 So what are your thoughts about the upcoming movie Captain Phillips? I'm very excited about the movie. I think it will show a human story for many different aspects. Captain Phillips' challenges throughout the time, the crew of the MERSC Alabama, and then also the teamwork and interoperability of our joint forces, especially my crew on board Bainbridge along with the Hallie Burton and the Boxer and Naval Special Warfare. So can you take us through kind of a timeline of what happened from your perspective? Sure, from my perspective, the thing about this story, this human story, is that there's many aspects of it in many views of the story. My story that I tell is my sea story from the perspective of the commanding officer of Bainbridge. There's multiple other stories that are out there, multiple other views of what happened. So it's very interesting to be able to bring it all together and I think that's what we're going to see with this movie, the different perspectives. For me, basically, we were a few weeks into our deployment to the fifth lead area of operation conducting maritime security operations and struggle against violent extremism in the Somali Basin and the Gulf of Aden. We were patrolling off the coast of Somalia on Tuesday the 7th of April. I was actually conducting a maintenance spot check with one of my ET-3s when my Tactical Action Officer called me up to notify me that he had received a call from Fifth Fleet that a U.S. merchant vessel, the MERSC Alabama, had been pirated. It was approximately 300 miles away from us and that we were ordered to make best speed available in order to intercept the MERSC Alabama. So I ended the spot check, told the ET-3 that I'd get back with them a little bit later and then went down in a combat and that's when my team started gathering intelligence and getting up the communications and everything else as we made our way at 30 knots towards the last known position of the Alabama. We were able to get on station really early in the morning on the 8th of April. Along our journey there, though, we had learned that the crew of the Alabama had heroically taken their ship back from the four Somali pirates that had hijacked it and pirated it. Unfortunately, in the process, Captain Richard Phillips, their master, had been taken hostage by the pirates. However, they did have the pirate leader on board, but then the exchange went wrong and now there were four pirates with Captain Phillips in the covered lifeboat off the stern. So as we proceeded to station, we were coordinating and communicating with higher headquarters along with actually talking to MERSC headquarters back in Norfolk to get some situational awareness from their perspective. And I actually was able to call the first mate and talk to him on the Alabama to find out what the situation was along with talking to the Chief Engineer. So it was very, very interesting. We had a little perspective of going in there on what situation we were getting into. So it was incredible. And from the internal perspective of my crew, just the focus, determination, and forthrightness of my crew was incredible. Just many examples. One of my officers, Lieutenant J. G. Jonathan Hughes, spent 16 hours on the bridge, driving Bainbridge and conducting blocking and tackling of the lifeboat to keep it from making any closer to a shore. My sailors out on the small caliber action team who were out there in the 110 degree sun with their full battle rattle on, monitoring what was going on in the lifeboat and providing that info back. My CSs, my culinary specialists who were ensuring that my crew, I had to order some of them to actually leave station and get some rest so they could be fresh again for the next day. My culinary specialists was going out feeding those guys. My deck division, my first Lieutenant and her chief and her deck seamen and petty osheres, sleeping on the midship's quarter deck so that they could in a moment's notice be able to launch boats and to support to the Special Operations Forces. It was a total team effort. I'm very proud of my crew to this day. So overall would you say the demeanor of the whole crew throughout the entire operation was, let's go get them? Yes, very focused, very patient, very determined and it was a total team effort. I mean from the lowest ranking person all the way up to the commanding officer. Very focused. I had a very cohesive crew that was focused on the mission and like I said I'm very proud of them. Can you actually tell us about how did you feel in the moment when you woke up and the Bainbridge is all over the news with Captain Phillips? How did that feel? It was pretty surreal. We actually cut back our communications off ship in terms of internet connectivity and everything else and we had a small limited number of folks who could access that. And I had no time to go to CNN or Fox or any of those websites to see what was going on. It was kind of only after the situation was resolved that we realized the worldwide media attention that had been paid to us and everything that was going on. It was pretty overwhelming and then just the feeling of you cannot ever prepare for a situation like that. You can train, you can conduct scenarios, you can what if, but in that moment you're going with it. Future sailors to know about this specific operation. Since it's actually now becoming a very important part of, like you said, how are I guess our Navy is viewed? One of the things that I stress to my officers, my Chief Petty officers and my sailors and to any future officers, Chief Petty officers and sailors is you don't know when your number is going to be called to step out and conduct the mission. We hadn't specifically trained for a hostage rescue at sea. It's not something that you typically do but you train for other missions on deployment and that training and that readiness and being forward ready to accomplish whatever mission is assigned to you. You have to take day to day whatever you do, whether that's cooking, cleaning, repairing your gear, leadership, et cetera, et cetera. That all builds a networked team that is ready to respond on a moment's notice when it's just like being on a sports team. You don't know when you're going to the Super Bowl or the World Series but when you get there