YOKOSUKA, Japan - Vice Adm. Scott H. Swift, commander, U.S. 7th Fleet, convened a behavior leadership summit with his task force commanders, chiefs of staff, and senior enlisted advisors in Yokosuka, Japan on Dec. 1 as part of an ongoing fleet-wide process to focus on how to minimize personal destructive behavior and misconduct that negatively effects mission readiness and individual careers.

Originally scheduled for Dec. 8, this summit was accelerated due to a series of liberty and personal misconduct incidents that occurred in Japan over the last several weeks. U.S. Naval leadership from headquarters located in Japan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea were involved in the summit which reviewed the broad range of personal destructive behaviors and liberty incidents that while effects only a small minority of Sailors still is a critical leadership issue to work to improve through a sustained all hands effort.

"We are not shying away from the challenge of reinforcing our traditional cultural focus which is our core values: honor, courage and commitment," Swift said during the summit. "This is about our self-honor; this is about our courage to step up and take this challenge on, and our commitment to follow through on it. The fact is Sailors are not the problem, they're the solution."

One of the goals of the summit was to be able to clearly define the problem set in order to discover the root causes and most appropriate and effective policies, programs, and training to address the root causes of those few individual Sailors who have not followed the Navy's very high standards both on and off duty.

"Most Sailors are outstanding and work hard to make the communities where they live and work a better place, but they are being defined by the misconduct of just a few Sailors," said U.S. 7th Fleet Command Master Chief Tyler Schoeppey. "This effort is intended to immediately reduce the incidents while getting everyone involved in the solution."

Key findings from the summit include:

• Exemplar behavior and conduct have been and remain part of the Navy's core values that have served the Navy so well in the past and will continue to serve well into the future.
• The overwhelming vast majority of Sailors conduct themselves in accordance with those values and the misconduct of a few Sailors must not define the overwhelming majority of Sailors that live by those standards.
• The Sailors of 7th Fleet are up to the challenge of improving their already low incident rate.
• Sailors on every level of the chain of command will be part of the solution from leadership down to the individual work centers focused on this important readiness issue.

The outcome from this summit will be used to formulate future polices, programs, and training on personal destructive behavior and how the fleet will meet the expected standards to maintain maximum mission readiness.

While the specific recommendations that were developed as part of the summit are reviewed, additional, temporary measures will remain in place in addition to the U.S. Forces Japan curfew, an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. liberty curfew for all U.S. service members in Japan. These Navy specific additional measures include: the consumption of alcohol is prohibited from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. for all 7th Fleet assigned personnel in order to ensure all Sailors will be better able to meet the curfew requirements in Japan and all Sailors with any alcohol-related incidents within the last 3 years be placed on Class "C" liberty risk status which administratively curtails their ability to take liberty off of a U.S. installation.