- Greetings everyone.
Welcome to Heritage Weeks online.
I am Logistics Specialist Third Class Petty Officer
Jason Adele Petitfrere, or just Jason.
And I have the immense pleasure today
to take you up throughout this building,
which is the USS Constitution Museum
located in Charlestown, Massachusetts,
in order to share with you that much of a deeper experience
concerning the history of the USS Constitution
and relating to not only honor, courage and commitment,
but also the CNO's four core attributes,
accountability, initiative, toughness, and integrity.
First, we'll be starting right over here
in the room dedicated to the armaments
of the vessel of war called the USS Constitution,
America's Ship of State.
Follow me right this way.
First we'll stop right here
in front of this rather picturesque picture of the ship.
Now, why do we stop here?
It is because right now we're smack dab
in the middle of what I would say
is quite the intense conflict.
I believe this is depicting the Great Escape.
Let's see.
Exactly, indeed it is.
USS Constitution escaping from the British, July 1812.
Now, during this encounter with the British,
there was not much back and forth armament-wise,
but it led to one of the greatest,
most pivotal battles during the War of 1812.
After this escape, which we escaped from five British ships,
the Belvidera, the Aeolus, the Guerriere, the Shannon,
and the HMS Africa off the coast of Egg Harbor, New Jersey.
We went on one month later,
this ended on July 19th, 1812,
August 19th, 1812, which we will be discussing shortly,
is when we encountered the HMS Guerriere
off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.
That is when we got our nickname Ironsides.
But as I mentioned earlier,
we have to some way find connections to not just the story,
but also the attributes and the core pillars of a sailor
and connect those pieces so that we can learn from them,
how to become not only better sailors,
but also better people, better leaders
for my chief selects out there.
So I'd like you to just see very briefly
how this room would normally look.
Currently it is broken down to the bare minimums
as per minimal contact with COVID-19 going on right now.
And as you might see, I currently do not have my mask on,
and that is because I'm maintaining
a safe distance from our cameraman.
And when I'm not doing this or basically recording,
I have my mask on at all times, as per regulations.
So in this room, we would be talking briefly
about the armaments of the ship,
including, but not limited to the 32-pound short gun
or carronades, which would be on the top deck of the ship
versus the 24-pound long guns right over there,
which would be on the gun deck of the ship
or the white gun stripe.
Now in here, we would not be discussing
those armaments at length or in detail,
and that is because during the Heritage Weeks
you would have a specific station dedicated
not only to teach you about the details
of what the Ironman is and what it does,
but you would also learn, be shown
and actually go through the reloading process
and the firing process of how to use those armaments.
So that pretty much wraps up
what we would be taking care of in this room.
So let's go out into the P-way
and then down that way to figure out what comes next.
All right.
So as you can see very briefly,
this museum is basically chock full,
literally, of pieces, items, information,
all relating to the USS Constitution
and what she stands for.
Not only the victory she's won,
but also the conflict she's been through,
the difficulties she's surmounted,
not only in her launching,
but also in the battles she's gone through.
But before we actually get to battles,
typically we stop right here to gain a deeper understanding
of not just what the Constitution is,
but what it's made of as well.
And right here, you can see
a very convenient display of live oak wood,
oak wood or white oak wood and Douglas fir wood.
Now, why are these three specific
kinds of woods so important?
It is because the deck of the USS Constitution
is mostly comprised of Douglas fir.
And the bulkheads or the walls of the ship
are comprised of a combination
of these two final pieces of wood.
We have oak here and we have live oak.
Typically we would use white oak.
You see, you would see the horizontal paneling
or the boards of the ship
essentially would be made of white oak
on the outside and the inside.
But then on the inside, the secret to our nine vulnerability
would be the live oak vertically placed.
And those would be basically the ribs of the ship
going down to the keel of the ship, which is the backbone.
And we'll be learning further down deep
essentially why that is so important.
So please follow me this way and we'll stop
right in front of this model of the USS Constitution.
Now it's at this point that as chief selects
during Chief Heritage Weeks,
you all would be pretty much spread out right here,
positioned from this end to that end.
And I'd be standing rather suspiciously here,
pointing to this ship or motioning to the ship,
essentially asking the room what you thought of
when you saw the USS Constitution.
So as you're watching virtually right now,
I'd like you to think to yourself,
what do you think of when you see this ship?
I'm going to shout out some of the things
that I heard from the chief selects
from the previous two years
that I've experienced Chief Heritage Weeks myself.
Some of them said freedom.
Some of them said power.
Some of them said strength.
Some of them said security.
Some of them said America.
And I would agree with all of them.
But I would go on to add that right here,
I see the infinity of human potential.
And here's how that makes sense.
