Building Chiefs, Fixing Messes, Leading With Grit

The story starts in Norwalk and lands on a steam frigate in Pearl Harbor—then it never really slows down. Brian Ortega charts how an Operations Specialist grows into a Command Master Chief by choosing hard jobs, chasing qualifications, and holding the line on standards even when the culture tries to slide. We talk early WestPacs, plane guard and shotgun tasking around carriers, and why the best eval bullets are written underway when your judgment is live and the air picture won’t wait.

From there, the conversation gets into the craft of leadership. Brian almost got out until a chief pulled him into Fleet Training Group to teach radio talker, rules of the road, and watch supervisor. He made chief and senior chief by running watch bills and outcomes on Aegis ships, then took on the CMC mantle—where the real world showed up on day one. We unpack toxic friction with an XO, the CO’s quiet intervention, and the practical moves that reset a mess: show up at chow to hear the pulse, stack the deck by assigning a hammer chief to lead cross‑department fixes, and make standards visible and mutual. When a Commodore weighed disbanding a Chiefs’ Mess at ATG San Diego, Brian rebuilt trust through accountability, clarity, and relentless follow‑through.

Shore leadership brings a different challenge. At Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Brian learned that funding cycles outlast tours, so your job is to start the right projects and hand off clean. He revived the Chiefs’ Club with sweat equity and opened it for RIMPAC, anchoring heritage in action. We also get candid about force protection: MA manning, grinding rotations, and split ownership across shore, harbor, and expeditionary missions. The fix is focus and resourcing, not more slogans. Through it all, Brian’s message stays steady—take the hard jobs on gray hulls, look in the mirror before blaming systems, accept smart failure when lives aren’t at stake, and refuse victimhood. For veterans eyeing civilian roles, he puts it plainly: your resume is your board package and your writing is your selection board.

Hit play to hear a career built on grit, mentorship, and results, with stories that stick and lessons you can use on Monday. If this conversation sharpened your edge, subscribe, share it with a shipmate, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.

https://www.wordsfromthewise.net/

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Brian Ortega
• 2:45 Choosing The Navy And Rate
• 10:56 First Ship: Steam, Frigates, WestPac
• 18:00 Deployments, OS Qualifications, Plane Guard
• 24:10 Staying Navy And Teaching At FTG
• 31:00 Making Chief And Leading On Destroyers
• 39:40 Senior Chief, Gulf Ops, Tomahawks
• 47:10 SCA Lessons And CMC Ambition
• 54:00 First CMC Tour: Culture Clashes
• 1:02:30 Mess Leadership, Chow Hall Strategy
• 1:10:00 Base CMC At Pearl: Funding And Legacy
• 1:18:30 Reviving The Chiefs’ Club And Traditions
• 1:26:30 ATG San Diego: Standards And Reform
• 1:36:20 Flag-Level Paths, Talent Politics
• 1:44:40 Guam, COVID, And Hard Choices
• 1:53:30 Force Protection: MA Manning And Missions

Transcript

Meet Brian Ortega

Gary Wise 0:31

Hey everyone, how are you doing? Hey, Hopaday, good afternoon, good morning, good evening, all the above. It's Gary Wise here, Wise Leadership Solutions with another word for Wise. Today I got a special guest who I don't know if he remembers the first time we met each other in person, uh, but I do. So I'm gonna introduce him to the stage. Uh, he is a retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer, he's doing great things. He is Mr. Brian Ortega. Brian, what's up, man?

Brian Ortega 1:01

Hey, good afternoon, Gary. And uh thank you for having me. Yeah, let's go.

Gary Wise 1:06

Do you remember when we first met in person?

Brian Ortega 1:09

Uh I did after you uh reminded me of what it what it was, and that was actually uh I had some fun those events.

Gary Wise 1:19

What are you talking about?

Brian Ortega 1:21

Uh you talked about what we uh did briefly talk during uh one of the four one of the force master chiefs uh uh hooyahs that he was doing.

Gary Wise 1:29

No, actually before that, uh so I'm I'm pretty sure when I first got to a float training group San Diego, you were my I feel like you were my CMC, bro.

Brian Ortega 1:39

Uh I was there from 14 to 17.

Gary Wise 1:42

And I missed you. Then no, it was at that Surface Force event that we spoke in person, but I could have sworn we crossed paths there. So all right, Brian, so you joined the United States Navy, or where'd you come from before you joined the service, bro?

Brian Ortega 1:56

Uh I was uh born and raised in Norwalk, California.

Gary Wise 2:01

Where's Norwalk at? Is that is that is that like uh Southern California?

Brian Ortega 2:06

Like yeah, it's like right by right right by uh Knott's Berry Farm, Angel Stadium, I mean right in that area.

Gary Wise 2:14

So that Anaheim area, right around there. Yeah.

Brian Ortega 2:19

Anaheim, Cerritos, uh Downey, La Morada.

Gary Wise 2:24

Okay. So growing up in Southern California, man, how was that for you? Did you was Cali because you still live in Cali, right?

Brian Ortega 2:31

I do, I do, yeah, I do. How much I'm about an hour hour hour north of San Diego now. Okay, how much Immacula Marietta, uh, Lake Hillson area.

Choosing The Navy And Rate

Gary Wise 2:42

Okay, so you're I got it. Like that uh I was gonna say Hammett, but but not Hammett.

Brian Ortega 2:49

Yeah, right there.

Gary Wise 2:50

Yeah, is that right there?

Brian Ortega 2:52

Yeah, Hammett, Manafi. I mean, all that all those cities are like you know, close to each other.

Gary Wise 2:57

Okay, so how much different is California now than what it was like for you growing up as a kid and as a teenager? Is it the same? Has it changed a lot?

Brian Ortega 3:08

Um, probably a lot more crazies, I guess. You know, because it was it was pretty pretty chill, pretty, you know, easy going growing up. Yeah, and now now you gotta kind of watch yourself and you know that type of stuff. But there's you know, there's there bet there's bad places everywhere you go.

Gary Wise 3:24

That's true. I just I remember living in California. It's nothing but good things, uh, really, except for the cost of the you know, the sunshine tax, right? But other than that, it was a beautiful place to live. The water was cold there compared to like Florida, right? Here in Florida, the water is very warm, like like on the Gulf side.

Brian Ortega 3:43

Yeah, um nothing like the Guam water, though.

Gary Wise 3:46

That's a whole different conversation, bro. We'll get into Guam. Uh Guam was beautiful water too, though. That was hard to beat for sure. Uh what made you coming up through high school, looking at your life, what made you decide to look at the service as a possible option?

Brian Ortega 4:03

Well, I had some friends that that had joined. Um, I had some friends who who uh who left, you know, and uh, you know, they were able to secure houses and you know through the V, you know, through the you know, the VA and all that stuff. And you know, it's it seemed like a good avenue at the time. You know, I I tried the JC route, you know, doing that stuff, and you know, things just didn't didn't finish for me there. So I decided to try something new.

Gary Wise 4:28

Okay, so you got out of high school and you actually went to college for a little bit and then that just wasn't for you.

Brian Ortega 4:34

Well, it it it just you know, with work and you know how things were going, you know, things were going at the time, it was just you know easier to just say, hey, you know, these these guys are doing some stuff out there. I'm I'm gonna see if I can't, you know, follow, follow them a little bit.

Gary Wise 4:47

Yeah, for sure. Did you have family support when you thought about joining the service?

Brian Ortega 4:52

Yeah, I did.

Gary Wise 4:53

Okay. Absolutely. All right, because you know, some people they'll go tell their parents or whoever, hey, I think they want to join the military and they'd be like, What? You're gonna leave forever? What are you thinking, right?

Brian Ortega 5:02

No, they're they they were they probably you know, good, get this guy out of here.

Gary Wise 5:08

So did you know right off the bat that you were thinking about going Navy, or did you look at the all the branches?

Brian Ortega 5:14

No, no, I didn't the Navy was the most appealing, I think, because of where the bases were and the travel that that you know my previous friends we've joined have told me about, you know, the West Packs, and you know, you know, being being stationed in the Air Force or the Army, you know, you're in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, nowhere, you know, and at least at least the Navy and you know, the Marines even got some nice bases, you know, they're all around the water, you know. That was you know, that was that was how I grew up, and that's kind of you know how I wanted to go.

Gary Wise 5:47

I used to I did a recruiting tour once upon a time, and I went and did a a thing with the army recruiter where we both went together to the class. She invited me to go, and she does this thing where she's like, you know, this has a pen, and she's like, This is you in the navy and throws the pen in the middle of the carpet. She's like, That's the ocean. Any questions? And I was like, Oh, okay, that's what we're doing. Cool. I got the pen. I was like, This is you in the army, that's Missouri, bro. And I told her, I said, Not for nothing. Anywhere we go, we're on the beach, baby. Like everywhere we go. And I was recruiting in Central Florida, so of course the beach appealed to the kids, right? They like that idea. So I I can relate to that 100%. When you went to the service, did you know what you wanted to do for work? Like, did you have any idea what you were interested in doing?

Brian Ortega 6:37

Uh well, it was gonna be something. Um I I was okay with you know, engines and stuff like that. Um but you know, when I went and tested, you know, I think the I think the Navy does a pretty good job at you know pigeonholing people into into things they like to do, right? Right, you know, and um you know, they at first they you know they they they got me as you know, C T O S QM, that type of stuff, right? So you know, long story short, I'm an OS, you know, was an OS and you know, loved every minute of it actually.

Gary Wise 7:09

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 7:10

Um yeah.

Gary Wise 7:10

So you came in as an OS, like you went to A school and all that stuff?

Brian Ortega 7:14

Yep, went to A school. Uh uh and at the time the A school was in Virginia. So, you know, I went I went to uh boot camp in in Flor in Orlando, um spent some time there, obviously, then got shipped up to Virginia Beach, which is also you know not a bad place to be.

Gary Wise 7:32

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 7:32

Um, you know, so I was like, yeah, this is pretty cool.

Gary Wise 7:35

Yeah, so how how was that going from well, first of all, boot camp, right? Did that meet your expectations? Was it what you thought it was going to be?

Brian Ortega 7:42

It is easy, yeah. You know, no, you know lie, it was easy, you know. All you just needed is a little bit of discipline and yeah, and be able to march, march and and being able to exercise. And that was, you know, I was young, so I was yeah, no, no issues there.

Gary Wise 7:56

No, no, that's it's like two kinds of people so far that I've as I taught have these conversations, and you know, throughout my career when I would speak with people, it's either people that really had like, oh my god, this moment of like, holy cow, I'm in the military, or like it wasn't overly complicated, just getting through it.

Brian Ortega 8:13

It's pretty easy.

Gary Wise 8:14

Yeah. Um, so Virginia Beach going up there for A school, how was that being essentially you know, a young man in the service, got buddies going to school with you? Was that was that a good time? Did you really enjoy getting out metallic?

Brian Ortega 8:28

Oh, that was yeah, that was a fantastic time, actually. Um met a lot of uh a lot of people there and actually, you know, went, you know, at the time, um, they were sending five or six OS to each ship, you know. So, you know, so you know, I went there with a few folks I went to school with, you know, but went to A school with and kind of held friendships with them. Uh went uh went to A school with Mike uh Magneto. I don't know if you know who Mike is. I do. Yeah, Mike, Mike, uh, you know, he was he's up in the Great Lakes area now.

Gary Wise 9:01

Yep.

Brian Ortega 9:02

You know, but you know, he went oh we were we were OS A schoolmates, you know, along with a bunch of bunch of other folks that that uh held held uh relations with pretty much for a long time.

Gary Wise 9:16

You know, I look at those kinds of schools you go to when you're a young sailor before you have family, before you have all these extra things, and and you really have some good make some good friends, go have some good evenings, some good times, because everyone's got a little bit of money, everyone's got the same schedule to be back in time for a class or whatever, and you just make those. How long was A school?

Brian Ortega 9:36

Uh I want to say that we were there 14, 16 weeks. And uh we we we were in the night class. So we were we were a bunch of hooligans, you know.

Gary Wise 9:46

I bet.

Brian Ortega 9:47

You know, we you know, we had to show up at class. I think it's if I'm not mistaken, class was like, you know, started at three or two or for something in the neighborhood, and you know, would end like about 11-ish. You know, you know, there were and we we were doing so well that that we would we would actually get let out early, like on a Friday night or specifically Friday nights, we'd be out of there like at eight. Yeah, you know, you know, and and uh and the instructor always told us as well as as long as you guys keep your averages above 90, you guys, you know, I got no problems with what you guys do.

Gary Wise 10:24

Yeah. Hey, I did a tour as an instructor too. I get that. You know, as a as a Navy instructor, as long as the students are getting the passing the test and doing what they need to do, Fridays can always be made a little bit earlier a day to get out of town, you know.

First Ship: Steam, Frigates, WestPac

Brian Ortega 10:37

Yeah, and and they and the Navy was different back then, you know. You know, Virginia Beach, uh, you know, they had they had their clubs there even on base. Yeah, you know, and and you know, you know, they had one of those clubs that you know you you you'd have to have a bunch of ones with you, you know, on base. You know, and this so this this you know this dates a lot of people who who probably uh come in the navy and and they're a lot different back then.

Gary Wise 11:02

So what year did you actually join the service?

Brian Ortega 11:05

Uh 1987.

