'Together, we can make a difference'
I understand you were here when you were very young. Is this your first visit since then?
No, I was here in the mid 1990s, but at that time I was a staff officer and I don't think I took my head up from my pen and paper during the entire time I was here. But yesterday afternoon I had the very pleasant and very special experience of being able to go out and visit my boyhood home in Trombay.
So your father worked with Esso?
Yes, at the time it was the Standard Vacuum Oil Company and he was one of the group that built the refinery out there. We then stayed here for two-and-a-half years. My memories are very fragmented, but all extraordinarily pleasant. But yesterday a lot of memories came rushing right back. I never expected to be able to go back.
What were the memories like?
Yesterday? Just recalling a very young boy doing things in and around the house that I lived in, the swimming pool that was there and many other features. But just going in and seeing the house where I was running around and probably getting into trouble, it was very special.
Who did you meet in New Delhi this time?
I had the opportunity to meet (Chief of the Naval Staff)) Admiral (Arun) Prakash, and although one of the press reports indicated that I met with the defence minister, I did not, I met the defence secretary. I also met the chief of the air force, and then had some press availability while I was there.
What kind of discussions took place? Were they preliminary in nature?
I wouldn't call them preliminary because Admiral Prakash and I have met on a couple of other occasions, we have attended some symposia together, as chiefs.
What we were able to do in general terms is to talk about and reaffirm our commitment to the importance of maritime domain environments, maritime security, the role that our navies can play in working together to ensure the free flow of shipping on the world's oceans. To address and again reaffirm the need to improve the inter-operability and exchange of information, and a commitment to work together to do that. We did not sit down to discuss a specific agenda, it's all part of the wonderful relations that our two navies have. And most importantly, the opportunities that are ahead of us.
For example?
To get beyond examples, we have a hospital ship deployed for five months in Southeast Asia. A few weeks ago, I talked to Admiral Prakash on the phone, and then penned a letter to tell him about this.
And we are now very very pleased and grateful that there's a team of Indian military medicine now aboard that hospital ship working with our medical professionals, working with NGOs, bringing much needed medical care and health care to the people of the southern Philippines.
The desire on the part of the Indian military medicine team to continue to the other ports that we are visiting, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor, that's not an exercise.
But that's a capability we have, that together we can make a significant difference in many peoples' lives in the region. These are just several types of initiatives that go beyond the exercise level, that allow us to join together and do good things from the sea. A series of opportunities like that and two professional navies can make a difference.
Image: The guided missile destroyer USS Higgins and the Indian aircraft carrier INS Viraat in the Indian Ocean as part of exercise Malabar 2005.
Also see: US-Pak Navy exercise begins
Photographs: US Navy/Mate 1st Class Shane T McCoy