This is the staff college and Home of Thought for the United States Navy at Naval Station Newport, now in front of you. Established on October 6, 1884, the college began in the building that had housed the Newport Asylum for the Poor on Coasters Harbor Island in Narragansett Bay, and from that moment it set out to educate and develop leaders, support combat readiness, and strengthen global maritime partnerships. Its first president, Commodore Stephen B. Luce, assembled a tiny but formidable faculty: among the first four were Tasker H. Bliss, a future Army Chief of Staff; James R. Soley, the first civilian faculty member and a future Assistant Secretary of the Navy; and Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose strategic thinking would profoundly influence naval leaders.
Beginning in 1887 the college engaged in wargaming various scenarios, an early sign of its role in defining the future Navy and its missions. The Naval War College is one of the senior service colleges, alongside the Army War College, the Marine Corps War College, and the USAF Air War College; the U.S. Department of Defense also operates the National War College. Notice the building you face, the campus beyond it, and the sweep of Narragansett Bay.