you better be ready because the margins are very tight. So what's it like having your real life experience this whole thing happen? What's it like having Hollywood and a bunch of actors and people who maybe don't know as much about the situation but are learning about it and are portraying you and several of the other people who are involved in this? How does it feel? It's actually pretty neat, kind of interesting and everything else. I mean the Department of Defense and Department of the Navy has been working well with Hollywood and there's a traditional relationship that goes back years and years and years from World War II where we portrayed our gallant heroes from World War II all the way up to present day. And the interesting thing is I was interviewed for the film to provide some context. Additionally I had the opportunity to speak to the actor who was portraying me during the film and then during the two weeks of filming down in the Norfolk waterfront I had a few opportunities to go down and actually view some of the filming on board the USS Truxton which plays the Bainbridge in the movie. And I can tell you the Truxton sailors, they did an awesome job. I talked to the CEO, Captain John Ferguson and said if there was any other ship that I could have other than Bainbridge Truxton was it. They were very professional. And they really did a great job with the movie and I think we're going to see that. And it just shows you the quality and the talents of our sailors throughout the Navy. And the other interesting observation was just talking to the actors, the director, the producer and just the film crew, the crew members, the hairdressers, etc. It was both the crew of the Truxton and the film crew in general that included the actors, learned a lot from each other. And I think when all was said and done there were a lot of smiles and teamwork that occurred and I think we got a greater understanding of what the Hollywood industry does and I think they got a greater understanding of what the Navy does. And it was very much positive for both sides. Is there anything that you just want to add, maybe a message that you have for the actors that were in this movie, the people that produced this, maybe the people that aren't in the Navy anymore that were a part of this and maybe some of the people that are still involved? I think the biggest thing, some of the biggest takeaways about the whole situation in general is, and it goes to the CNO's, Sandling Directions, of war fighting first, operate forward and be ready. I think all three of those were seen in this incident. I shudder to think, if we project years from now, what could happen in the world if our Navy ships aren't out there on station being ready to keep the freedom of the seas? That is one of the biggest takeaways. And I think, you know, I've talked to Cap Richard Phillips since the incident. Typically, he and his wife contact me around Easter every year, which, you know, that's pretty special to all of us. But he just got back from being out at sea again. He took about a year off after the incident, but he's been at sea the last three years. And what motivates him? A person, a mariner that was attacked by pirates was held hostage for upwards of five days. And then he steps out again on U.S. flag merchant ships and goes and continues to do that. And I think that tells you that he knows that if something happens, the United States Navy will be there again. You're welcome. Oh, you do? Sure. Go ahead. Sorry about that. Sure. Correct. Sure. So we got the call, I mean, right. Oh, sure. We got the call to head towards the Alabama about 0900, 100 on Tuesday, the morning of September, excuse me, April 7th. Our transit, we arrived on station about 0100 on the morning of the 8th. And the lifeboat was just a stern of the Alabama about off its port quarter. Does that help? Yeah, so basically when you got to the Alabama, they were just... Yeah, what had happened was once they put the, so the lifeboat got in the water, and then the deal that the pirates were actually talking to Alabama about was that they wanted in the morning to re-board Alabama. So that way, and they would give back Captain Phillips that morning. But it was just another opportunity for them to retake the vessel. Because additionally, there were other pirate mother ships in the area that they were communicating with to have that pirate flotilla close on Alabama so that they could actually bring more forces to bear to recapture Alabama. So that was part of our mission. That was what I was confused about. I wasn't sure how long you were actually in contact with the lifeboat. It was all five of those days, and that's... Yeah, it was pretty... Once we got on station, the lifeboat was there. And Alabama and the lifeboat had stayed pretty much in the same area throughout the night. And then once we showed up on scene, we remained in the area throughout the morning of the 8th. And then I put a boarding team on board Alabama to bring her safely to Mombasa. Sure. You kind of touched on it a little bit, and it's certainly trained for this specific type of thing. But maybe you just touched on it a little bit how it kind of felt to actually have something other than a training mission to, you know, actual real life situation and what kind of went through your head right off the back and you thought it was right. Were you excited? Did you feel the crew was ever pumped up for this type of thing? Does that make sense? Yes, I understand. Okay. You... part of our Navy culture is we train, we train, we train, and then we go out and operate forward. My crew had gone through an extensive training phase prior to our deployment. And I had a focused team of professionals who were ready to respond to any task that was thrown their way. And they performed superbly. I... just my personnel remained focused. They did their job. They did it well. And they also provided different perspectives thinking outside the box on how we can tackle this situation that was unlike any that has occurred in the modern Navy. The last time a U.S. merchant vessel had been pirated was 200 years ago. The Navy were coming up on our 238th birthday, but the reason for it being around was thanks to Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates.