Obviously you have in front of you retired naval officers of a few years back, but we're here representing our respective associations and, unfortunately, while we have anecdotal information about the state of personnel and recruiting in the military and in the navy, we're really not well equipped this morning to speak specifically to those issues. Those would be questions better suited for the navy and the Armed Forces.
Having said all of that, if you wish to recruit and retain highly qualified, highly motivated human resources for any endeavour in life, one key consideration of people for joining and staying with an organization is their sense of purpose, their sense of worth, the sense that their public service and duty is recognized and appreciated. One of the ways by which individuals glean whether or not their service is appreciated is whether they get a sense that the leadership of the organization has a clear vision for the future and backs that vision up with an allocation of resources that is reasonable, but which is steady and doesn't change every four to eight years.
