lot of you cats uh got uh great leadership uh businesses running and stuff. So I was like, I don't know what my business is, but I got my uh senior certified professional certificate and HR, and then I got my PMP and then a degree. So sky's the limit. But they you know, nowadays it's who you know, the military. It ain't it ain't because you military, that don't mean nothing anymore. So it's who you know.

Gary Wise 2:06:01

So yeah, I mean, I teach high school, bro. Everything I do outside of that is just like for fun, like this is all for fun, and just to build a platform to market other things that I'm working on, but really it's for this conversation, the chance to get to be around my shipmates, talk like we're in the mess, shoot the breeze.

Pete Santos 2:06:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gary Wise 2:06:21

For sure.

Pete Santos 2:06:22

One other guy, he was a chief at one of the spots. I went and worked at the reserve uh recruiting down there, and it was a caustic leadership down there. I did six months. I was like, deuces CO got fired. I was like, What? Where extra the extra CMC should have been fired too. I was like, I was like, wow, them dude's running a monk, and I'm sitting there looking like this and this and this and this. I was doing it get out the house. I was like, nah, I don't need this in my life. I said, Yeah, because it's sad. I said it's sad the way that it went down, and even as civilians know it too, you know. Uh he was so check it out.

Gary Wise 2:06:58

Check it out, Pete. I'm gonna ask you some questions as we're getting ready to wrap this up. They're kind of wrapping fire, but I think you're gonna use some of that in your answers, right? So here we go. Are you ready?

Pete Santos 2:07:09

Go ahead.

Gary Wise 2:07:10

All right, bro. What was your welcome to the navy like moment? Like, where did you where was the first you were like, Oh shoot, I'm really in the navy? Where was that?

Pete Santos 2:07:19

Boot camp. You had a dream, it was chaos, and it was chaos. It was them throwing trash cans and beating it, scaring you. Oh my god, it was like I can still I still remember that day. Okay, it was like, welcome to the military. I'm like myself into okay.

Gary Wise 2:07:39

Next question. I think that you're gonna hit this one. What do you see as the biggest leadership challenge for organizations today?

Pete Santos 2:07:47

People not listening to their people, empathy, emotional intelligence is a huge one. Understanding people and helping them see the picture that they need to see.

Gary Wise 2:08:00

Okay, huge, right? How can parents best use leadership skills to better connect with you know their teenagers? And and I ask you that because a lot of my my students will watch my podcast, a lot of the parents I'm involved with from my school will they pay attention, and raising teenagers is hard, and then we would get them as young adults and help turn them into professionals. But what about teens? How can how can parents better leverage leadership training to help them with their teens? Because teens is wild today.

Pete Santos 2:08:32

Talk to them, talk to them, listen to them. Here's the thing they they know what they want, they don't know what they want, so to speak. Okay, but if we can frame it in the context where they're the media, so to speak, then we'll be just fine with it. If we can figure out how to communicate that to them, it's the communication barrier. That's what it is.

Gary Wise 2:09:00

Communication is key, right? And you said it a minute ago. I tell my say I tell my students, uh, really leadership is influence and communication. If you can figure out the way to communicate with influence, people will follow you, right? And then if you can connect that to emotional intelligence, that's the cheat code, right? You'll probably unlock all kinds of good things.

Flag Worlds: Dalton, Cooper, And Caring For Sailors

Pete Santos 2:09:22

It can see right through you, too.

Gary Wise 2:09:24

Well, if if you're not being real, yeah.

Pete Santos 2:09:26

Oh, yeah.

Gary Wise 2:09:27

If you and you know, I tell I tell people there's too much going on in life to be fake, right? I I gotta be able to stand on my business at any moment in time. So 10 toes down, I'm always five foot six. You ask about me, I'm gonna be the same way always and forever. And if you and you know what? I'm not for everybody, and everybody's not for me. Just like that, right? And I think if you can't live your life like that, then what a guy gave me a coin one time, a CMC gave me a coin one time. It had it looked like a ram's head, and it stood on its on its own side. And and the side, I was like, bro, I can't put this coin in no damn coin holder, bro. It's too broad. He's like, Look, it's a point to the coin. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. That's the point to my coin. And I think I think that's true, you know. I think that's true. Um, what's a piece of advice, Pete, you would give to somebody that's struggling with challenges in their organization?

