CAPT Cedric Pringle: Well I feel I came from fairly humble beginnings growing up in South Carolina. I knew that I just wanted to build a career for myself as well as increasing my own personal education. And I feel that I have done that. [ background voices ] Being second in command of a ship of this class and size is just phenomenal. We have about a thousand people on aboard a little bit more than that that are all dedicated Navy Sailors and a few Marine Corps members. And they're all dedicated to operational excellence and making this ship the absoulte best that it can be. It's extremely important that this ship runs like a finely tuned machine. [ background voices ] Drills are extremely important. The primary drill that we've been running this week is a main space fire drill. [ background voices ] Should we have a main space fire where we have our propulsion system and all of our diesel fuels that are all highly combustable our damage control team would be ready to respond. [ background voices ] As their executive officer and second in command of this ship, I am completely responsible for their welfare as well as their own personal and professional development and given them tools to succeed. We can't make anyone successful but we can certainly create the path for them to do so. LT Jevon Jackson: I was a little bit outside the norm, I took things apart. Tried to take my brothers car apart when he didn't ask me to, just to try figure out and see what things was happening. I love working with my hands. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer and stick behind the books. She just wanted me to do something better with my life 'cause I was heading in the wrong direction. I was rebellious. I just wanted to be function, to be out there and not trapped. And experience things. I love working with my hands. I love instructing people to work with their hands and learn the stuff that I've learned. So it makes it easier for them, for the mistakes and stuff that I've done. Right here, this is showing our fire pump status. We got sixteen fire pumps online saying hey, seven and five are tagged out, fourteen and sixteen are online. In the military, if you apply yourself and you're there and you have the right spirit, and everybody wants to be around you. They want to help you succeed and you want to push forward. My first commission I went to Japan on the USS Juno. I saw the military from a different aspect. As for being in engineering, your down there, you make sure the ship gets through the water but. With the ship you need every department to get along, to move, to make it functional to support missions assigned. But as engineering, we are the back bone to ensure that these missions are completed. After my commission, I understood, that we are collective force and it just became amazing to me that I'm a part of this big environment and I'm allowed to apply myself. [ background voices ] CAPT Cedric Pringle: Interacting with all of the people onboard is very rewarding simply because we have folks from all different walks of life, all different ages, and it's easy for us all to get along when we have a pretty common goal. There are people who are tasked to do different things and everyone has a role onboard, but we all come together for a common vision. LT Jennifer McNab: Well we're a casualty receiving treatment ship. So, we - are capabilities onboard are actually just secondary to the hospital ships, which are the Comfort and the Mercy. So we have six OR's, we've got a fleet surgical team that comes onboard when we deploy, and they can do surgeries if need be. It's a medical and an officer onboard the ship. I'm responsible for 23 hospital corpsman and I also am responsible to the senior medical officer who is the doc on the ship. What it takes to be a good leader is just taking care of your people. I think that's the biggest thing is just taking care of your people and they'll take care of you. And I think just being a female too, a female leader, I have a lot of my junior corpsman, you know, I call them my kids too, that come up to me and tell me about issues they are having and things like that. I think because I am a female and because I am a mom they feel they can relate to me and they tell me some of the personal things that are happening in their lives. I don't know if they necessarily be comfortable telling a male. Sometimes you just gotta let them take care of their situations and their personal issues because they can't really function at work if you don't. There are some challenges that women face because of the dual hats that we wear as we're working and, ya know, some of us are moms, and that in and of itself is really a challenge. But the only thing that's limiting is if you really limit yourself. I don't really limit myself. I say "Hey, you know, I can do that too". Or "Why can't I do that". [ background voices ] For the most part, there's really no glass ceilings in the military. The only limits are the ones you place on yourself. [ background voices ] CAPT Cedric Pringle: The feeling of getting away from the pier and taking in all lines and getting the ship underway is very liberating. And as you head west into the sunset and just see the wonders that have been made out there, it's really something that's invigorating to me. Most Sailors just truly like going to sea, just the peacefulness of being out there. Just the freedom of being at sea is quite liberating. I don't have any idea how much farther the path will go, but I'm willing to walk it as long as it's there. I'm Lieutenant Jevon Jackson, Surface Warfare Officer, USS Makin Island. I'm Lieutenant Jennifer McNab, and I'm the Medical Division Officer onboard USS Makin Island. I'm Captain Cedric Pringle, Executive Officer, USS Makin Island.
