Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the Pacific Fleet, visited Guam for the first time since assuming command 2½ months ago.

Willard, whose previous assignments include commander of Carrier Group 5 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and commander of U.S. 7th Fleet, met with several hundred sailors Wednesday at U.S. Naval Base Guam.

The following is a summary of sailors’ questions and Willard’s answers:

In light of the coming transfer of 8,000 Marines to Guam, how do you feel about the island’s drinking age?

The drinking age is 18, and that is a challenge here in Guam. We don’t want people abusing alcohol. We don’t want people getting hurt. We don’t want people in conflict downtown. There are always issues that come with a young drinking age.

With the increase of troops on the island, will there be an increase in Morale, Welfare and Recreation investment and activities?

Yes, in fact, we toured where the new athletic facility is going to be here on base.

The CNO (chief of naval operations) is interested in increasing the outside activities available for our sailors and Marines and everybody else.

Will there be an increase in medical personnel and services facilities?

We already have a plan to completely upgrade the Navy hospital. Something like $250 million worth of improvements. What I’m being asked to promote is a further expansion of that, and it’s already being discussed back in Washington.

The Bureau of Medicine is a joint agency responsible for the laydown of medical and dental to service all of you, and they have no choice but to ensure that we have the capacity on the island to handle your needs.

There are some unique things about Guam. We don’t have Tricare providers out in town. We have a different Veterans Administration deal here in medicine. We have a different ability to do dentistry than we do elsewhere. We’ve got to reconcile that.

I was encouraging the experts here to think about more than one solution. The one solution is not necessarily to build the hospital twice as big, but that’s an option. Some other solutions include bringing private care agencies and things like that onto the island.

Has there been any talk of revamping the consecutive overseas tour program?

The rule is that two tours are almost automatically approved; that the third tour in the same region gets a hard look; the fourth tour is rarely approved; and the fifth tour even more rarely approved.

Your first sea tour and subsequent shore tour should be almost automatically approved.

But it’s more healthy for the Navy to alternate now and then. The policy is intended to make sure that we continually repopulate the forward-deployed Naval force with sailors with different perspectives.

With the growth of the military population here, is the mainland going to help with Guam’s infrastructure outside the bases?

Yes, probably. Is the money going to come from the military? Some of it, probably, because to the extent that it directly benefits the sailors and the Marines on the stations, it makes sense. Are we going to come in and build the government of Guam’s infrastructure for them? As a military, the answer is no. As Congress, the answer could be “at Congress’ discretion.”

All the decisions haven’t been made yet. But the intent is to service first our bases.

Then, to the extent that we can encourage Guam to build a power plant and then sell back some of that power to the Navy or the Army or to the Air Force, those become good investments on both sides.

We’re in that discussion with the government here now.

If I were to predict, I’d predict that you will see the bases improve quickly and pretty dramatically. And you’re going to see the infrastructure outside the bases improve, but improve more slowly.

When will our new Navy uniforms be implemented?

About a year from now we’re going to start issuing the new uniforms. Will you stay in what you’re wearing? No, it goes away, and we all go to BDUs. It’s intended to give you the ability to work in an environment where ordinarily these (current) uniforms wouldn’t hold up very well, but those uniforms will. They put a lot of science into it.

Should “Perform to Serve” live up to its name such that if you perform, you’re given the opportunity to continue serving as opposed to playing a numbers game?

We have to live up to the term “Perform to Serve.”

We’re going to say that if you perform to a certain level that you’re going to continue to be retained in the Navy. The more subtle issue here is in what rate and whether it’s “Perform to Serve” and we say “You’re performing and therefore you can serve, but you have to go start something new.”

I’ve read through these policies and the policy changes, and they’re being pretty carefully written to be as fair as they can be.

But the policies are being written to try to get the Navy just right and then to keep it just right over a lot of time.

When you see the management of it go wrong, I would encourage you to go to your supervisor and say so. The policies are fair and carefully crafted, but sometimes in management we may fall short of your expectations.

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