Gary Wise 11:06

1987, yes, sir. Uh, I'm not gonna tell you how old I was in 1987. So that's okay. It's okay, used to it. No, no, that's a so oh my god, I can only imagine joining the Navy in the late 80s, man. Like, that's a gotta be a crazy time to come into the service. The the country was a great place to be in the 80s.

Brian Ortega 11:27

The Navy was a really good place, actually.

Gary Wise 11:29

Uh uh yeah. So after A school, did you stay in Virginia Beach or did you where'd you go to next?

Brian Ortega 11:36

No, my first ship was uh out of Pearl Harbor. Um so uh yeah, being, you know, back back then, I don't know if they still do it now, but back then, you know, you you you picked your orders depending on how you, you know, where you stood in the class.

Gary Wise 11:51

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 11:52

You know, there was about a hundred of us there, and I'm I'm pretty sure I picked in the top ten. Um you know, they were all they were all upset because most most of our class, you know, the night class, right? Had had all the top spots, and we all went to Hawaii, you know, San Diego, yeah you know, and and you know, left, you know, left Norfolk to all the guys that didn't finish so good.

Gary Wise 12:17

Hey, Pearl Harbor has always been a top choice for people to pick for orders, you know. It's uh it's definitely someone which we'll want to try to get out there too and hopefully enjoy that that just the weather, the scenery, the people, the climate, all the above. Uh what kind of a ship was it?

Brian Ortega 12:33

It was uh a Knox class frigate.

Gary Wise 12:37

So what's the what's the difference between a Knox class frigate and the other kinds of frigates? Is there a difference in like propulsion plant? Was there a difference in like mission set?

Brian Ortega 12:46

Or was it the system like well it was you know the frigates back then were in and were were um you know ASW platforms mostly. Uh but it was it was you know it it was an old school ship, you know. And um, you know, other other than like the get you know didn't have any gas turbines, you know, it was in you know had boilers and you know old school, you know.

Gary Wise 13:10

So it was a theme ship.

Brian Ortega 13:12

Absolutely.

Gary Wise 13:13

That's what I was interested in. So for me, that's an interesting culture, right? Because I've never seen that. I've only seen uh gas turbine frigates, right? I've only seen uh I also knew there was a variant of nuclear ship. There were like cruisers back in the day, right? But uh, but for you to be on a steamship on a frigate, that had to be an interesting time, you know, major steam leaks, major fuel oil leaks, training for all those same kinds of casualties, probably, but a cruise size that's much smaller than what we're used to in today's Navy for a steam platform. Um, how was that when you first got to the ship? Was it do you remember when you're first when you first got there, how that how that whole thing took place?

Brian Ortega 13:57

Oh, absolutely. I remember to to a tea my first night, you know, on board that ship. You know, the first night, you know, you get there and you know, I wanna say I, you know, I got to the ship probably about eight o'clock or something there. It was dark already. And uh, you know, you know, some some third class coming got me and said, Hey, I'm gonna show you our our birthing area. He goes, and then then you're gonna change because I showed up in uniform, right? And then we're gonna go out. So, you know, he showed he we we went we went to the you know, we we walked the ship to go to birthing a certain way, right? And not the shortest way. And uh I took that away for a good month, you know, when I got back to his ship. It's kind of funny, but you know, I I packed my stuff, he goes, Here's your rack, threw my lock on it. He goes, Good, we're going out and change, boom, boom, hit the town that night. We're out in town, you know, we're gonna stay out too late, but you know.

Gary Wise 14:57

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 14:58

Yeah.

Gary Wise 14:59

That's really cool. And it was a good was a good Liberty buddy, right? He wasn't somebody that didn't.

Brian Ortega 15:04

Yeah, he just said, Hey, we're we're meeting up with all the guys, you know. So, you know, we're meeting up with with you know the good chunk of of shipmates at the time. Not all OS's, but just a bunch of guys.

Gary Wise 15:14

How was that traveling overseas in the late 80s? Because I went to Bellowwood, my first ship, late 90s, over to Sasebo, and I remember having no communication with the ship. There wasn't email, there wasn't any of those things at that point. I can only imagine in the late 80s it even being worse because there was just nothing. I remember landing in the airport and trying to figure out where the Americans go because I'm in Japan and what's going on. Now, Pearl Harbor, of course, is a little different, but still, that's a long flight. Did you go home on leave first or did you go right?

Brian Ortega 15:49

I did. Yeah, I did. I don't want to say, you know, just under a month, probably. I forget how many days I did, but I did.

Gary Wise 15:54

Okay. And then you went to Pearl Harbor. Uh was it pretty easy to get from the airport to the ship?

Brian Ortega 16:00

Yeah, it wasn't too bad. Uh they they uh they had a van that was there that kind of picked everybody up that was coming in. You know, it wasn't necessarily the ship's van. I think it was uh a duty van of some sort that dropped off a bunch of sailors at different ships.

Gary Wise 16:15

Right. That's that's I mean that's the best way to do it, just being honest. A great great sponsorship program, got it. They're gonna be there to meet their person, like like in Guam, right? Everyone's at the airport meeting their person. Um, but ultimately a play, a fleet concentration area like that, having having a van that's available, just go get people to and from the base would be huge. Um and I would tell you, that was something that we tried to look into getting as an installation when I was at Naval Base Guam, and you would have thought we were asking for the world, right? You would have thought they were, we were they were we were asking for so much, and ultimately the the afloat commands figured out how to do it themselves with their shore base squadron, the submarine force. Um but I I'm glad to hear that that was something like that for you back then to get you to the ship. Uh when you were on that for what that what was that ship, USS Ratburn. Ratford. So when you're on the USS Ratford, how long did you do for that first ship? Is that a three-year tour or a five?

Brian Ortega 17:15

Just under four.

Gary Wise 17:17

Under four. Yes. And did you guys go like on any deployments there?

Brian Ortega 17:21

Oh, definitely. We did we did two deployments that that ship, and boy, they were they were some nice ones. They were good ones. You know, staying from Pearl all the way out to the Indian Ocean. Um, and then every port in between, right? Um Yeah.

Gary Wise 17:38

Did you guys go as a part of a carrier strike group, or were you guys a part of a smaller group? How where did you play the same role the frigates play today with an aircraft carrier?

Brian Ortega 17:47

We did. Those first two deployments were uh were part of a uh a carrier strike group.

Deployments, OS Qualifications, Plane Guard

Gary Wise 17:53

So how was that being an OS and the CIC, stand a watch, underway, working with the aircraft carrier? Did you really get the chance to learn your rate really good during those months?

Brian Ortega 18:04

It's when you make your money as an OS, you know. And what I mean by that is, you know, you it's when you get all your qualifications, you know, it's when you get all the great eval bullet, you know, billets and bullets and you know, all the stuff that you accomplished and all the stuff you do. Um, you know, that's kind of how you make chief, right? You know, you you you gotta be on a gray thing and it's gotta be underway on deployment. You know, and as an OS, if you're not doing that, then you know, you're you're waiting to make chief.

Gary Wise 18:35

Yeah. I mean, and as an O for sure, OS has got to be out there operational. There's different flavors of OS, I feel like. You know, I'm a gator guy, and so you had the OSs that understood like amphibious operations really, really well, or you had the OS's that learn like Aztec and they're out there figuring out how to do like aviation warfare and support the the TAO and to support all those people in the in the CIC space that fit that are in those special warfare genres of of Navy leadership. When you're there on the frigate, what's their primary role? Are they primarily there? Are they worried about air operations or are they primarily worried about like the shotgun role? And just what what do they do for the operational team?

Brian Ortega 19:18

We definitely uh did our time in shotgun. Uh, you know, we had you know two embarked helicopters, you know, old school SH2 Foxtrot. You know, I I actually was a controller. Um, I started doing that as a third class. Um, so I I got a control aircraft, both my, you know, both those deployments, you know, plane guard, shotgun, you know, not a whole lot of shotgun, but a lot of plane guards, you know.

Gary Wise 19:45

Very cool. I I don't think people understand how much that they do on the small boys to support the big deck. That's the equivalent of what's happened on the big deck, but a much smaller staff, right? So there you are as a third class controlling aircraft, right? Controlling, controlling the deck if you Will right.

Brian Ortega 20:00

Yeah.

Gary Wise 20:01

Good stuff. So two deployments. When you look back on that first ship, those first Liberty ports, I mean, that that had to have been some of the best West Packs you've ever done throughout your career.

Brian Ortega 20:14

Yeah, I'm just lucky I'm alive, I think. You know, it's uh different navy, different navy, yeah. Different navy.

Gary Wise 20:22

It's a different world, man. But yeah, for sure. You know, just agreed, you going out there and who knows where your anyone's at, right? I mean, I've been alone unafraid in Bali before and thinking, how the hell did I get out in this spot? I'm not supposed to be here. I'm running, like I gotta go. This is not safe to be in. Um yeah, for sure. So when you get ready to leave that ship, are you do you think you're staying in the Navy at that point? When did you decide you're staying in?

Brian Ortega 20:51

Well, I I I was getting out actually, and um, you know, I was I was want to say I was probably about a month or so out, maybe two months out. And we were, you know, I just we just I just got married. So, you know, we were just kind of figuring stuff out. And my chief was just on me all the time. You know, you gotta stay, you gotta stay. And like he goes, What do you want to do? I said, Well, you know, I want to go to school. I want to finish my school, you know, I want to go to short duty, I want to chill a little bit. You know, he says, Well, if I can get you over to ATG, uh, you you you take the orders? I said, Well, what do you mean? He goes, No, I need a commitment from you. He goes, if I stick my neck out for you, um, because at the time I wasn't ESWAS qualified, you know, they weren't taking, they weren't taking any ESWAS, non-ESWAS guys, but I at ATG at the time. And he says, if I stick my neck out for you, you know, and you know, he'd already gotten the orders, but he just wanted, you know, he I think he wanted me to to commit to Hammer to say, yeah. So I said, Yeah, I'll take prize. Have I ever not like done what I supposed to do? He goes, All right. So then, you know, Dave goes by and he says, I got your orders. You know, you're going to ATG. At the time it was FTG, right? Uh you know, it wasn't ATG, it was FTG, fleet training group. So that's that was my my shore duty, you know, you know, heading over there.

Gary Wise 22:16

Were you an OS2 at the time?

Brian Ortega 22:19

OS2, yeah.

Gary Wise 22:20

OS2. And you say you met your wife while you were on your first ship. Is your wife from Hawaii originally?

Brian Ortega 22:25

She was going to school out there.

Gary Wise 22:27

Okay, awesome. So that was a chance for you to get connection. Now you got a family thing going on, going to ATG uh as an OS2. What's an OS2 doing an FTG?

Brian Ortega 22:39

Oh, I was I was uh we were doing like radio talker school. I was doing OS intermediate school, os watch supervisor, um rules of the road, uh bunch of OS, you know, CIC type of stuff. Okay, classroom, classroom teaching.

Gary Wise 22:59

That well, that's good. I mean, that's that's a good, that's actually a really good place for you to go to.

Brian Ortega 23:04

It sounds like yeah, as a second class, I was the yeah, I was the only second class there at the time, but first classes and chiefs, they were there.

Gary Wise 23:10

So and were you touring Pearl Harbor?

Brian Ortega 23:12

Yeah, Pearl Harbor.

Gary Wise 23:14

Nice. So that's not that's not a bad deal. Four years on the ship, two, you do three full years at FTG?

Brian Ortega 23:22

Yeah, three years.

Gary Wise 23:23

Okay. Now at the end of that tour, did you decide okay, I'm staying Navy at that point?

Brian Ortega 23:30

Oh yeah. Once once I, you know, once I was there, I you know, I I'm you know, eight years in, right? Close to eight years, right? And uh yeah, so from there I I I went to a uh a spruins class destroyer um out of Pearl, out of Pearl Harbor.

Staying Navy And Teaching At FTG

Gary Wise 23:46

Okay. So well, I think why that matters, and you said the eight-year mark, you know, whenever I would talk to people about they're making their life choices about staying in or getting out, and that seven, eight-year mark would come up because typically they're ending their first short tour. And I'll be like, look, you're about halfway done with an investment that can return uh something to you for the rest of your life. But I've seen people walk away at that seven-year mark, the eight-year mark, just but they'll finish at their school or whatever it is. So a lot of people have that question in their mind like, what am I gonna do or where am I gonna stay in or not? Um you got the chance to do another ship in in Hawaii. That was that hard to get another ship in Hawaii at that point in time, or were that was it easy?

Brian Ortega 24:33

Um, I think it was easy. And and you know, truth be told, Gary, you know, I I I've done four ships out of Hawaii. Oh and you know, basically, I I didn't leave Hawaii till 2014.

Gary Wise 24:49

That's awesome, man. I think that it's great if somebody can home port like hub down. I used to go back to the States when I'd come from Japan and like get into arguments. Like when I sat at the board one time, we were we were having this conversation about people that wanted to be consecutive overseas tours. And I was like, look, man, y'all want to stay in San Diego for 14, 15 years. I don't care. Like, enjoy it, bro. Why are you gonna get mad if this person wants to be in Sasebo for that many years? They may have a spouse over there, they may have a life, and because you know there's a period in time where our Navy was forcing people to come back from overseas duty, and everyone thinks it's just about the money, but the money's not that good. Yeah, it's the lifestyle, it's the culture, it's the location, it's all the above, right? You make a home there. So I'm happy that was able to work out for you. As long as it worked for you, that's awesome, man.

