Richard Phillips: A Captain's Duty

“I already know the story,” I said, “I don’t want to hear it again.”

The night before the Bainbridge was supposed to make port at Mombasa, the message came across the PA that we’d changed course and were now under way to save another American ship, the Liberty Sun, which was under attack by pirates. I ran into Captain Frank, who began to apologize for not getting me to the rendezvous with my crew. I said, “Not at all, just go get ’em. Save those sailors.” We met the Liberty Sun and chased off the pirates, then turned back toward Kenya and docked amid high security and media scrutiny. I left the Bainbridge at 0400 on Friday morning.

The SEALs, meanwhile, had slipped off into the night, never to be seen again, without fanfare or recognition.

At the farmhouse, the media frenzy ratcheted up again. Alison went out to make a statement, telling the journalists that it was Easter Sunday and the Phillipses needed family time. Calls poured in. Senator Patrick Leahy phoned and told Andrea they were dancing in the church parking lot where they heard the news. Diane Sawyer called to say she was doing cartwheels. Our Vermont senators and governor and everyone who’d been so good to my family called to express their joy at how things had turned out.

Late Sunday evening President Obama called Andrea.

“I just got off the phone with your husband,” he said.

“You mean I got the second call?” Andrea said jokingly.

Obama laughed.

Andrea knew how big a part he’d played in freeing me and she wanted to thank him warmly, but at the same time she knew this man is the president, and you want to have that respect and formality. The president told Andrea that “the whole nation has been praying for you” and how glad he was that it worked out—and that I sounded really good on the phone. “I couldn’t thank him enough for what everyone had done for us,” Andrea told me. “I remember saying at one point, ‘My Easter basket runneth over.’” I thought it was amazing that he took the time to call not only me but my family in Vermont.

People were flooding into the house to celebrate. But the emotional release of my rescue had left Andrea drained. “It was like a plug had been pulled and all my strength and energy had flowed out,” she said. “I needed to be alone with our kids.” So she and Alison worked out an exit plan to get everyone back to their families. One of her friends knew she was back to normal when, hours after we got the good news, she heard Andrea’s voice from another room: “WHO SPILLED SODA ON MY RUG?” Andrea doesn’t remember that, but it sounds right. It was such a relief to be back to those kinds of things, she told me: Was everyone eating enough? And who was destroying my house?

The rescue restored Andrea’s faith—or put back something that had been misplaced for quite some time, as she put it. “I don’t believe in the God that punishes you or keeps track of every sin,” she said, “but I do believe in a God of love. And afterward, I was like, ‘Dear God, I haven’t been your greatest follower, but I owe you a big one.’ And I intend to be true to that obligation.”

I was rescued on Easter Sunday and I flew home on the following Friday. The owner of Maersk provided his private jet, and a journey that usually took forty-five hours took only eighteen. I’d returned from the sea to Vermont so many times in thirty-odd years, flying in from all points on the globe, but this time felt completely different. Not only the luxurious jet and the direct flight, but the anticipation of seeing my family’s faces again. I sat there sipping a Coke, looking down at the clouds and thinking of that moment when I finally caught sight of them.

Andrea told me that after my plane landed at Burlington airport, Dan, Mariah and she were walking up to the plane, and Mariah turned to Andrea and said, “Mom, I just have to run.” She said, “Go ahead, run if you have to,” and Mariah went tearing off. It was just like when she was a little girl. The next thing I saw was Mariah pushing through the customs guys and just hurling herself into my arms. I gave her a big hug and a kiss. I grabbed Dan in a bear hug and then I saw Andrea. She jumped into my arms and I was too overcome to speak. She said, “Oh, God it’s so good to see you.” The second thing she said was “You didn’t change your clothes?!” Because I was dressed in the same jumpsuit I’d been in four days ago when she first saw me on TV. I laughed. I’d kept the clothes on to keep my connection with the Bainbridge , the Boxer , and the Arleigh Burke . I even wore the standard-issue white T-shirt the Navy gave me, something I rarely do. Then Andrea went into nurse mode: she started taking care of my wounds—months later, I still had scars on and numbness in my arms and wrists from the ropes—and cooking for me and making sure I got enough sleep.

It was like that time when I was almost crushed by a load in Greenland. You don’t realize what you have until you come this close to losing it. And then it just seems so much more valuable.

At the airport, we were surrounded by crowds of people, by media, by well-wishers and government officials and everyone else. I could see on their faces how much they wanted to welcome me back. But I was just dying to get home. I wanted to go back to the life I loved, to the family I’d missed so much.

As we drove home, we saw people outside the airport holding up signs, people along the roads home, people in front of the house. They’d hung a sign up at the general store saying, welcome home, captain phillips, and hundreds of people had signed it. When we pulled into the driveway, it was hanging on the barn across the road. I couldn’t adequately express my thanks to all of them.

It wasn’t until we got home that the full emotional weight of what I’d been through really hit me. And when it did, I went back to one particular moment on the boat. I remembered sitting there when I was saying my good-byes to my family and thinking about how Dan would say, growing up, that he didn’t have a father and that his dad didn’t love him because he was always away. That memory just pierced me through and through. I couldn’t let another minute go by without doing something about it.

I pulled Dan aside, tears welling up in my eyes. “Dan,” I said, “you know how you used to joke about not having a father?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Don’t ever say that again, okay?”

He nodded. Just thinking about my son saying those words had hurt so deeply I didn’t even want to joke about it. Now that I’d been given back my family, I didn’t want to leave a single doubt in their minds about how much they meant to me.

Andrea and I knew how close we’d come to losing each other. We’d be sitting together alone in the house, on the couch, and I’d say, “You know, Ange, I really shouldn’t have come out of this one alive.” And she’d say, “I know.” And I did know. Then she’d say, “The next time you are feeling lucky, could you please just buy a lottery ticket?”

Those first few weeks, Andrea was afraid to let me out of her sight. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find her reaching out for me, afraid that my side of the bed would be empty. Andrea doesn’t even remember doing that. I’d tell her, “It’s okay, Ange. I’m right here. Go back to sleep.” After a few days, I started telling friends, “She won’t even let me go to the bathroom by myself!” That was an exaggeration. But not by much.

I still had no idea that the whole world had been watching my ordeal. I was totally amazed by how many people were caught up in it and touched by it: people who watched the situation unfold from a hospital bed, or who’d gone through something similar, or who just wanted to reach out and say that they were proud of me. There was a farmer out west who promised to carry feed or livestock wherever I wanted (I had to tell him I didn’t own any cows) and a Vermonter who offered me the use of his hunting camp. People just wanted to feel connected to my story. I was floored.