As you're about to hear,
once we go throughout the battles that she's been through,
mainly three battles,
we will be highlighting the battle versus the HMS Guerriere,
the battle versus the HMS Java, and then lastly,
the battle versus the HMS Cyane and Levant respectively.
But why do I call this infinite human potential?
It is because, despite the fact
that it took us three miserable launch attempts
to get this ship into the water,
we went on to being a 33 and 0 undefeated beast of the seas.
We've never lost a fight.
She has never lost a fight.
Now we did run away once,
but we're not gonna talk about that today.
That was the Great Escape and that was in the past.
We don't stay there.
We learned from it and we're better for it.
But back to my earlier point,
we went from difficulty to difficulty to difficulty,
and we kept chugging along, which gave us the ability
or the opportunity to become undefeated.
And I kept making the point that
the title of undefeated is such a fickle one.
It's such a fickle word.
It's vulnerable.
It's both weak and powerful at the same time.
Powerful in that it strikes fear in those
that have to face you next,
but also weak in that all it takes
is one slip of one mistake,
one moment of complacency or negligence
for you to lose it all.
And how is that not quite like leadership or trust?
Whether it's trust from those above you
or trust from those below you
or trust from those adjacent to you.
As a leader, there is so much pressure on your shoulders.
The phrase, the burden of leadership
is such a common thing to hear,
especially becoming an E7, a chief.
The phrase, ask the chief, did not come about
because they were so unreliable or they had weak shoulders.
It is because some of them,
just like the sailors, Marines and officers
back in the USS Constitution's fighting days,
they had to basically channel the energies
that they were feeling.
They had to channel their fears.
They had to channel their anxieties,
their stress, their doubts,
channel that into the strength that they use
to leave behind such an immortal legacy as this.
That is what makes a leader.
They are not impervious to feeling hurt.
They are not impervious to feeling stressed
or feeling broken.
The difference between them
and those that aren't able to lead properly
is what they do with what life gives them.
So let me show you what the Constitution did
with what life gave it.
Right now, we are about to discuss
one of the most pivotal battles
that occurred during the War of 1812.
I'm talking about August 19th, 1812 specifically,
the battle of the USS Constitution versus the HMS Guerriere.
And I want to take just a brief pause
from our storytelling to give a shout out
to the USS Constitution Museum,
because just take a look at this.
This is absolutely beautiful.
As far as hearing the stories or seeing it in a book,
it completely shifts the game
when you're able to see something or feel something
as tangible as the indents of cannonballs
in the sides of a ship.
Such beautiful displays and such wealths of knowledge
is to be commended, in my opinion.
So I encourage you,
if you are curious about the more in-depth information
about the USS Constitution, feel free to check out
not only the Constitution's Facebook page,
but the Constitution Museum's website as well.
They are loaded with information about the ship.
They're the ones that actually, thankfully,
endow us with the information that we share now with you.
So now back to our narrative.
The USS Constitution had to face down
with the HMS Guerriere.
And once again, the date was August 19th, 1812.
Let me set the stage for you.
We see them, they see us
off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.
And like I said much earlier,
this was after the Great Escape,
or what the British might refer to as the Great Chase.
So we escaped from those five ships, got back to Boston,
and like I mentioned earlier, again,
one of those five ships was the HMS Guerriere.
And so we got back to Boston,
not to the warmth and welcome of our loved ones
and our friends and families,
but to the scorn of our people.
Boston was not happy.
No one was happy.
The scuttlebutt or the rumors going around was that
the USS Constitution just ran away from the British.
Not that we were out-manned and out-gunned
and had no chance to win.
It was simply that the Navy cowered in front of the British,
sullying our reputation.
Captain Isaac Hull, our commanding officer at the time,
did not want this to be the end of our story.
So he resupplied and booked it north
to chase after that British ship.
And I'd like to pause right there for a few seconds
because it's a great chance to ask you,
what do you do when you hear things said about you
that are in no way a representation of your true character?
Do you go around knocking on doors,
trying to have arguments with people,
finding out who's the loudest and thus who's the rightest?
Or do you quiet down, do you get to work,
and you prove them wrong with your actions?
Here's what the Constitution did.
We went out.
We encountered that ship.
We threw up our American flag so as to identify ourselves.
They threw up their British flags and it was go time.
1,000 yards out though, boom, boom, boom.
Splish, splish, splish.
They're hitting the water.
They're not hitting us quite yet,
but you can imagine that the men
have already been to quarters.
They are at their guns.
The decks are lined with sand and with water.
Now, why sand and water?
Well water to counteract the sparks
coming from our own guns
so as not to set our own ships on fire
because we're not about that in the Navy,
or at least we try not to be.
And why the sand?