Brian Ortega 25:41

Nah, it did, it it did, you know, and I had those same conversations that as selection boards myself, you know. Yeah, um, you know, and and telling them, you know, I did it, you know, it's it's all about the billet and your job, you know. And as long as you're not, you know, I think the best thing that happened um is when they um they moved ATG to a straight shore duty billet. Uh and it remember it used to be like a neutral at sea, and some guys were like going back to back and doing doing stupid stuff like that. And I say stupid because it just hurt their career. You know, you gotta be on a great thing, you gotta be on the warship. You know, that's how you make your money in the Navy, you know, in in our our facet of the Navy, right? We're we're service warriors, right? So I mean, there's you know, we got other other facets of the Navy that don't have to be on the great things, but you got to do the hard jobs.

Gary Wise 26:37

No, no, for sure. And I don't even know why somebody would want it. I mean, I I guess I can see the allure to like going back-to-back ATG tour because I remember when it was considered that kind of a duty station, people didn't want to go there. Uh, but the reality is when I was a chief petty officer saying, Chief, if I found out you had done back-to-back ATG tours, we might not have got along very good because I'm out there doing the job and you're kicking my butt.

Brian Ortega 27:04

Yeah, that's that's it's something that that I'm glad they they stopped doing. Um, yeah, because you know, people yeah, some people take the easy way out, Gary. You know that.

Gary Wise 27:13

I do.

Brian Ortega 27:14

And I'm I'm not saying ATG is hard. ATG is hard for a short duty, but not for a neutral duty that you could continue to do it back and forth, you know.

Gary Wise 27:23

That's a fact. Well, and what I loved, what I loved about my time at ATG was as soon as the brow is over, we're walking off. Right? And none of the problems I had just discovered on that ship are my problem, right? I was leaving, you know, and then when I got the opportunity to go to the USS George Washington after my ATG time, everybody was like, What are you doing going to carrier? That's crazy. Like, there's that's no demanding, whatever. I was like, Look, I've been assessing carriers for the last two and a half years. Who better? Like, let's go, bro. I'm gonna go out there and put it to work. And it almost killed me, but it was a good couple of years, right? So I get that. Did you make chief on that next ship?

Brian Ortega 28:04

Yeah, I did. I I went, I went and showed up as a second class and left as a chief.

Gary Wise 28:09

Yeah, I like that. So, what year did you put on anchors?

Brian Ortega 28:14

Uh 98.

Gary Wise 28:15

1998. So I'd been in the Navy a year at that point. Yeah. Okay, so you put on anchors at 1998. When you look back on your chief petty officer initiation process, what was your opinion of the process you went through?

Brian Ortega 28:30

Um, I thought it was good. Um, and what I mean by that, it was it was pretty stressful. Uh, it was it was trying, you know, taught me a lot of stuff. There wasn't a whole lot of stupid shenanigans, you know. There could have been, um, because I I found out I made chief a month before we deployed, you know, or you know, whatever whatever it was the time two months before we deployed, you know. So basically, uh, you know, I showed up for my um, you know, our deployment day, you know, as you know, Chief Select Ortega, right?

Gary Wise 29:07

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 29:07

And there ain't no running from nobody on a knocks on a on a destroyer. You know, there's no fighting, there's no running. Yeah. So you were, it was just like we were, it was, it was a it was a rough, rough six, seven weeks before we got the ending.

Gary Wise 29:23

How many other guys made it with you on board that ship? Do you remember?

Brian Ortega 29:26

Yeah, there's four of us.

Gary Wise 29:28

That's good, that's a good number right there. Four is perfect for a DDG. Okay. You know, and I always asked that question because I think people have had different opinions of the initiation. I love Chiefs initiation, man. From you know what's funny when I got initiated, I really had no idea what was even gonna happen. I was a DC one that was just trying hard to be a DC one, you know, and and I didn't know how to put a Chiefs package in. The CMC came and told me I was born eligible. I didn't even know what that was, you know. And I had to learn how to put the package in. And when I went through initiation, they were, I remember I didn't even know what the Chiefs' creed was at first because the first time I ever heard it, I was half asleep on the flight deck coming off of the Hall Nighter. You know, but I will tell you when I went to my next Chiefs mess as a chief petty officer, and I got that next year of seasoning and experience. Oh man, it really cemented everything for me. And I was able to leverage that experience from when I made Chief in 06 all the way till I retired in 2022. And every year I think I made really strong Chiefs. You know, I I don't look like any of my initiations where I feel like we left anybody on the we left anybody behind, right? I mean, we always did a pretty good job.

Making Chief And Leading On Destroyers

Brian Ortega 30:45

Yeah, I saw uh let let the let the new the newer chiefs, right? The ones that just got through, you know, the year before, right? Say they hey this this is this is where you kind of make your money a little bit because everything is just gonna fall into place. I mean, a lot of confusion when you go through, you know, you're just trying to make it, you know, to that day, and then everything's a blur, right? Everything's a blur, you know, and it's that second year, you know, that you go, oh, this is some, you know, this is some really good stuff, you know?

Gary Wise 31:15

Yeah. Well, and I think surface navy in particular is we're different than the other areas of our Navy because I got the blessing to be around aviation, I got the blessing to be around like expeditionary forces or submariners. But I'll tell you, there's something special about being on a surface ship in a chief's mess. Um, it's just a unique place to be. I've done an aircraft carrier, right? And that was a lot, right? That was a lot of people. But being on a ship with four selectees, 30-something chiefs, that's a great place to be to really get the picture of what you're trying to get done, you know, for sure. Um, so after that ship, you put on chief. What where do you go to next?

Brian Ortega 31:57

Uh, I went to a staff duty at MidTach, Tom Naster for MidTach, and did that for two years. Two years. Yeah, I left there early to get another ship. So this this took some negotiating and talking to my detailer, yeah, right. Because they was like, hey, you know, I went mind still going to run in Hawaii. And the detailer was like, Yeah, well, that ain't gonna happen. You know, you're going here, you're going there. I said, All right. I said, All right. I said, um, I said, I got selected for the SCA at the time. And uh, I said, I'm gonna go to the SCA at this this mark, and it's at the two-year mark, right? I said, and I said, I'll take a ship out of Hawaii. I know you got one, you know, a hard fill, a couple of them. And you know, he called me back the next day and gave me the orders.

Gary Wise 32:45

Hey, well, so terminating that short duty early, going to how was the SCA? You went there as a chief petty officer?

Brian Ortega 32:53

Uh senior chief, I was senior chief at I made I made senior chief soon after uh leaving the uh the destroyer.

Gary Wise 33:03

Wow. So you put on chief on the destroyer, so you got second class to chief, and then you made senior chief after that destroyer as well.

Brian Ortega 33:12

Yeah.

Gary Wise 33:13

What was it about that tour that was such a strong tour for you that you then that you went all that way, even to the senior chief? Like what were you doing on that tour that really was just the things that you needed to do?

Brian Ortega 33:26

Well, I I think um, you know, the f there was a lot of stuff going on back then, you know, in you know, in the Gulf, in the Persian Gulf. Yeah. Um, you know, as a first class, I did a lot of things that chiefs and officers were doing, you know, escorting boats, you know. I I've escorted a few of those DAOs up and down, you know, the motorway at you know, at night from midnight to six in the morning, you know, from you know, the Northern Arabian Gulf all the way to UAE. You know, and um, you know, as a chief, you know, what's kind of putting, you know, tomahawks on on you know on target, you know, during that deployment. So that was that was actually a pretty it was you know pretty good OS deployment as far, you know, as far as you know, putting, you know, good stuff for our age, you know, our our tomahawk SCs too at the time. But yeah, yeah, so I mean deployments.

Gary Wise 34:21

Okay, good to go. I think that's that's amazing. So you made senior chief in how many years?

Brian Ortega 34:27

Uh I want to say 13-ish.

Gary Wise 34:29

13-ish. Because you get the SCA as a senior chief. When you went to the did you already know before you went to the SCA that you were gonna consider the command master chief route?

Brian Ortega 34:39

No.

Gary Wise 34:39

Okay.

Brian Ortega 34:40

No, I mean I got there and there was a lot of uh there's there was a lot of you know uh fleets and forces that were in my class, right? So, you know, they were, you know, they were they were senior chiefs getting ready to make master chief, basically, right? Where I was the senior chief, you know, needed to put my time in.

Gary Wise 35:00

Right.

Brian Ortega 35:00

So I was still not ready, you know. I was still, you know, thinking I was probably a master chief, but you know, in reality, I need to put some time in. I need to get one, you know, I need to get, you know, the you know, a few more deployments, you know, doing that type of level stuff. Um yeah. But uh, you know, I mean, I thought the guys were cool and I thought they're doing what they're doing, but you know, I I you know, I I I think I did know, you know, you know, looking back at it just maybe a little bit, that you know, making cheese and watching the CMC on that, you know, on that in the destroyer, right? It's like shit, I want to do his job. You know. Yeah, I want to do his yeah. He used to, you know, we used to laugh a lot, right? Uh because I used to say, Man, CMC, you're like the third person to charge this ship. There's the the XO and it's you. He looked at me and said, He used to say, You're dumb, man.

Gary Wise 35:59

Yeah. When you went to SCA, was it the it was the in-person, like you were up there for like 11 weeks, right?

Brian Ortega 36:05

Oh, yeah, it was in the it was in the old building, it was in a Thomas building, and you were we were housed and and and went to school and class in the same building. There was no there was no extra buildings or you know, none of the new stuff they got now.

Gary Wise 36:18

Yeah, how did you like that being up there for that long? Do you think it was too long?

Brian Ortega 36:23

No, I thought it was good. Thought it was good, yeah. No, it was for it was it was awesome.

Gary Wise 36:28

You know, I never got that experience, man. I got to go to SCA finally. I wanted to go as a senior chief, nope, master chief, nope. It wasn't until I put in a name CMC package you got selected. It made you go, you got to go to SCA, yeah. Yeah, I think by then it was the three-week course with the virtual thing, and I'm like, look, man, I don't mind. I mean, all my education was virtual, so I don't mind virtual, but I kind of wanted that 11-week experience that that you know I had never been to, I'd only been to one actual real military ball by that point. I mean, I'm an engineer, I'm not going to no balls over on base. Like, I'm what I took my wife to a gator ball one time and that was it. So I was really nervous going into the CMC program about how having to go to a military ball, like a navy ball. I was nervous. I I wanted to learn how to do that at SCA, and we didn't do it. We got rid of it, you know.

Brian Ortega 37:21

Yeah, yeah, kind of disappointment about that. It was a good event for us in that, you know, during that time.

Gary Wise 37:27

Yeah. So after SCA, you go out of that next ship. Now you're going there as a senior chief.

Brian Ortega 37:32

Yeah.

Gary Wise 37:33

Um, it's another DDG.

Brian Ortega 37:36

Uh no, it was a uh Aegis Aegis cruiser.

Gary Wise 37:39

A cruiser, got it. So Aegis Cruiser, and do you remember that like in that mess? How many senior chiefs were there on that ship? Was it only two or three of you?

Brian Ortega 37:48

Um, there was we had a senior chief in every department. Oh, really?

Gary Wise 37:53

Wow.

Brian Ortega 37:54

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, we were it. It was it was 2002. So yeah, there was so department chiefs were were senior chiefs. You know, there we had we had, you know, and then we had, you know, we had we actually had three master chiefs too. We had, you know, the CMC, uh, we had the 3MC, and then we had the Aegis Master Chief. So we, yeah, so we, you know, we were so, and then then there was a senior chief, and then, you know, in every department, you know, supply, you know, engineering, and obviously had top snipe. He was a senior chief. Um, you know, and that's pretty good.

Gary Wise 38:34

That's pretty good manning, man. So did you always have you had always had really good up to that point, had you always had pretty healthy chiefs messes?

Senior Chief, Gulf Ops, Tomahawks

Brian Ortega 38:42

So I yeah, no doubt. Um probably I don't know. I've been fortunate, you know, to to be in some really awesome messes, you know, even as a CMC, you know, you know, the the mess is is just different, uh, you know, the different role you play in leadership as a as a chief and as a senior chief, department chief, you know, at the you know, at the time, um, you know, going into uh uh went to the USS Port Royal, um, you know, after after two years of being a year and a half being there, you know, I was a senior enlisted watch bill coordinator, right? So, you know, I was you know running the watch bills um for the ship. Uh and then uh you know, I was you know, I was a senior dog, right? So, you know, it was kind of you know, I I considered it my mess, right? You know, the CMC would look to me to you know to get shit done, you know. And you know, as a CMC on board a ship, you know, you you you've got to have your little alliances, right? And you gotta know which guy to, you know, to to kind of or gal, you know, to to kind of go and say, hey, you know, we need to do this, and you know, you're gonna lead this effort for me. And I'm gonna talk about it today at the messmeet. And you know, be ready to talk and and and you're it. You know, you got my full back end and and we're gonna we're you know we're gonna get this done. You know, whether it was, you know, whether it was, you know, sometimes CO would say, hey, we gotta get this, we gotta do this, this, and this, and you just look and say, How the heck are we gonna do this? There's no way that we possibly could complete this, right? You know, and you sit in your office and put your hands on your head and you sit there for a while and you know, do whatever you gotta do, come up with a plan, and then you kind of you gotta get the mess behind you, and you gotta just freaking do stuff that you, you know, that they didn't think they could do, right? Because every time you, you know, you used to say it, right? You know, I don't know if you got a PG show here or not, but you know, serving that shit sandwich, right, to the mess sometimes, you know, isn't isn't popular.