Pete Santos 2:10:24

Oh, re think your goals and and uh say rethink your how you do goals, how you set goals. I look at it as a canvas now. What picture do I want to paint while I'm in that position? It's the for me, like say if I was in a position just reporting to a command, in three years, two years, four years, when I depart that command, how do I want to see that portrait? Oh if I picture that first, then I'll have a goal of getting there. And I'll bridge that gap to get into that goal. And it's the portrait that I want to paint. Is people use goals, people use this. Um, I'm gonna set this and set that. It's your port at the end of the day, when you leave, that everybody's like, hey, I'm gonna miss that guy. You can tell by the way the side of the ship leaving, you're getting bonged off, or you're getting however you're hailing farewell, hailing bell, or because you know, and people uh I've had chiefs crying, came in my office crying, and I'm like, Why are you doing this to me? It's like, yeah, because you had an influence in their life, and they I still they run their own business out here in Texas, they sell steaks, they run their own cattle farm. I mean, I've seen people and they told me thank you, they cried and stuff. And it's I had a guy did it over in Sasebo. He said, This is not normal. I said, Yeah, but if when you care about your people, if I take care of you now, you're gonna come back here and take care of me. So you put people first in everything you do, life hat is so beautiful.

Gary Wise 2:12:02

You know, it is, and yeah, I learned that from my grandmother.

Pete Santos 2:12:07

And we don't live in the past because everybody knows your past, nobody knows your future, so just keep it moving.

Gary Wise 2:12:16

That's a good one. All right, it's Saturday night, you're on the ship. You looking forward to pizza or wings?

Pete Santos 2:12:24

Both, both. I gotta have them both. We gotta satisfy both. All right, some people want, you know, some people want drums, some people want what you know.

Gary Wise 2:12:34

Yeah, okay.

Pete Santos 2:12:34

And then they want pizza, different varieties.

Gary Wise 2:12:37

So we uh we did it always. All right, bro. You got either birthing cleaners or the working party. Which one do you want?

Pete Santos 2:12:44

I'm doing uh birthing cleaners.

Gary Wise 2:12:48

You said the 30s, I'm a birthing cleaner.

Pete Santos 2:12:50

Yeah, I did birthing cleaners when I started the navy, and I had the best birthing because we used to use the old buffers and the old wool blankets to buff the floors, and they were shining.

Gary Wise 2:13:02

Hey, we're gonna watch a movie in the mess, bro. You want to watch a De Niro movie or a Pacino movie? Say again, we're gonna watch a movie in the mess. You want to watch a De Niro or a Pacino movie?

Pete Santos 2:13:13

Oh my god. I guess so. We're gonna watch both of them. We're gonna do the heat. Because they both my favorite actors.

Gary Wise 2:13:23

Okay, hey, looking back on your duty on your life, what was your favorite duty station?

Pete Santos 2:13:31

Hmm, USS Anchorage.

Gary Wise 2:13:33

Oh, I hope you were gonna say that LPD 23.

Pete Santos 2:13:36

That was by far my best command, the people, the families. That's how I thought about that. Certifications out the park. Yep. It was like it was a every command was a joy to come to work every day, but that was like wow, I'll do that one in a heartbeat.

Gary Wise 2:13:55

Okay, you know, I get it. What was the hardest qualification you ever achieved in your career?

Pete Santos 2:14:04

ESWS Eastwatch on the USS Missouri. Okay. You have to know the whole basic steam cycle on a battleship, and that is hard. I woke up smelling like oil, dreaming, then nightmares. I spent time in A-Gang on Broadway and the battleships, all that the railings you see in the middle is boom hit my head on those things because they have on Broadway where they moved them big old piece of equipment they have railing systems in those built in.

