Do you remember the hollow military that Carter left us with?
I remember it. In 1979 we had 533 in commission. in 2007 we had 279 and now we have 283. I'm by no means a fan of Jimmy Carter but I was active duty Navy all but the last three months of his term. The Navy was in better shape in many ways than it was when he took office. I credit much of it to the Secretary of The Navy and an ending of some of Rummy's bad ideas which contributed to it.
Just listen a second to why I say this. I enlisted under Ford's final months and got to my ship in February 1977. Things weren't that great. Desertion was real high. If you wanted out all you had to do was go AWOL or U.A. as the Navy called it for 31 days and turn yourself in at another command for processing out under a less than Honorable Discharge. I know many who did just that including a few high school classmates. That policy stopped under Carter as it undermined morale and discipline. Rummy was considering using that policy again as Sec of Def under W.
In some fairness to the man Carter was left a huge mess and I'm speaking Navy wise on this. Someone finally smartened up and realized if you wanted sailors to act like sailors then treat them as such. First thing after ending walk away discharge came restoration of Naval tradition. By 1979 Bosun Pipes were heard loud and clear on all ships. Next came uniform recognition. The dress blues I received out of Basic looked like a Naval Officers uniform minus the gold. This was changed back to the traditional Cracker Jack uniform. Next came retention issues. I was a Machinist Mate and was offered over $15K to reenlist plus E-5 {my next rank} in 1980. Things got bad but things also got better.
By late 1982 when the recession hit I considered going back in as jobs were not to be found in my area. I went and talked to a recruiter. The billets were full. Why? Because Reagan made wise use of the recession :>}. Reagan took our Navy to an all time high in readiness.
Our military readiness level of today is far below that of when Carter was in office and has been there since about 1996 as far as active duty and reserves manpower goes. I will say this as well. As bad as things got under Carter our carriers were able to get underway and we did not flunk critical operational readiness inspections or not qualify for deployment. The ones inspecting back then were tough old salts. You had to know you job and you equipment had to be operational. Failure was not allowed. Those aren't just my words of "Failure was not allowed" but those of my uncle who was a retired Gator Freighter Captain. We talked about two carriers undeployable after 9/11 and he said to me "How can they fail INSURV and Light OFFs? They Navy won't let you fail them". That was from an old WW2 enlisted rank sailor who made it up to Commander before a mid 1970's retirement.