Gary Wise 40:51

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 40:52

You know, and I had to serve that a lot. Yeah, you know, a lot.

Gary Wise 40:58

Well, and you know, I and hopefully a good mess, they understand that it's it's a sandwich that nobody wants to eat, right? We all smell it, we all know it's shit. No one's trying to overwhelmingly not uh have it there. It's just it is what it is. Even the captain knows it. It's just it's what we're it's the mission, right? And sometimes the fastest way to do it is get it done. And to your point, you know, I I'll tell you my role, my time as a senior chief, that was a tough time, right? The years is senior chief's a tough pay grade, I've found throughout my career. It's just, you know, you're you're you've been a chief longer than the chiefs, but you're not quite a mass chief yet. And it's just this weird space. And it's very special when you can find people that had a good out the good experience during that time. And I used to say, I expect my senior chief to teach the chiefs, I expect the chiefs not to need it, and I expect my master chiefs to coordinate the whole damn thing and no one knows to do with it, right? And that was that was the way I leveraged my mask, and my senior chiefs were always put in leadership roles because I wanted them to get that experience. Because when I was a senior chief, that's where I wanted to be. I wanted to be that lead dog, like you said, like running and showing that I was not even because I cared to make my ask chief, I was so happy to be a chief. I just was proud to be a senior chief.

Brian Ortega 42:20

Yeah, no, I I I enjoyed that role. I enjoyed being a hammer, you know, and and you know, it took me a little bit, you know, and it took because I was in Hawaii for such a long time, it took a little bit to kind of for people to see me a little differently, right? Because you know, I was seeing Chief Ortega, that dude right there, he's a hammer. You know, you know, it's like, oh he's coming to he's coming to be our master chief, or he's coming to be our CMC. And they're like, oh my god, you know, and then what the heck happened to you, man? I heard you were like the hammer. Yeah. No, I have to game. It's like, man, every every position demands a different style of leadership, you know. And you know if you if you don't, you know, if you don't learn that, and that's it, you're gonna get nowhere because you, you know, you're gonna spin your wheels on how to get something done.

Gary Wise 43:06

Yeah, no, I I had the exact same reputation on the waterfront and in my community. And I would rather have that reputation though, over the guy who was known for like gun decking or the guy who was known for taking, you know, I'd rather be the hammer. And then they find out you're nicer than they thought you were gonna be vice something else. So, all right, so you leave that cruiser. Do you pick up nine there?

Brian Ortega 43:30

Uh short, yeah, short, really quickly after that. Really quickly after that. So I uh I left um the Port Royal Um and then went over again to ATG uh mid pack to Hawaii. Uh and I, you know, quickly put in a CMC package, um waited for the board, and then after that, you know, waited for billeting, right? So it was kind of a you know, kind of a you know, stopover for me, kind of, you know, you know, get a little deep decompressed a little bit, but you know, let let the administrative part, you know, kind of kind of kind of work its way out. But one thing that I'm proud of uh doing Port Royal stuff, you know, not just our deployments, but um man, I you know, when I was when I was a senior chief there, you know, we I want to say I made at least close to 20 20 khakis out of out of OS. Yeah, some you know, a couple Master Chiefs. Uh some went LDL route after Chief. Um and uh you know retired as lieutenant commanders and lieutenants and you know you know warrant fours and you know very few. The the ones that didn't make chief are the ones that got out, which was only a few. Yeah. But that's obvious, man. Yeah, there's still a couple of master chiefs running around that's got my little stamp on their butt, probably.

Gary Wise 45:04

So you said you put your package in right after picking up Master Chief. Yeah. So did you already know that if you made nine that you wanted to apply for the CMC program then?

Brian Ortega 45:14

Yeah, at that time, because the billet structure for OS at that time wasn't wasn't something I I wanted to continue. Um, you know, it was you know, shore duty and then a carrier, right? And not that I don't want to be a carrier, you know, it would have been an administrative type of role. And I mean you've been on a carrier, you kind of know what the mastery's gonna do there, which is important as heck, right? But I wanted to do it at a level, I wanted to do it on a you know, a a the DES cruise ship as a CMC, vice, you know, big deck, you know, that type of stuff.

Gary Wise 45:44

So when you plot when you applied for the program, did you get picked up first time? Yeah. Nice. So what year did you get did you get selected for the CMC program?

Brian Ortega 45:54

Um, I want to say 2008, seven, something like that.

Gary Wise 45:58

Okay, got it. And where'd you go for your first ship?

Brian Ortega 46:00

Uh uh uh USS Lake Erie.

Gary Wise 46:03

Was that Hawaii as well?

Brian Ortega 46:04

Yeah, that was a cruise out of Hawaii.

Gary Wise 46:06

Lake Erie, okay. So 2007, 2008, you go there as a CMC. How different did you approach that sea tour versus your previous tours?

Brian Ortega 46:19

Oh, it was completely different, you know, because um I mean always, you know, I always go in and and you know, kind of listen and kind of, you know, uh look around a little bit, right? Um and up to that point, uh as a senior chief, I kind of knew what I wanted to do, I guess. Uh and a master chief, it's just kind of like, oh, I gotta figure this stuff out, right? You know, I'm the CMC now, so then I gotta, you know, get into the programs and making sure that those things are run correctly and run right and you know, put my spin on it a little bit and kind of go forward with that. But yeah, I almost didn't make it actually. I almost freaking probably got fired the first couple of weeks I was there.

Gary Wise 47:05

Why do you say that?

Brian Ortega 47:06

Oh, because me and the expo didn't get along at all.

Gary Wise 47:11

Oh brother, I've heard that so many times though, you know, just being honest. I've been there. Um, what was the problem? Okay. Well, just because he had already been there before you got there.

Brian Ortega 47:25

Yeah, it was just it was uh, you know, just stuff I I really don't want to get into other than you know, there's things going on. Yeah, there's things going on that that shouldn't have been going on.

Gary Wise 47:33

Well, and and I tell you that, so I I got to my first ship as a CMC and we had serious problems. We had big culture problems, we had big, just big problems. And I remember I was in a I was concerned that when I was gonna do the right thing, but my CEO had been the XO before he was a CEO, and this was not a you know, we're all great friends now, but trust you me, when I was bringing up my perspectives, my ideas, they weren't always well received. You know, when I when I had to lower the e swaps pennant of the ship because we didn't deserve to fly it, and it was it was just and so I can understand where as a young CMC going into that kind of a space and time, it can be scary as hell. And like you said, you felt like you might get fired from your first two, three weeks on the job, right? And it has nothing to do with how good of an OS you are, right? It has it's just oh now it's about personal relationships or perspectives or whatever. And yeah, no, I can relate, bro, 100%.

Brian Ortega 48:40

Luckily, he was retiring very, very, very soon after you know, after me showing up. So, you know, the CEO just said, hey, just you know, I I can't tell you what to do, but just take, you know, this is this is gonna be this is gonna be different here in in two weeks.

Gary Wise 48:55

So the CEO had visibility there was a problem.

Brian Ortega 48:58

Oh absolutely, absolutely.

Gary Wise 49:00

And he wasn't surprised. No. Okay, then the CEO is letting him get a headway with being an ass, probably.

Brian Ortega 49:06

It sounds like uh I don't know. I don't want to say there's just a lot, there's a lot of responsibility, you know, and and you gotta divvy it up. And um, you know, I don't put blame on anybody. It's just you know, it's just you know, a lot of there was a lot of responsibility, you know. And he the you know, he was at the time probably trying to fill a lot of different different uh spaces, right? Different lanes, you know, and he he was doing what he thought he he was supposed to be doing, you know, how and it just you know just yeah, it just wasn't right.

Gary Wise 49:39

I appreciate you giving him that grace, bro. Um how was your TMC turnover? Do you do you feel like did you do a turnover?

Brian Ortega 49:48

Uh yes, you did.

Gary Wise 49:50

Okay. So during that turnover process, did you get any insights that there might be some challenges coming up or do the old I I I knew I I knew before even showing up? Okay, got it. That's crazy. All right, well, so when you look back on that first CMC tour after it was all said and done, what were the biggest things that caught you off guard during your first couple of years as a CMC?

Brian Ortega 50:20

I would say just the the level of um in a good way, the level of commitment, attitude, and work that people were putting in, you know, because I was seeing it all now, right? I mean, you know, as a department chief, you see your you see your your piece of the pie, you know, your sh you know, your what you're contributing to. But you know, as a CMC, you're seeing it all, right? You know, you know, you're hearing it all, you're doing it all. You know, I used to, you know, I used to spend every meal in the mass, you know, and whether it was sitting there with coffee or water because I wanted I wanted to make sure I was touching a base with everybody who was coming through. Because you know, you know, underway, you know, you're not seeing everybody, you know, right when, you know, right when the you know the meal starts. You know, someone could pop in an hour later and you know, eat the meal because he was on watch or whatever. I just wanted to give everyone the opportunity to, you know, to to to reach out to me or for me to kind of get the pulse with everybody, you know, as we kind of went through. So, you know, a lot of times people would say, God, CMC, you're always in a bad mess. I said, No, I'm in the mess at mealtime, so I could, you know, talk to my, you know, talk to the bass. Be available for them, you know.

Gary Wise 51:29

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 51:30

Yeah.

Gary Wise 51:31

No, I think that's that's a great uh perspective. And I will tell you, for me, I went from being an engineer where you know there's two kinds of people on the ship, engineers and writers. So I go from being an engineer to being a person who's working to thread together a team that cares about the whole ship and trying to convince everyone. Because again, as a damage control man, I was for everybody. I was blessed with that opportunity because you know, DC's and all hands effort and all that stuff. And so ER9 and all those things, I got the chance to know everybody. But then as a CMC, I had to always convince everyone like, look, supply needs everyone's support right now. We all got to help supply, or deck has a big event coming up. We all got to support DEC and making those things, those conversations happen during the mess meetings, just so everyone can hear that everyone cares about each other's assessments, each other's trials, tribulations, whatever it is. And what I love about being down there during chow time, because I was the same way, I love being down there during chow time because that was when you got to see most everyone together underway because of the different rotations. You know, some guys are 66, some guys are 12 on, 12 off, whatever. Some guys have no hours, they're just round the clock. They just, you know, they didn't when I was a senior chief, I didn't have I stood watched, sure, but I also worked all the damn time, you know, just how it was.

First CMC Tour: Culture Clashes

Brian Ortega 52:52

So what when I when I did my CMC tour though, I was really fortunate, man. I had some I had some really good chiefs, and I had some really hammered department chiefs, um, few a few master chiefs that were, you know, that did and then a few other chiefs, and I I kind of stacked the deck a little bit, you know, knowing I was going going to uh going to going to the Lake Erie and knowing what the billet structure was. And I reached out to a couple guys to make sure they were maybe coming my way, you know. Um but you know, also when you you talked about like, hey, we got to help this department or this department's going through this, right? I'd I'd stack the deck too. And I'd go find the hammer chief and say, who's not a part of that department and say, hey, you know, we're getting ready, I'm getting ready to put this, and we're gonna put this down, you know, deck's going through this, or you know, supplies going through this, or engineers going through this. I said, I I I need you to come out in the mask and say, you know, I got it. I'm running it, I'm running this program, and I'm, you know, this is what I need, you know. Um and you know, once we do that, you know, it's it it becomes, you know, everyone just gets on board, you know, you know, and it's just I don't know. I felt like I don't want to feel like I was cheating the system a little bit, but you know, I was, you know, I was playing chess a little bit sometimes, you know, and you know, in those mess meetings or or whatever you want to call it, you know, getting getting everyone together and and getting us in one direction and moving because you have to, and we had to do it quick.

Gary Wise 54:22

Yeah, no, no, but that's exactly what active communication means, though, right? Active communication up and down the chain of command and strategic communication and messaging and 100%. And I and I think leveraging those relationships and knowing your talent, knowing if I go talk to this guy about this opportunity, he he's a red meat eater. He's gonna want it, he's gonna run with it, and other people are gonna want to help him because most everybody wants to help, not everybody wants to carry the responsibility, right? So give the responsibility to the one that wants it, but then let other people help them be successful. And you know what? We all win if we don't care against the credit. And that's really that's the CMC's ultimate job, in my opinion, is to make sure that the the fairness is distributed across the board, everyone's getting a fair opportunity as long as they put their work in, right? As long as they put their work in and trust the process, those are all real things. Um so you're leaving that ship. How many years do you have in the Navy at the end of that tour?

Brian Ortega 55:24

I started this by CMC tour at 20.

Gary Wise 55:27

Okay, so you have CMC 20, so 23. Where do you go after that ship?

Brian Ortega 55:33

Uh I went to joint base Pearl Harbor Hickham as a CMC on base.

Gary Wise 55:37

Oh, the base masterie. Yeah, nice. I mean, you're perfect for the job though. I mean, think about it. You've been around there a long time. When did you get there?

Brian Ortega 55:46

Uh 2011-ish? 12?

Gary Wise 55:54

11, 12. Okay, I was on GW then. Got it. Trying to think. Uh, because I I that sounds familiar to you being joint base, Pearl Harbor Hiccup. How did you like your base tour?

