On September 16 , 2013 , gunman Aaron Alexis entered the Washington Navy Yard and killed 13 people and injured 14 . Alexis was a 34-year-old military contractor . A Pentagon internal investigation found that the shootings could have been prevented with stricter oversight of security clearances and increased security at the Navy Yard facility . A ceremony was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the Navy Yard massacre , honoring those who were killed and injured . Mabus stated , " We know that their lives are defined not by how they died , but by how they lived and what they lived for , and will be remembered for that always . " After a January 2015 report by the Defense Business Board and McKinsey & Company discovered DoD was spending $ 134 billion , 23 % of its total budget , on back-office work , and that the back-office bureaucracy staff of over one million people was nearly as great as the number of active troops , the Board recommended a plan to cut $ 125 billion in waste over five years . However , when Ash Carter became Defense Secretary the next month , he replaced the Board chairman , the McKinsey results were classified as secret , and its report was removed from public websites . Mabus then gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute highlighting the McKinsey report , calling the back-office costs " pure overhead " and particularly criticizing the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Defense Logistics Agency . Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition , Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall III then wrote to him asking " please refrain from taking any more public pot shots " and " I do not want this spilling over into further public discourse . " On January 1 , 2016 , Mabus ordered the United States Marine Corps to devise a plan on co-integration of male and female recruits in basic training , giving top brass a two-week planning period , along with requesting a subject matter expert , to report the best method of said plan
killed 13 people and injured 14
Washington Navy Yard shooting
Ray Mabus