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2nd Fleet gets new commander

NORFOLK, Va. — Vice Adm. Mel Williams Jr. took command of 2nd Fleet on Friday, as Vice Adm. Marty “Streak” Chanik retired after a 35-year Navy career.

Williams, a submariner, comes to the assignment from Fleet Forces where he was deputy commander.

“I was raised by a master chief, so I’m grounded,” Williams said after the ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. “I’m a leader who comes to the job who cares dearly for sailors.”

Williams said his three priorities will be “fleet operations to achieve mission,” “providing ready maritime forces for global assignment,” and “teaming with allies and partners in execution of the maritime strategy.”

The U.S. 2nd Fleet oversees training of Atlantic-based forces and is operationally responsible for naval defense of the East Coast. It recently concluded a major pre-deployment fleet training exercise for the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and Iwo Jima expeditionary strike group.

Calling Chanik “one of the Navy’s finest ever aviators,” Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the Pacific Fleet, told of his Naval Academy classmate’s aversion to socks, how he made a harpsichord for his wife and his award-studded career.

“He claimed he stayed in because he thought it was fun,” Willard said, noting that Chanik was so humble his family “wasn’t sure how successful he really was,” until he got command of the aircraft carrier Enterprise.

Chanik flew the F-14 Tomcat, was an instructor at Top Gun twice and a test pilot, accumulating 4,800 flight hours and 850 traps. His first command was VF-84, the Jolly Rogers, and many of his former squadron mates attended the ceremony.

He also commanded the fast combatant support ship Camden, the aircraft carrier Enterprise and the Carl Vinson Battle Group.

“It has been a blast,” he said.

Asked about his post-Navy plans, he said he and his wife intend to first just “relax.”

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, also spoke. A submariner, he teased the fighter pilot Chanik about his callsign, “Streak.” Greenert said he asked around and found out the nickname is either derived from his fast flying and driving style, a light discoloration in Chanik’s formerly dark hair, or an unsubstantiated tale that as a young aviator he once ran naked to the officers’ club at Miramar Naval Air Station.