Brian Ortega 56:06

Oh, it was awesome. It was probably it was it was a good tour for me. Um, you know, we did a couple rim packs, um, only because of it was an off year, so we were able to do that. Um, you know, it's I don't want to say it was a political tour, but you know, there's a lot of a lot of people coming into Pearl Harbor, you know, and uh coming, you know, coming to see me or coming to see the boss, right? You know, and you know, as a base CMC, you know, did a lot of stuff, you know, and we were, you know, fighting through different things, different funding issues and and learning, you know, the C and I C kind of kind of thing. You know, and and I think uh I think what people fail to realize, I think in some positions, is that um, you know, uh you're not gonna get anything done other than starting something, right? So but you gotta you but you gotta you gotta get to that point. And you gotta get to the point where you're handed it off or you're finishing it because and then the fruition comes years after funding comes in, right? And you know that being a base guy, right? You know, you know, you're you're you're catching it up and you're just plugging holes, right? And you say, Hey, we need a new barracks, we need to do this, I need a new program here, and then you go see the right people and you start it. You start the process, you start, you know, you start, you know, doing all that legwork and all the paperwork to get it done. Um, which unfortunately I I don't have the patience for. Um, you know, you know, being a you know, I mean a navy guy, all right. Um but you know, you got to start those programs, man. Hey, we gotta build, we gotta we gotta redo these barracks. Hey, we gotta do this. Hey, you know, housing's gotta start doing this now. You know, we you know, a lot of stuff, right?

Gary Wise 57:52

You know, yeah, it's a lot of paperwork. I remember when I got to the base job and just thinking to myself, like, number one, I had like no military, I felt like, because at least in Guam, all I had was the security forces and like the dive locker.

Brian Ortega 58:08

Hey, two great places, dude. Two great places, you know. You know what the cool I used to always go to the kennels, man. You go to the kennels, you you know, go to dive locker, you know, and those were two special places in Guam. But but they're also special places in other places too, right? I mean, because you know, Hawaii had a dive locker, obviously, and and we had a pretty big security force, which was a joint security force, which was kind of cool. Um, because we had my my boss made it made it his mission to make sure that you know Navy guys were on Air Force gates and Air Force guys were on Air Force and Navy gates, you know, and you know, the and learning learning what you know they do, the defenders, right? The Air Force MAs, right? You know, doing what they do is is kind of special too. So, you know, it was to me, it was really good to be that part of you know the law enforcement and and you know things like that, as far as CIC goes.

Gary Wise 59:03

How was it when you ran your chief's initiations on the base? Did you were you in charge of those joint events or was there a different structure for that?

Brian Ortega 59:12

No, that was my that was that was my program. Um and it always has been, you know, in the history of Pearl, there, you know, and the region master chief obviously owns it, right? Um, because he's there. Uh, but he always let the base guy, I mean, that's your job, right? You just do it and execute it. And in my opinion, we had some some really fantastic, you know, processes there in Pearl where, you know, I I learned early on if you if you invite people to come out, they will come. And so we used to we used to have Mkpon Hurt come out all the time. You know, at the time uh Mkpon West was there, right? And then, you know, people were always coming in and out of Hawaii. So, you know, I just invite them. Hey. You know, we're doing this, this, and this. Are you available to come out our final night? You know, come check us out. You know, Master Chief Hurt was so awesome with that, you know, where he would come out. He, I think he came out every year I was there. Um, and then when I was at Midpack, you know, I wasn't in charge of the process, but I was, you know, I was a Master Chief in that in our mess, right? In the Hawaii mess. So, you know, you know, we we reached out. We had a I had a really good master chief back then. His name was Matt Welsh. I don't know if you know him or not. Uh, but he's uh he's a quartermaster by trade. And he was he was a 3MC the last you know 10 years or so of his of his Navy career. He uh he would always say, Brian, come on, let's go. We're gonna start this legacy academy up at the USS Missouri. I said, Yeah. He goes, Yeah, we're doing it. So, you know, he obviously was the dude in charge, but I I was the you know, the young, you know, the the young senior chief getting ready to put master chief on, right? He was doing a lot of his work. But uh yeah, we yeah, he he he started that uh you know that the legacy academy there uh in Pearl Harbor on Missouri, you know, and I was there for the first two, three classes, which is pretty awesome.

Gary Wise 1:01:17

And I think it's still going to this day, man.

Brian Ortega 1:01:19

Yeah, to this day it's still gone.

Gary Wise 1:01:21

Yep. No, no, Pearl Harbor without a doubt is one of the most special places, I believe, for the chief petty officer process, initiation, the community, watching what they did to restore the Chiefs Club on the base. Just was that you were you there when they were doing that?

Mess Leadership, Chow Hall Strategy

Brian Ortega 1:01:39

Oh my goodness. The headache I went through to get that thing rolling. Right, because they shut it, because they shut it down, right? You know, wasn't making any money. Um so you know, I I talked the MWR director and my boss into into giving it back to us. You know, we were gonna, we were gonna, we were gonna refurbish it on our own, our own dime. You know, we were gonna, you know, do this and do that, and we would, you know, open it up for events. You know, it wasn't open every day. It wasn't, you know, no one was working it. We were working it ourselves, but we would open it up, you know, for certain. We opened it up for uh for RIMPAC uh soon after we refurbished it. And we had a bit, I had a big old, uh, hosted a big old uh you know social there for the cheese during RIMPAC years. But um yeah, we we that was all sweat and tears, man. It's freaking, we went in there, repainted it, re-hung everything. I threw my old, I threw my old refrigerator in there, I threw my old my old couches in there for my house. You know, some people know, but you know, a lot of people don't know, right? You know, what what you know, somebody donated the stereo equipment, we went and bought TVs, and I had some tea spilled to the local uh, I forget you know which which cave which cable company we went to to hook up TVs and put cable in there. And he was like, I kind of put my name on it. And I said, Don't worry about it, just do it.

Gary Wise 1:03:06

No, I I get it, man. I I actually stood up a khaki club in Guam at the TNT's, right? I took the back area, made it to a khaki club, and it didn't it didn't last longer than me, man. As soon as I got as soon as I left, they they changed it and shut it down. I just it was so disappointing because there was nowhere on Guam for us to go have a space for just and I made a khaki club because I was trying to you know include everybody, but it was the Chiefs that were the ones using it, right? When you go up on the walls, because I found all the memorabilia from the old Chiefs uh mess that was at Naval Base Guam. I found it all after they shut it down that was in the barracks, I guess. And so I was like, I got all this Navy memorabilia, it needs to go on the walls somewhere, man. Like this stuff is great.

Brian Ortega 1:03:56

Now when I when I was there, they used there used to be um achievements over on the uh uh the CB side. Um they still have that, yeah. That that yeah, that they would open up every once in a while.

Gary Wise 1:04:11

Yeah, they still have that, but that's that's really for the deployed guys. Yeah, that's fair.

Brian Ortega 1:04:16

I get it, I get it. But yeah.

Gary Wise 1:04:17

Yeah, but yeah. All right, so when you're joint-based Pearl Harbor, you've done a tour already as a CMC, um, you just did the base job, made a lot of made a lot of connections. What are you hoping to do after the base job?

Brian Ortega 1:04:32

Didn't know. I was I was two years into the job, um, and my boss at the time was getting relieved in about four months. Um and I was like, man, I don't want to work for another guy. I mean, I I for a couple months been so one one uh one day I'm walking through our, you know, through our through our our building, and our building, I was on the same floor as the Comnat Surf Group Mid Pack Master Chief at the time, uh, which was Patty Roebuck. I don't know if you remember her, but uh she was great. Um she was working on Missouri uh a few years back. I'm not sure what she's doing now. I've kind of lost track of her, but but she was great. She was she was uh mentor of mine and she was she's a lot of a lot of good things, right? There in Pearl Harbor. She, you know, she she was uh seems to be on one of the DDGs and uh did a couple uh did a tour, I think, at PAC Fleet somewhere and then went over to do the surf back job. But I was I was walking to give her a hard time because um uh good friend of mine, Bill Lipsett, who was with me for on the Port Royal and the Lake Erie, uh was her master was her you know her hammer now and master chief. So I was I was going to to give them a hard time in their office. You know, I walked in and she's talking to the fourth master chief about uh trying to fill the ATG billet, I guess. Um at the time is Brandon Knox. Um and Patty was like, Hey, I got Brian Ortega over here. And Brandon just walked in my office. Yeah. He said, then Brandon and he goes, All right, Brian, what are you doing? Where's your next tour at? And I said, um, I'm not sure, man. I'm thinking about possibly soon. He goes, he goes, well, he goes, I got a billet for you. He goes, uh 100% it's yours if you want it. And and I said, Where at? He says, ATT, you know, packs slash San Diego. And I said, How come? Why is it me? He says, he goes, uh he goes, trust me. He goes, he goes, there's too many guys knocking on my door right now that want to that want to go over and get that job. He goes, but I need someone that's not even in the harbor. You know, and you know, I said, how long do I have to decide? He says, uh, pretty quick. I'll give you a day. Right. You know, so I went home that night and that's hey, you know, I did kind of offer me the job to go to San Diego. And at the time my daughter was a senior in high school, you know. So my daughter was born and raised in Hawaii, right, as a Navy brat.

Gary Wise 1:07:20

Right.

Brian Ortega 1:07:20

She was getting ready to graduate and go off to college, so she was going to mainland anyways. My son was a seventh grader who would then in turn be enrolled in eighth grade, right? And then be able to kind of start. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity.

Gary Wise 1:07:37

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 1:07:37

So I didn't even wait. I called him up that night and said, I'll take it.

Gary Wise 1:07:41

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 1:07:42

You know, and then I told my boss the next day, he was like, huh. Sounds good.

Gary Wise 1:07:50

How fast was the turn? Like, how soon were you leaving?

Brian Ortega 1:07:53

Oh, I was leaving within 90 days. Wow. I didn't even I I didn't even see I didn't even see a change command.

Gary Wise 1:08:02

Yeah, you were just out of there, huh? And Brandon, he was the force master that time you said, yeah. Okay. How did you like ATG San Diego?

Brian Ortega 1:08:12

Oh, it was awesome. It was awesome. You know, oh 300 plus. So evals were something else. Right. And and and and I told, you know, I told everyone, I said, you know, I've I've always, always, always have my hand in cheese evals. Always in mind, right? And I said, shoot, 300, that's fine. And boy, did I man, I worked day and night on those things. Day and night. You know, it was worth it. And we we we made a lot of senior chiefs, we made a lot of mass chiefs.

Gary Wise 1:08:55

So yeah, at the time, yeah, special.

Brian Ortega 1:08:58

Yeah, at the time, Chubbs was was there with me, right? He was he was a senior chief, you know, and uh Brian Morris was there, you know. There was there's a bunch of senior chiefs there. And and Steve McQueen on the in, you know, Steve. You know, I think he's he's in Japan. Yeah, he's in Japan. No, he's coming back now, right? He's we're soon, right? He's on the America, right? He's just came to see the America. Um, so he's coming back. Yeah. So I mean, we had we had tons of guys. We were just, you know, aching. Oh man, talk about a mask, man. That was we had some serious initiations.

Gary Wise 1:09:36

You know, no, no, HCG San Diego's a big deal, man. They handle business.

Base CMC At Pearl: Funding And Legacy

Brian Ortega 1:09:43

I called Rick West up one day, right? And I was like, hey, Rick, I said, is anyone locked to you in yet to come to the khaki ball? He said, no. I said, good, we've taken care of you. He goes, oh, okay. He goes, I said, we'll take care of anything. He says, you just you know, you you work through me, tell me when you want to fly, when you want to come back, you know, when you when you want to do this, where you, you know, we'll put you up there. I think, you know, one of the I think it was Grand Union hotel we were at, nice hotel, right? He says, Stay the whole weekend and you know, you know, fly out whenever you want to fly out. But and uh people are like, how do you do because well, so so we so we had a couple guys in the mess who did coins, right? Right. And that's how that's that's how that's how we kind of made some extra money to to be able to do you know, do some of the things we did, you know.

Gary Wise 1:10:34

No, 100%. Emblematics became the hustle once they shut down everything else.

Brian Ortega 1:10:39

Yeah, yeah, we we hustled it, man. But but I tell you what, man, that that there's a there's another conversation right there in my my first day walking into ATG. Right? Because you know, Brandon, Brandon Knox wasn't was it wasn't up front 100% with me on what was going on. So, you know, I walked into a freaking yeah.

Gary Wise 1:11:09

Hey, yeah, I I I don't know that I've ever walked into a situation that I thought was good, just being honest with you, right? Like being honest, and it didn't matter whether I was a D seamen or a CMC, there was always bodies just lay, they weren't even buried, bro. They were just laying on the ground, and you had to pick them up and figure it out.

Brian Ortega 1:11:31

Well, so so um, and I'll and I'll say some stuff, right? Uh that I'm not gonna go out and but there was you know, there's captain's masses going on. Um, you know, the Commodore there told me that that they're they wanted to spend our chief's mess. Um Wow. Yeah, there was a bunch, and and then you know, it was like, yeah, well, that's a good conversation to have with your, you know, your boss is yeah, is it's you know, your first day here, you know, first day in the job, you know, it's like, what the heck? He's like, yeah, read he's he's like, read this stuff. So he gives me you know folders of stuff. So I called Brandon later on that night and I was like, dude, what the you mean give me a heads up on what the hell's going on over here? Yeah, you know, and he's like, Well, I told you I needed somebody completely out, I needed somebody completely like not in San Diego, and I'm like, oh so you know, I just had to go in and say, all right. So I said, look, I said, you can't do this. I said, I'm gonna fix the problem. Uh that period. I said, you guys just need to give me, you know, give me a month or so to I'm gonna fix it. There's trust me, this is gonna be fixed, you know, and um and we fixed it, you know, we fixed it. There was some great peace over there, man.

