John Ford

Overnight, U.S. forces carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel MT DAVINA located in the Indian Ocean within the INDOPACOM area of responsibility. We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate. International waters cannot be used as a shield by sanctioned actors. The Department of War will continue to deny illicit act ors and their vessels freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.

Around this time in 1942 Hiryu's fires cannot get under control, destroyers assisting in damage control are unable to render effective assistance and the decision is made to abandon ship.

With Afghanistan still fresh in the nation’s memory and D-Day upon us again, I’ve been thinking about a piece of paper that weighs more than most leadership books ever written. On this day in 1944, the night before the largest amphibious invasion in human history, Eisenhower sat staring into uncertainty. The weather was bad. His intelligence was incomplete. Thousands of ships were moving. Tens of thousands of men were preparing to climb down cargo nets into a black and angry sea. If the invasion failed, history itself would have bent in a different direction. So Eisenhower wrote a little known note. Not because he expected failure, but because he understood command. In a few short lines he accepted responsibility for a catastrophe that had not yet happened. No caveats or qualifiers. No carefully crafted language designed to spread blame across a dozen desks. If the operation failed, it was his fault. That was it. That was the entire note. What strikes me is not the courage required to launch D-Day. Everybody understands that part. What strikes me is how completely alien that level of accountability feels today. Somewhere along the way we built a culture where authority became a right and responsibility became optional. Everybody wants the title, the influence, the prestige. The moment things go wrong, however, the hunt begins for circumstances, systems, misunderstandings, subordinates, budgets, politics, weather, timing, or anyone else willing to stand still long enough to absorb the impact. Eisenhower understood that command is not a reward, but a burden. The rank exists because somebody must stand at the end of the line and say, “This belongs to me.” That little note may be one of the most important leadership documents ever written because it captured a truth that every generation eventually has to relearn: the higher you climb, the fewer excuses you are allowed to make. The men who landed on those beaches carried rifles. Eisenhower carried all of them.

The search for our ship's Unlikely Ally continues (The Sweet Sixteen)! Choose -