Gary Wise 2:14:36

Oh my god, and they what what year did you get your Eastwall spin?

Pete Santos 2:14:41

1989. 1990, May 1990.

Gary Wise 2:14:46

1990. Got it. If you had to do a chance to do it again, would you go overseas or stateside? Overseas. Would you? Okay. I mean, six years in Italy, three years in Sasko, right? Uh, what's your favorite movie series?

Pete Santos 2:15:05

Big Bang Theory.

Gary Wise 2:15:08

Okay. What about would you rather be independent or on a team? How about if you have a personal leadership philosophy?

Pete Santos 2:15:20

Put people first in everything you do. It ain't about you.

Gary Wise 2:15:25

Okay. All right, we got deck plate leadership, institutional and technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, and a sense of heritage. Which one of those is your favorite?

Pete Santos 2:15:41

That's a long list. Because I I try to exhibit several uh most of those traits. Uh I don't even remember what you said, or so many of them.

Gary Wise 2:15:56

Deck plate leadership.

Pete Santos 2:15:58

That'd be the first one. That's the one I was looking for.

Gary Wise 2:16:00

Dip class, right? Dip class, deck plate leadership, institute institutional technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, and a sense of heritage.

Pete Santos 2:16:12

I would say character. That's my big one. Okay. Yeah, because it's about you and the people, it's about yourself and then how you treat others and how you expect to be treated. And I think that's things that's we missed. Uh, we don't preach a lot. If you treat people the way you want to be treated, you can expect a positive outcome. If you treat people with uh disrespect and you try to manipulate people, expect it to happen to you, not now, but down the road times 10. It'd be worse than what it was.

Gary Wise 2:16:46

So yeah. All right, would you rather lead or follow?

Pete Santos 2:16:51

I'll follow so I can be a leader.

Gary Wise 2:16:55

I appreciate that. All right, my guy. That is it. Do you have any saved rounds or alibis?

COVID Operations: Hotels, Carriers, And Character

Pete Santos 2:17:01

Hey, it's a blessing, and I appreciate you bringing up a lot of uh things that we've been because it I didn't think my career encompasses so much, but it does, and you know, likewise for you and Erica, you know, we wish you guys the best. And uh, you know, football season is back in, and now we're happy again to finally see something going on. But I'm just I try to stay blessed, and you can try to put people first in life and and try to help people. That's it, man. I'll tell you, if you do that and then listen to your parents, you know, with these kids and stuff, because they're trying to prevent you from going through the same stuff that they've been through, but sometimes they don't listen and they they're gonna make the mistakes again. But I mean, but understand that the parents are there for you. They're the ones that love you the most. They're not the ones that's hating on you. Or these are people you can trust, your parents, people that love you the most, people that care for you, do anything for you. And these other people are just a shade that's gonna come in and out of your life at a certain, you know, and interval that you you won't really remember them.

Gary Wise 2:18:11

Well, I hear that, bro. And I, you know, I these kids are great, man. I love working with them every day. They're very inspiring. They are it is so inspiring to see this young generation of Americans coming up, bro. And to seeing them grow just from ninth grade to 12th grade is it's I have 42 students at school today doing freshman orientation, and they they were just it's amazing, bro. It's great, you know. And you get four years with these kids, it's it's uh, it's it's a it's really nice. So, man, I appreciate taking the time to come spend time with us, bro. I appreciate you, I appreciate your mentorship, I appreciate you giving me advice, I appreciate you helping me figure things out when I didn't know what I was doing, and I just I just appreciate you, man. I appreciate taking care of my people in the world because you looked out for some of my good shipmates, and you didn't even we didn't even know each other then, but they vouched for you, so then I'm like, all right, then he must be solid, right? And you always have been, man, and I appreciate that, bro.

Pete Santos 2:19:08

That's what we was doing, that's what we was taught to do, man. And y'all stay blessed, you and Eric and the family, man.

Gary Wise 2:19:14

We will, man. All right, brother. I will see you later, bro. Everyone out there, be good.

Pete Santos 2:19:20

All right, brother. Yep.