Gary Wise 1:12:44

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 1:12:45

Great cheese that didn't, you know.

Gary Wise 1:12:48

So just what did you I mean, what were the tweaks? Was it just alignment? Was it just communication?

Brian Ortega 1:12:56

Was it it's just standards, you know? It's it's it's hey, you know, there's you know, we're we're we're a mess and we we need to hold standards, and we we need to ourselves hold standards, you know. There's always somebody watching, you know, if there's you it was just it was just it wasn't right, right? There was a lot of things that you know, probably probably people say the same thing about me too, you know. Yeah, Brian was all jacked up, you know, he did this, he did that, and and I give previous that, you know, I'm not perfect, right? You know, but yeah, you know, wow, talk about some moments where you sit back and you gotta like, whoo, this job ain't easy.

Gary Wise 1:13:35

Yeah. I mean, everyone gets an opinion, everyone has an opinion, you know. But if it's to the point where a freaking 06 is like, we're about to disband your chief's mess or whatever, that's pretty big words because typically they're not saying that kind of stuff.

Brian Ortega 1:13:48

No, no, no. There's there was there was there was some serious issues going on that that that were that you know that went went on, you know. But but I'll tell you what, I mean, this we I think with with you know greater responsibility, you know, and greater, you know, you you've got to like execute stuff, right? And and you know, and I I I've had some incredible, incredible conversations with some of our our our Meg Pons that just came through, right? You know, from Rick West to uh uh the GO um you know into uh uh Master Chief Hurt, right? Some of the stories he tells are ridiculous, right? On how Chief's initiation was gonna end. Right? You know, and it was gonna end, you know, and he you know, and and he'll he tells the story all the time, you know, that that you know the CNL told him, I'm gonna stop Chief Initiation and it's never gonna happen again. You know, and he you know and he said, I give me a chance to fix this, I'm gonna fix it. You know. So, you know, there's there's you know, there's I don't want to say similarities to every command. Sometimes when you walk into stuff, things go awry a little bit. You just gotta get it on track um and get people back into uh you know doing what's best and doing what's best for the navy and sailors.

Gary Wise 1:15:13

Yeah, good to go, man. So after you leave ATG, um what were you? I think I remember when we met, you were talking because you weren't quite sure what the opportunities were gonna be coming your way after leaving a float training group. But I mean, you had been at that point, you'd been a DVG CMC, you'd been a base CMC. Now you're the you got the biggest Chiefs mask. Man, that's damn near uh an aircraft carrier ashore of just a Chiefs mask, right? And training the whole Surface Force, Surface Pacific Fleet. What are you looking to do after that? Were you just hoping to, were you looking to go into the office, check into the flag level mess? Were you looking to go back to sea again?

Brian Ortega 1:15:59

I mean, at that time I was at 30, right? So really the only opportunity I had was was to get into the flag mess, right? Okay. Um, you know, and there there's there were some jobs I interviewed for, um, and some jobs I didn't get, obviously, um, until I landed one, you know, with with you know out there in Guam, uh, which was a good opportunity. I'm glad I took it. Uh but uh yeah, but I mean at that point, you know, I even I even told them, you know, and and it never it it didn't, you know, at the time I was like, hey, I I know I get it. I said, but I said, I'll go, I'll go to an aircraft carrier. If you need someone on an aircraft carrier, I told him at the time. Um Nick Bond, right? And uh he's like, yeah, Brian, that's what, you know, you know, you're you're at 30, and you know, we're you know those those jobs are you know for guys that are under 30. Um you know, and we we can't, you know, we can't slow progression for everybody just because you want a job. I said, well, I mean, uh it's not an easy job. I said, you know, maybe it should be a job for guys that are at 30, you know. Um, you know, sometimes, you know, at the time, I don't want to say there was problems with with some of the aircraft carriers, but I mean, there it's a it's a big, huge job, man. I mean, you know how that goes. You've been on one. Um, I mean, there's things that go on that you people don't even know what the hell's going on over there, you know. You know, the departments know and divisions know, but not every, you know, not not everybody knows, right? I mean, when you schedule Captain Smash on a weekly basis or a bi-weekly basis, right? Think about that for a second. But think about that for a second, right? Everybody else schedules it as needed, right? Big decks like that schedule it every week to placeholders.

Reviving The Chiefs’ Club And Traditions

Gary Wise 1:17:53

You know, yeah, and I was on a big dick that had midnight masks. Man, my kids love putting people in the break, dude. Loved it. And yeah, it it's a it is a big man, and you know what's funny is right about that time is when they changed the rule to where you could go over 30 years at an 06 command, right? Because before right around that, that they didn't they wouldn't let you do that. Then they changed it, I think it was to where you can go over 30 years out of 06 command. Uh so when you got the job to go to Guam, so first off, just so I understand, you wanted to put your name in the hat or an aircraft carrier, they told you no, you couldn't even do it.

Brian Ortega 1:18:33

Yeah.

Gary Wise 1:18:34

That's one of my biggest gripes about the program are the Navy's senior listed management program, right? I believe that the boss should be the one that says yes or no to the candidates, right? And not some other master chief that's just like, nope, sorry, you're not the guy. Because what the hell? Like, why when they change that in the flag mess is when I really was like, I don't even care to even try for that process, bro, because you got a bunch of other master chiefs playing freaking Game of Thrones back in wherever they're at in Virginia or something, and they're deciding who are the ones that are gonna go, and they're making people go places they don't even want to go, you know.

Brian Ortega 1:19:16

I mean, I mean, once you get to to that to that level, right? It's and I don't want to say who you align yourself with, but a lot has to do with you know, the admiral you're working for at the time when he's a two-star or a one-star or a three-star, right?

Gary Wise 1:19:32

And you know, and you and you know, look at look at the new MICPO, right?

Brian Ortega 1:19:37

Well, you know, I yeah, I just I mean, but but he's not the only that's not the first opportunity, you know. Not at all. Not at all. It couldn't happen to a better couple. And I say couple because Angie, his wife, is fantastic.

Gary Wise 1:19:54

Right.

Brian Ortega 1:19:54

Um, they're just a they're just a fantastic family, he's a fantastic Master Chief. You know, Angie was Angie uh was my uh Fleet and Family Support Center Domestic Violence Counselor at Pearl. Right. So uh I actually interacted with her more than I did her husband at the time when he was in Pearl, you know. Yeah, no, no.

Gary Wise 1:20:17

I first met him. Yeah, I went out to Pac Fleet for a conference and he was sub pack at the time, I think. Yeah, or maybe he was subland, one of the two, but he was a submarine guy at the time. And we met and solid dude, don't go me wrong. Like, I think he's a great choice. It's like I think the admiral's a great choice for CNO. I just think it's another reminder of when you get an admiral who really likes his senior enlisted leader, he'll just take him with them wherever they go, you know.

Brian Ortega 1:20:43

And it's it's it's familiarity though. I mean, I I understand it 100%. It's familiarity, you know, it's it's it's it's about knowing each other's you know, weaknesses and strengths and and trust, right? You gotta be able to count on somebody, you know, and and he's got that with him. And and you know, when when it was announced that he was a CNO, I'm like, oh shit. I said John, John, I said John Perryman is gonna be the next CNO. She goes, What?

Gary Wise 1:21:10

Everybody knew, everybody knew. People I was talking to people from my little O'Cala home base, yeah, and I was like, Who y'all think of the next bitcoin? They're like, Gary, it's Perryman. Like, what are you thinking?

Brian Ortega 1:21:22

Yeah, look, I thought I thought JJ had an outside shot, right?

Gary Wise 1:21:27

Yeah, yeah. You know, which was like, I mean, oh no, JJ had an outside shot if all if that one C No hadn't got fired.

Brian Ortega 1:21:37

No, he did JJ's filling down. I mean, he he he interviewed for the Brazilian. He didn't tell me he did, but he did. Oh, did he? Yeah, he did.

Gary Wise 1:21:44

And uh, because that was his sixth fleet commander when he was out there. Yeah, they were like they were an awesome team, bro. Yeah, so when I'm saying when JJ first got the orders to go to DC, I was like, oh, Ludlin and JJ up, man, he's about to be the guy.

Brian Ortega 1:21:59

Well, it it didn't hurt really that that you know Masky Fison got got selected for you know uh the act right because he he was he's that dude is amazing, right? That dude is amazing, right? So once once he got you know selected as CAC, there was there was nobody standing in you know John Perring's way at all. Yeah, just based just based on how you line it up, right? How do you line it up? Well, you gotta be a fleet master, you have to be MIPPO. Yeah, right. They that's what do you think about that?

Gary Wise 1:22:30

Do you think that's important?

Brian Ortega 1:22:32

Um, I think it's got some validity sometimes. Um what do they call that?

Gary Wise 1:22:37

They call it the you know the Mkpon Campa rule now, which is kind of you know I I'm a I'm I met mass, I met Joe Campa at the Navy ball. He came out to Saspo and I I made chief when he was the Mkpon 06, and I bought into what he was saying, man.

Brian Ortega 1:22:52

Hook like great guy. He uh you know it upset, it upset, it upset the it upset some of the the fleet master chiefs at the time, really did.

Gary Wise 1:23:03

And yeah, I like innovators that disrupt, bro. I'm okay with that. I'm a chief, I'm a chief. Right, right, I'm a chief. Get over yourself. I remember uh I was at this, I was a seventh fleet, I was a staff CMC, and the Seventh Fleet CMC was on travel, and the the boss had asked me to send emails to all the flag CMCs to get information, right? No, I'm the staff CMC, so my job was to take care of the staff. But again, the fleet CMC is on travel, and the three-star asked me to send an email. Okay, well, I'm also on the email inbox of my fleet CMC because while he's on travel, I'm managing that, I'm helping him out, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Right. And the emails that came back to the fleet CMC from other master chiefs that were so petty and so immature. Who does Gary think he is telling us what to do? Blah, blah, blah, bro. I'm the guy in the room where the guy said this in the email, but we're all a bunch of mass chiefs, dog. Like, get over yourself, bro. And I just for me, that really, really, really just reminded me of how some people really can let things go to their head, even in the mess, right?

Brian Ortega 1:24:19

And yeah, there's a deck in order, man.

Gary Wise 1:24:24

I guess they can have it, bro. They can have it.

Brian Ortega 1:24:28

No, there you you know there is, but I mean, it's it is what it is, man.

Gary Wise 1:24:31

I mean, yeah, and so when you were at Wong, how did you like that tour for you? Did you enjoy it?

Brian Ortega 1:24:37

Uh I did actually, it's before COVID. So I, you know, I you know, and and had a fantastic group I worked with, right? In in in the office. Um, you know, Jeff Grimes was was the cause at the time. Yeah, right. Fantastic leader, dude.

Gary Wise 1:24:55

Great. Well I love that guy, bro.

Brian Ortega 1:24:57

Yeah, he's he's I love that man.

Gary Wise 1:24:59

I will go to war for Jeff Grimes.

Brian Ortega 1:25:01

Yeah, I had so much respect for him, you know, based up based upon what he had to juggle. Um, right, because he had to juggle two two separate bosses from completely different stratospheres. Right. And um man. You know, you had one who was uh not a people person, right? And you had another one who was all about people, you know. And I understand wow, man. That's another story that I almost got fired two days into my job. No, I would say nothing drive about. And I and I even talked to my forest master chief about it because he because he was because he was there at the time. Yeah.

Gary Wise 1:25:49

Yeah.

Brian Ortega 1:25:49

I was like, man, I don't know, I'm I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make this week. And he looked at me and said, You're gonna make it. Just know your place. This person is gonna be gone, and your boss is gonna be in charge in a week. So just it's a week. Yeah, go on house hunting leave or something, he told me.

ATG San Diego: Standards And Reform

Gary Wise 1:26:07

Yeah, go on house hunting leave. No, yeah. I no, Jeff is a phenomenal human being, man. I love that man. We went through it, man. We when I he was my base CEO at Guam, we had COVID. That was something else, but best guy for the job, right? Because he knew the island very well, he knew the laydown, he knew operational thinking. He had been squadron 15, freaking Commodore, and then went to Marianas, then to MBG. Yeah, it was great.

Brian Ortega 1:26:36

It was crazy, you know. Guys kind of falling a little bit, right? Um, you know, from afar. Uh, you know, I was like, man, they need to get they need to. There's nobody's in the whole, nobody's in those hotels downtown. Just throw all those, and that's what happened, right? Wow, what a great trust me.

Gary Wise 1:26:53

Trust me, we were saying the same thing, but freaking, I will say the powers that be that we're four stars were being hard ass because they were like, We're war fighters. No, that's the Hilton, it's open, the Dusitani, it's open. Like, what if we're war fighters? This I told this to somebody one time, I said, if we're war fighters and keep them on the ship and fight it from the sea, bro. Don't bring them on my island where I only got 60 COVID beds for a whole island, right? And but of course, deaf ears, right? Just make it work, and I don't yeah, that that leadership triangle right there. My heart went out to Jim because he was doing the best that he could do. He got roped into that whole thing once with the Fifth Fleet. You know what I'm saying? He was along for the ride too.

