The thing I saw the clearest was the lesson I learned on the lifeboat: we are stronger than we think we are. There were so many times during my ordeal that I was afraid that I didn’t have what it takes to get through the next five minutes. Especially during the mock executions. That ultimate fear, of watching yourself die, was so terrifying that I thought I would collapse into a jibbering mess. But I never did. It taught me that I could handle far more than I’d given myself credit for.
We all set our endurance levels low, out of fear we will fail. We think, So long as I have this job, or this house, or this partner, or this amount of money, I’ll be okay. But what happens when those things are taken away from you? And more—your freedom, your dignity, even things we take for granted, like your ability to use a bathroom? What happens when people try to take away even your life? You find that you are a larger and a stronger personality than you ever imagined you were. That your strength and your faith don’t depend on how secure you are. They’re independent of those things.
“You could do what I did,” I tell people. “You just haven’t had to yet.” And they always say, “Well, I don’t know about that.” I do. Believe me. Every time I doubted myself, I came through it. Every time something was stripped away from me, I found I didn’t really need it. We are stronger than we think.
And then, of course, there is the H word. “Hero.” When I got home and the media left and friends said their good-byes and drove back to their homes and lives and the Hollywood agents stopped calling, I had a chance to sit down and read the letters that people had sent me. Some were addressed to “Captain Phillips, Vermont.” I laughed about that, like I was Lindbergh or Abraham Lincoln—or Santa Claus at the North Pole! But I didn’t feel different. I was a regular guy. Truly an ordinary person. And now people were using the word that I’d reserved for people like Audie Murphy and Neil Armstrong.
“You’re my hero.” It brought tears to my eyes. But they weren’t tears of happiness. Honestly, I felt like an imposter, a phony. I didn’t do anything special, I thought. I don’t deserve all this. I don’t want all this. I really don’t take compliments well. It goes back to being raised with seven brothers and sisters in an Irish-Catholic home. I know how to deal with someone trying to kick my ass. But not with a compliment. In fact, the third night after I’d gotten back, I had a dream that the whole thing had been fake. There’d been no pirates, no hostage-taking, no rescue. And everyone was thinking I was a hero, but it was all made up, shot in a Hollywood studio. I was a flimflam artist, and everyone found out and hated me. I woke up in a cold sweat.
But I saw that everyone who’s been through something extraordinary is called a hero. And they go on the talk shows and say, “You know, I don’t think I am one.” What they’re really saying is, “If I’m a hero, it’s by accident. You have this potential inside you, too. If fate put you in my shoes, you’d have done the same thing.” And it’s true. I didn’t discover something about myself out there off the coast of Somalia. I discovered something about the potential of everyone who trains their mind to be strong. I’m an ordinary guy from Vermont who was given a glimpse of something very few people are lucky enough to see.
After all the interviews and the speeches and a kick-ass welcome-home party (five hundred of my closest friends and neighbors at the town park for a picnic), I’m back being a father and a husband. I finally got my new dog, Ivan, who is a mix of spaniel and mystery-dog DNA and is just as disobedient as Frannie. On hot summer days, he comes to the creek across from our house, the one that all the locals know about, and dives in after me. Then we walk back through the trees to my farmhouse.
It was there, weeks after I got back, that a neighbor who was pulling out of the dirt and gravel road across the way saw me putting wet clothes on the backyard line to dry. Ange was busy, so I was doing it for her. It must have struck him as funny that the hero, the guy with the movie deal, whatever, was back to doing the most ordinary things, as if I’d never been held hostage and come this close to dying.
He yelled across to me, and I turned and waved back. I laughed. I hadn’t been thinking about how my life had come full circle. But that moment really brought it back to me. I’m home, I thought. I was finally back in my life again.
Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the U.S. Navy and the Navy SEALs; without them, this story would have been told by someone else with a different ending.
My crew, for their ability to come together, think on their feet, and do the best job they could as U.S. Merchant Mariners.
To the companies we work for: LMS Ship Management of Mobile, Alabama, and Maersk Line Limited of Norfolk, Virginia, for the aid and support they gave to the crew and their families during and after our incident.
To my family, friends, and neighbors, who were there giving support: Paige and Emmett, Susan and Michael, Lea, Alison, and Amber just to name a few.
Last, to the many who sent prayers and support during and after this incident, which meant so much to Andrea and me.
Copyright
Front matter map of Somalia reprinted with permission from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, © 2001 by Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
Special thanks to DCL for the use of Somali Pirate Takedown: The Real Story, courtesy Discovery Channel and Military Channel.
A CAPTAIN’S DUTY. Copyright © 2010 Richard Phillips. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Phillips, Richard.
A captain’s duty : Somali pirates, Navy SEALs, and dangerous days at sea / Richard Phillips.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4013-2380-6
1. Phillips, Richard. 2. Hijacking of ships—Aden, Gulf of. 3. Maersk Alabama (Ship) 4. Merchant mariners—United States—Biography. 5. Ship captains—United States—Biography. I. Title.
VK140.P45A3 2010
364.16’4—dc22
[B]
2010000639
EPub Edition © February 2010 ISBN: 978-1-4013-9511-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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