Brian Ortega 1:27:43

Yeah, yeah. But it was good, man. I enjoy I I enjoyed my time out there. Um you know, and then and then it was and then I put and then I interviewed for a couple jobs, uh, didn't get them, and then just had to move on.

Gary Wise 1:27:56

Yeah. So what did you end up doing after you retired?

Brian Ortega 1:28:00

So uh I literally just I I I started working, man. I I I I'm working in an internet company right now, um, doing HR and doing government contracts. Um, so we provide internet to a lot of different places. Uh, my focus is obviously the the employees, but also getting uh government contracts. So we just closed out um uh contracts that circuit that went from uh China Lake, uh Naval Air War Station to uh North Island, Coronado. Um and then from China Lake to Beale. So we're we're about 10 different military installations. Um, you know, and I liaison with them and you know, I'm able to talk a little bit of the language, you know, to get in and get things done. Um but it's it's it's I still got two kids that are on the payroll. So I'm still working.

Gary Wise 1:29:00

I can relate. I got an 11-year-old and I got a 17-year-old, and I'm a high school teacher now, you know, which is it's it really is great. I I is it's everything I loved about being a chief petty officer without a lot of the other drama that comes along with it. I mean, there is drama, don't get me wrong, like literally high school drama. It's like there's drama, but it's just I it's a very it was very refreshing to get to young people, you know. As a CMC, unfortunately, you don't always get to be surrounded by the hard chargers. You're typically dealing with the people that are unfortunately taking advantage of the situation, and you're the one that has to tell them the thing that nobody else is willing to say, right? Everyone else is afraid to say it, but someone's gotta say it. And and dude, you're malingering, or dude, I think you're you're taking advantage. We can't man the watch stations because you're not armed up and you've only been in the name for a year and a half, brother. What are we doing, bro?

Brian Ortega 1:29:53

Like, yeah, there's there's I tell you, that that there's nothing like being a uh you know Ace Grace CMC because you see everybody and that's your job, right? The higher you go, the further away you're from you know, sailors, you know, and the more the more, you know, don't get me wrong, you know, that our civilian employees, you know, they're they're great too, but it's you know, we join the navy, you know, to be around sailors, you know. And then you know, you know, being being on Navy base, you know, CMC, that you know, there's there's a lot uh what I use what what I like to say is this you know the the dark secrets, you know, the secrets of Navy is that you know you go to your go go to your you know your Tem 2 or your you know limited duty office or your TAV, whatever you want to call it, right? You've got you've got a group of sailors there that are not deployable for a lot of different reasons, right? A lot of different reasons. Yeah, um a lot of them are psychological in my opinion. Um, but that's anecdotal because I don't have you know those numbers, but you know, when I was on base at Pearl and when I was you know over over in Guam, you know, you know, you you're able to see what's wrong, right? Yep, you know, how you know what's wrong with them and how they're doing it, you know. But uh it was tough, man.

Gary Wise 1:31:10

And pregnancies, a lot of pregnancies, you know, that was another challenge. I had all these pregnant sailors working for me. We had to put a freaking nursing room in the like ID card office, like the remember on base and you come in the wall, the driver license office, whatever it was. We literally had to put a nursing station in there because that we had so many pregnant females. And I remember talking to the captain and be like, sir, we're always talking about active shooters. That place is a target, in my personal opinion. It's outside the gate. Yeah, I'm laughing with pregnant sailors, and what the hell are we doing? And he was like, Mash Chief, what do you want me to do? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, what are we? You know, I you know, the other thing is when you talk about that, I had all those people that denied the COVID vaccination. Believe it or not, they came in so clutch in the fight against COVID because with everybody that was operational went back to work, I still had all those bubbles working for me because they didn't take the shot. And so they could, they were still working, right?

Brian Ortega 1:32:13

Delivering probably delivering meals, probably, right?

Gary Wise 1:32:15

Yeah, they were just doing whatever, right? But I just, you know, we didn't have a lot of military personnel, and the civilians are only gonna do so much, and we were getting tasked to do a bunch of things that were not in our skill set, and just leveraging what you got, right? Playing the hand that you felt, figuring it out. And to I'd say to your other point, when I was a ship CMC, I really was a hesitant whenever somebody was going ashore to a doctor's appointment, because you never knew if that was the last time you were gonna have that sailor on board your ship, you know, and that I when I got to the when I got to the States and I retired from the service, right? I'm in this school with these kids, which it's a rough area, bro. Like I these kids are growing up in some tough spots and they're tough, they're tough, bro. And I just I I feel like there's a disconnect somewhere between where the sailor joins for whatever their reasons, and X amount of years later, and all of a sudden they look up like I God forbid, I hope that I try to get a disability check after like three years in the Navy. Like, that's a bad plan, bro. Like, that's not it. But they're tacking, they're tapping out, and I don't know if it was because they already had the challenge or what. And then the other problem is with all the requirements to get in there now medically. When I talk to the recruiters out here, it's like they can't get people to be qualified, right? Because so many kids are diagnosed early with with all these things that that's all disqualifiers, or they gotta one of my cadets, he graduated a couple of years ago. It took him through two, two almost three years after high school graduation to be off all his medications to be able to join the Navy. Right? You gotta really want that, bro, because a lot of people will lose track of that goal, they'll just drop it and go do something else.

Brian Ortega 1:34:08

No, I mean, even even when you're in, right? I mean, when I was a base CMC, right? I I I'd be the one that got notified, right? Hey, you know, MA2 or MA3, blah, blah, blah. Went to the city. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's like, who? So then I call over, you know, the security and say, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, what's your plan? Uh well, our plan is nothing. Yeah. Whoa, that's the wrong answer. Second answer is is let's let's start that, you know, like you said, you you know, you gotta disarm them. You can't put them in and out, and I and then I want to report whether or not uh there's a firearm in the house. You know, you know, then then and you walk over to your boss, right? Knock on the door and say, hey, this is what's going on, blah, blah, blah. He's like, huh.

Flag-Level Paths, Talent Politics

Gary Wise 1:35:00

So Brian, let's talk about that real quick, bro, while we're wrapping this thing up, because I think you would have an interesting perspective on this. Because I believe the United States Navy gets wrong force protection on installations, right? We didn't have an MA force that was as big as it was before 9-11, right? And in the old days, surface sailors would do shore duty and installation security, right? And they would do the exact same rotation, 3, 2, 2, 3. There would be senior MAs that ran everything, but back in those days, you couldn't convert over to MA until you were E5 or above, right? Um, and then of course 9-11 happens and we just blow the MA force up a thousand percent, right? The problem is, at least in my opinion, either A, there's not enough MAs because that rotation seems to be barely able to manage itself at three out three days, that three, two, two, three rotation. When I got there as a ship guy, and I'm trying to figure out this rotation that my sailors are on, and all my DOC surveys are like they're all exhausted, they're all tired, they're on nights, they're getting called in, all these things, right? But then I find out every law enforcement agency like in the world does the same rotation, even civilian cops do the same thing, right? But the difference is they don't have all the extra crap to deal with, all the all the HR stuff like the Navy does, right?

Brian Ortega 1:36:34

All the training, yeah, yeah, all that stuff.

Gary Wise 1:36:37

I what I was a I I believe. This is what Gary Wise thinks. If I had my way to make CNIC a better place for everybody in the world, I would put installation security and force protection under Navy Expeditionary Combatant Command, NECC, right? And I'd give all the MAs to NECC because they already have a lot of the MAs from the Rivere Group or from the from the from the harbor from like the EOD groups or whatever it is. Because harbor security is the other challenge, right? We've got land-based security, we've got harbor security, but harbor security is like 100% military. There's no civilian supplementation there at all. Okay, give it all to the NECC commander, give all the MA's to that person, and then make that person reportable to the installation commander for force protection instead of some freaking M A L D O who those guys are typically. I've met a few good ones, but I've met some other ones that were just freaking pistols, bro. They were just you couldn't tell them nothing because they just they were very, very, very locked in on what they thought was the only way to do things. Or they need to, I mean, there's just not enough MA's.

Brian Ortega 1:37:55

And if you look at you know, do you know an LDO that's not?

Gary Wise 1:37:59

Yeah, that's true.

Brian Ortega 1:38:01

That's true. You know, God bless them.

Gary Wise 1:38:06

You know, that's I appreciate and that's their world, right? I was just visiting. I'm a surface sailor that's coming through. They're they've been doing installation security the majority of their career, right? Like, because if you join the Navy after 2002, 2003, and you've made LDO in 10 years or whatever, you might have never even seen a real ship. You might have just done base security your whole time as an MA because that can count for them as C and overseas or whatever that is.

Brian Ortega 1:38:36

You you got you go to Guam, you go to you know, you go to Bahrain, you know, you go to you know any numerous places. You know, I'm I'm only familiar with you know with you know West Coast and West Pac and you know that type of thing.

Gary Wise 1:38:48

So but I remember being on Guam and talking to the CRG CMC, Coastal Riverine Group, right? And he had a ton of MAs, but they wanted nothing to do with force protection because they were at CRG right now, right? Like put them all together and split all the missions because they had really good ships that were like these Mark 7 ships that were really good ships, they could be out there doing harbor security. Me and Captain Grimes would be in there talking about it. We'd be so frustrated. Like, damn it, Master Chief, how come I can't get those in May? You know, because because in his mind, he's a war fighter, right? He's like, that's not it's over. What do you think about that, man? Because I think that's the Navy has a fourth text problem.

Brian Ortega 1:39:33

So this this conversation has happened. Um it was happening when I was even before base CMC and during my base CMC job, right? So I'm sure it's still happening. And and I think the problem lies is is what you know your primary your primary war fighting responsibility is, right? And I think the argument for for the expeditionary force to take that would almost be like one. A of their primary responsibility, right? Or or or even their top responsibility, depending on you know what what threat is out there. Because you're gonna know the expeditionary force was was kind of like you know Brown Navy stuff, right? That's why we got LCS. You know, God forbid we didn't talk about that thing, you know, this this you know, but you know, but I would tell some stories. You know, tons of stories, right? Yeah, and you know, but you know, I I actually got a chance in my Port Royal deployment to ride up the Kaa on a Iraqi patrol boat. Um and so we went into Iraq uh on our Iraqi patrol boat, you know, and and and went up there for a day or two, uh almost yeah, two days, uh, to you know, to to go, you know, to check out what we were doing because our mission was um training the Iraqi security force, right? That was the mission, um, training the Iraqi Security Force. Uh and we did it as a ship and as a coalition uh hands-on uh to train them to defend their oil platforms, yeah. Which was a mess. That's a whole that's a whole other topic. I uh I don't know, it's my my last deployment, 2007. That was more when it blew up.

Gary Wise 1:41:17

When chaos blew up, I was oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Ortega 1:41:19

That so that was that was uh yeah, that was before. Yeah, so um I'll tell you there's the I mean that's that's an interesting, you know, the the uh inherent resolve was the mission, right? Uh inherent resolve was a mission to to to train the Iraqi security force to to turn it back over to them. But it was never gonna work. It never did, because they have, you know, they have different priorities, different life sets. They don't care about, you know, protecting something, you know, protecting land. You know, they want, you know, the we used to go over to oil platforms daily, right? I was we were over there. Um in my first day, we had flew, we specifically flew a month and a half before we went ahead of the ship uh to learn the mission, me and uh the office boss. Uh and you know, our first morning we wake up after you know our long travel and flying the you know the the bird down of the ship. We were on a uh uh we were on a British ship. Um and we we show up, the guy says, All right, here's your here's your nine millimeter. And I say, Oh, okay. Here's you know, here's your clips, blah, blah, blah. And here's he goes, he goes, Oh, I see you got an American flat jacket. I said, Yep. He goes, Take, take this one, it's better. And I said, Sounds good. He goes, he goes, by the way, we're just going out to oil platforms, right? He goes, yeah. He goes, uh, so can you explain explain why? He goes, well, we don't know which way these guys are gonna shoot their guns when we're doing these drills. I said, he goes, the Iraqis. He goes, the Iraqis, we're doing drills. We're they're they're they're firing freaking guns off this platform. We're doing training with them. And we don't know which way is sometimes if they turn around and start shooting, you know, we don't know. So better you wear, you know, you wear a flat jacket, maybe save you lives than you got a gun in case you got to shoot one, you know. And you know, that was my first day on this deployment. I was like, oh yeah, let's go.

Gary Wise 1:43:26

No, I yeah, I I hear what you say when it comes to the warfighting mission, man. I just think that you know the other people I would like to see installation security? The Marines, right? Uh the United States Marine Corps used to have, or they used to do installation force protection and security, right? And I just don't think the United States Navy is meant to have an army, right? And the MA, when I look at these sailors that are struggling in the fleet, when I talk to people, a lot of them are shore-based MAs. Or they're unfortunately, they're the ones in those high-level high security positions that are working with Marines, protecting things. And those are also very stressful long years of your life that are going to be down a hole, right? And I just feel like if they could do anything to make the Navy better, again, who do I? I just I don't get a vote. I'm just saying, as a guy who tried to make it work on an installation, my MAs were just they were trying to make it work. And it was it was tough math, man. There just wasn't enough of them, you know.

Guam, COVID, And Hard Choices

Brian Ortega 1:44:34

I think that's the problem, is there wasn't enough of them, you know, because you know, they're all in rotation, right? You know, a lot of the day offs, yeah. But on the day offs, we're doing the you know, whatever CBT we got, you know, whatever CBT the CMC is jamming down their throat. They're gonna do a cap's call on Friday, you know, and then next Thursday we're gonna have a CMC call, you know.

Gary Wise 1:45:01

Yeah, I you know what I would never I wouldn't do it, man. I would I would I would purpose just not do it. Then I'd get in trouble and they'd say, Well, CMC doesn't love us because he doesn't ever see us, and you're like, and then Mick Pond's coming next week, you know, and and you know, and then guess what?

Brian Ortega 1:45:18

A week after CNL's coming, and then a week after that, Pack Fleet's coming, you know.

Gary Wise 1:45:23

We do it to ourselves.

Brian Ortega 1:45:27

We do it to ourselves.

Gary Wise 1:45:29

All right, here we go, bro. We're gonna wrap this thing up here. I'm gonna ask you some questions and just go ahead and hit me with your answers, okay?

Brian Ortega 1:45:37

All right, all right.

Gary Wise 1:45:39

Do you remember when you had your like, oh my gosh, I'm in the navy moment? Like, what was your welcome to the navy? Like, I'm really in the freaking navy now, bro. Like, wow.

Brian Ortega 1:45:51

Probably the first first day on the ship. Okay, you know, first day on the ship. Yeah, first day.

Gary Wise 1:45:57

Going going down that extra long hallway for you know what that happens to so many people though, that you learn that one way, and that's your safety net.

Brian Ortega 1:46:05

That's it, man.

Gary Wise 1:46:06

That's your e-grass route.

Brian Ortega 1:46:08

That's it.

Gary Wise 1:46:09

That's it. All right. Um, what do you see as being one of the biggest leadership challenges in the world today?

Brian Ortega 1:46:23

I'd say uh probably the fortitude or or um the execution to do something uh and fail. Right. Um to me, I mean, uh if if if you're avoiding stuff not to fail, or you know, you're trying to, you know, you whatever reason, I think I think failure is okay uh as long as it's um it's mitigated by by leadership, you know.

Gary Wise 1:46:53

So people being afraid to take the chance because they might fail.

Brian Ortega 1:46:57

That's it, man. So but but I mean, but leadership's got to be involved too a little bit, right? I mean, obviously there's you know, there's some my navy term, right? There's some ORM to be done, right? I mean, there's certain things you don't want to fail in, right? When lives are in, you know, lives are at stake, you know, you you know, but but it's okay to fail at some things that that that aren't as important.

Gary Wise 1:47:17

Yeah, got it for sure. Uh how can parents best leverage leadership skills while raising, especially teenagers? You know, I've got a lot of kids I work with that are teenagers that actually they listen to the show, they enjoy the conversations because they I think they like the fact that I'm the same person with you guys as I am with them, right? It doesn't change. And then of course their parents also pay attention and listen. And I think people are always trying to worry about how to best raise their kids. I think leadership has a seat at that table. You've raised adult children now. What do you think about that?

Brian Ortega 1:47:55

So one of the first things that I I still tell them to this day, but is is you know, never be a victim. You know, um, you're in control uh of your destiny, or at least you're in control of of how you how you try to get there. You know, you know, don't don't be one that says, oh, I can't get there because I'm a female, oh I can't get there because I'm Mexican, oh I can't get there because I'm white, oh I can't get there because I'm X color, right? Or, you know, I mean you you know, I mean, I I I I love the Navy because it gave me opportunity, regardless of who I was, where I came from, you know, how I spoke, you know, up to a certain point, right? I mean, the higher you get, you got to be able to talk sometimes, right? But uh, you know, they they just want, you know, the as a leader in the Navy, I I didn't see color, I didn't see sex. Are you able to execute and do the job? And are you trainable to do that job? Right. Because you might not be as um fluent or as you know skilled as somebody else right now, but we can get you there, but are you able to get there? You know, but um to me, victimhood right now in our society is pretty high at probably the highest level I've ever seen it. And I've always told both of my kids, right, you know, don't play those cards. You know, you're not gonna play them at home, we're not gonna play them anywhere. Um, you know.

Gary Wise 1:49:28

No, I tell I tell the students, I want the same thing I told the sailors, which is you can't always control what someone else is gonna do, but you can't control how you respond, right? And if you respond out of character or out of a manner that you're proud of, that's no one's fault but yourself, you know, and you gotta and you gotta own that. So I think you're spot on, brother. Okay, here's one for you. What's a piece of advice you would give to somebody who's struggling within an organization? You know, it's that chief that feels like they didn't get the eval they thought they were gonna get, or it's this, you know, this young professional who feels like they're they're they're not getting the opportunities that they thought they were gonna get after college, you know. What would you give them as advice for that handling that struggle?

Brian Ortega 1:50:17

First thing I do is tell them to look in the mirror, you know, um, and and and do an honest assessment of of what really is what what's real. Right. A lot of times, you know people perceive being wronged, right? This is victimhood I'm talking about. Um unfortunately, there's bad leaders out there though, too. And there's you know, bad supervisors that, you know, that that that aren't doing right things for their you know, you know, their their peer and their you know their subordinates and able to to excel, right? But I I'd say that one, you got to first look at look in the mirror and and and take muster of basically what's what, right? What are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, what I have to do, what you know, and then have that conversation with people, that person, right, or people that can make a difference or are holding you back, which you perceive, right? And hopefully that person has an honest conversation. Sometimes you don't get those honest conversations, you know, you and that's in every organization, whether it be the military or civilian, things life is not fair, Gary. You know that. You know, you you got to make the best out of what you got going, you know. And if somehow, you know, it's detrimental to you as a person, then maybe you, you know, maybe you need to seek other opportunities, maybe.

Gary Wise 1:51:37

Yep. Facts. Good stuff, brother. Uh how can veterans best leverage their experience when they transition into the civilian world?

Brian Ortega 1:51:47

Oh my goodness. You know, I I used to, I used to go, I used to help out some folks doing resumes and things like that. Um, you know, unfortunately, you know, I I don't want to say I stopped doing it, but less people seem to be more interested in it or not, which is it's unfortunate. I think it's unfortunate. I mean, today I I've gone through over 150 resumes because I'm trying to hire some folks, right? And my HR hat, right? So I see, I see what's what, and I see, you know, you know, how people stand out and how people, you know, it's it's evil writing, right? It's that's all it is. How do you get selected for chief? How do you select for senior chief master chief? You know, you you you've gotta you've gotta leverage those places sometimes, or leverage people um that that have gone through it or or you know, have looked at a lot of resumes or a lot of opportunities to get to places, right? Um to me, that's that's kind of what I what I would say.

Force Protection: MA Manning And Missions

Gary Wise 1:52:50

That's I mean, the years of experience they got is value added, you know. And I'll tell you, being on this side of the transition from retirement, I uh I'm very good. I love what I did in the Navy. I'm glad I did I did my 25 years, but I'm also glad that I retired, I transitioned what I did because it's nice to have that pressure of that impending transition no longer in the way and being able to focus on the life after. You know, do you think that the Navy should retire us, or that the armed forces should retire us at that 30-year mark, bro, if you're physically fit and capable to do the job? Because I think they would have got a lot of us to stay a lot longer if they didn't just say you have to go to pasture at 49 years old or whatever.

Brian Ortega 1:53:35

Um, I think that there should be an avenue, right? And and I like the fact that um and and I don't know what the new guidelines are, right, as far as when, you know, when you can leave or what I just know, you know, that you know, what I was, right, at 30, you had to get a flag job, right? Um I think there's some opportunities for some folks. And especially since um, well, when I was when I was in uh the percentage of of people applying and being selected for CMC was considerably down. It was down almost 60%. I don't know what the numbers are now, uh, but it was down. Um and it's because you know the the job is hard. Uh, and if you fail at the job, um you're most likely, you know, packing it up.

Gary Wise 1:54:26

Yeah. You know, you know, the pay is garbage. The pay is garbage, bro. Let's be honest. Absolutely. The pay is garbage, bro. The department heads get a hundred thousand dollar sign-on bonus, and we go into the program for a freaking measly little SDIP, whatever you want to call it, and we're always in, we always have this cell phone. You know what I'm saying? It's garbage. But again, that's really do you really respect that talent or not? Because let's let's be honest, the way you show you respect your talent is by how you pay them or compensate them for taking on that level of risk. People that go on the command aastry program, unfortunately, the command senior program. While I I I applaud the idea, I don't know. Uh we're we were retired now, right? But I've got my opinions for sure.

Brian Ortega 1:55:16

No, no, I agree. I agree. I agree. Like, you know, out here in the splitting world, I you know, we've we've got to pay the guys that are that that are the guys we need, right? Yeah. Uh retraining, rehiring people, it's it's it's not a good it's not a good position to to to fight anything, right? Yeah, you know, so yeah, I I I've always thought that the stress level of CMCs, uh particularly the great, you know, those those that are you know on on ships or aircraft or or and debts or anything that's deployable, right? Um is very stressful.

Gary Wise 1:55:53

And and I would put it across all the branches, right? Whether you're Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, doesn't matter. I and I understand the whole retirement thing, but I think that those they should be giving them sign-on bonuses that are significant, at least to come into the program, uh, you know, period. But but they don't, whatever. All right, here we go. It is Friday night or Saturday night. We're on the ship, bro. Are you looking forward to the pizza or the wings?

Brian Ortega 1:56:24

Oh, the wings.

Gary Wise 1:56:27

All right. I need somebody in the birthing, or I need somebody in the working party. Which one do you want?

Brian Ortega 1:56:32

Oh my goodness, it depends. It depends. If it was if it was seamen ortega, it'd be the birthing. You know, if it was CMC or Tega, I'd be the working party because you know what? I've I've I've been known to get on a working party as CMC and as team chief, and and and and tugging those lines for unreps.

Gary Wise 1:56:50

Yeah, 100%, man. No, I get I respond and I respect both places, man. The birthing needs to be clean too. That's just how it needs to be. All right, we're gonna watch a movie in the mess. Would you rather watch the Niro or Pacino?

Brian Ortega 1:57:10

Pacino.

Gary Wise 1:57:11

Pacino, okay. And looking back on your career, I think I know the answer to this. What was your favorite duty station? Looking back on your career, what was your favorite Liberty court?

Brian Ortega 1:57:31

Good question. Maybe Thailand, Philippines?

Gary Wise 1:57:41

Those are both great choices.

Brian Ortega 1:57:43

Yeah.

Gary Wise 1:57:44

All right. Looking back on your career, what was the hardest qualification you ever had to earn?

Brian Ortega 1:57:50

Probably TAO. Or maybe CDO. CDO.

Gary Wise 1:57:56

Okay. How about if you have the chance to give somebody advice, would you recommend they go overseas or stateside?

Brian Ortega 1:58:06

Go to a hard job.

Gary Wise 1:58:08

Go to a hard job, check.

Brian Ortega 1:58:09

Now you might miss anything. Yeah. And for the Navy, for us guys, it'd be something great.

Gary Wise 1:58:13

Yeah. Yep. Go to a USS, baby. Um, do you have a favorite movie series?

Brian Ortega 1:58:20

Ooh. Yeah, I think I do. I'm gonna go with Stranger Things.

Gary Wise 1:58:34

That's a great, I love that show. I I wish they they've had they've taken a long break though. Okay, I like strange. I love the nostalgia of it too. That's a great TV series.

Brian Ortega 1:58:42

Yeah, it's the 80s, man. That's my as my book. That's my line.

Gary Wise 1:58:45

I love it. I love it for sure. Um okay, would you rather be independent or on a team?

Brian Ortega 1:58:52

Team.

Gary Wise 1:58:53

Okay. Do you have a personal leadership philosophy?

Brian Ortega 1:58:59

I do, I do. It's it's it's pretty basic and it's you know, you know, how big or how hard is your givea shit after?

Gary Wise 1:59:13

That's it. Keep it simple, bro. All right. So in the Navy Chiefs mess, we have deck plate leadership, institutional technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, or sense of heritage. Uh those were our guiding principles there. Which one of those is your favorite?

Brian Ortega 1:59:39

I don't know if any of them was my favorite, tell you the truth. I mean, maybe dead plate leadership, you know. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you get a lead, right?

Gary Wise 1:59:49

Yeah. So I I I've that's my favorite as well, but I but I appreciate the answer for sure. All right, brother, would you rather lead or follow?

Brian Ortega 1:59:58

No, definitely lead.

Gary Wise 2:00:01

Alright, man.

Brian Ortega 2:00:02

But I'm okay with following. I'm okay with following too, though.

Gary Wise 2:00:05

I get it. Alright, man. You got any save rounds or alibis?

Brian Ortega 2:00:09

No, no save rounds. Thanks for having me, though.

Gary Wise 2:00:13

Thank you for joining me, brother. I appreciate you. Taking your time, sharing your story. Hopefully, everybody enjoys it. If you listen to the sound of our voice, uh, like, subscribe, do other things. Thank you very much. Hey man, I appreciate you, bro.

Brian Ortega 2:00:27

It's good.

Gary Wise 2:00:28

And I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. Don't give it the critics my words and life physics of force that they can't stop. They just don't get it. I think they forget. I'm not done till I'm on top. I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe, I believe, we can run.