Well, to counteract the slipperiness of the water.
But also for my younger crowds out there,
in war, in battle, sometimes people get hurt
and thus when your life juices escape your mortal coil,
that creates a slipping hazard on slick wood.
So that's what the sand is there for.
And of course, we're making our approach.
Again and again and again,
the enemy is unloading in our direction.
They are doing what are called rolling broadsides.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
All your guns fire in succession
on a specific side of your ship.
800 yards, 700 yards, 600 yards.
The same thing repeating again and again.
The only thing that is changing
is that the shots are getting louder.
So imagine being a sailor in these very compartments.
You're standing at your station,
waiting for your gun captain to say fire,
but he doesn't quite yet
because our commanding officer has now given the order
to hold fire until we get close enough
to do maximum damage the first time.
Imagine what they're thinking of right then and there.
Imagine how much tenacity it took for them
to follow the captain's orders,
for them to trust the officer above them.
Imagine.
So we are getting closer and closer,
and now the shots are getting,
once again, louder and louder.
So between 600 and 400 yards,
something equally as miraculous
as it is bone chillingly terrifying happens.
Between 600 and 400 yards, boom, boom, boom.
Splish, splish, thump.
So now if you're following my audio cues,
we're getting hit, which is not a good thing.
So once again, the ship is not only just rocking
because of the waves and the wind and the ocean
or the ripples of the shots
landing closer and closer to our ship.
But now it's rocking ever more so violently
because the shots are now impacting the sides of our ship.
And it's at this point that the ship's carpenter
and his crew, the people in charge of making sure
that the water stays where it belongs.
And a real quick tidbit for you,
this is a classified Navy, Naval information,
so I hope that I can trust you
not to share it with everyone,
but as per Navy regulation,
ocean water is meant to stay on the outside of the ship.
So they were checking for that.
They ran throughout the ship, checking for leaks.
And that's when a sailor went up to the top deck,
peered over the edge,
amidst all the whizzing shots going by him
in the chaos of orders being barked left and right.
And what he saw, ladies and gentlemen,
left his eyes widened in amazement
and practically all the breath had left
his weary sailor lungs,
but there was just enough breath left in there
for him to exclaim an immortal phrase
that is with us till this day.
Firstly, what he saw was that the shots
were either impacting our hull
and bouncing completely off or just getting stuck.
Nothing was going through.
That's when he exclaimed,
"Huzzah! Her sides are made of."
Exactly, iron.
It's gonna be really awkward if he didn't say it,
so I hope you said it.
Thank you (laughs).
So that being said, that's how we got the name Ironsides,
but we had not earned it yet
because our enemy was still standing or floating.
So throughout several turns of events, essentially,
we got closer and closer and finally,
100 yards, 75 yards, 50 yards, 30.
That's not enough.
We got to 25 uncomfortably close yards apart.
We could see them in 4K.
They could see us in 1080p.
I apologize in advance.
And that's when Captain Isaac Hull gave the order,
"Pour into her, boys!"
And in a moment's notice,
like a flash of patriotic lightning,
I can already hear the eagles cawing,
we released a broad side of our own.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Silence.
Not because nothing was going on,
but because you just find it really loud gun.
Your ears are ringing.
You probably can't hear anything.
Amidst all the teary eyes from the burning of the gun smoke
and the ringing ears from the loud bang that just rang true,
we heard a very loud but distinct (creeking and exploding).
Oh my God.
And once the dust cleared,
we discovered that to have been the enemy ship.
So their mizzen or aftmost or rearmost mast
had broken off the starboard or right side of the enemy ship
with the sails in the water, paralyzing their movements.
That's when we tried to cross the T,
bringing our ship forward of the enemy ship
so that we could fire down the length
as opposed to down the width.
Sadly though, we collided with each other.
And this is where we suffered
one of the heavier casualties of that fight,
because William S. Bush, the captain of the boarding party,
the first lieutenant of the Marines,
he climbed onto the taffrailing
or the rear railing of our ship, which was now connected
to the forward railing of the enemy ship.
And I'd like you to just simply imagine
one of those moments, kind of like in movies,
where everything starts to get blurry.
Everything slows down.
You can see him kind of struggle to get up on the railing,
almost fall, but catch himself,
reach for his sword, slowly take it out
and pose to Captain Isaac Hull,
"Shall I board her, sir?"
And equally, just as slowly,
you can see someone from behind him raise their rifle.
And before Captain Isaac Hull could even say anything,
William S. Bush was shot and killed by an enemy Marine.
He died on the spot.
Captain Isaac Hull, not wanting any further casualties
of the sort, he gave every order he could
for us to pull away and finish the job.
This caused their foremast to get brought down
as we were pulling away, thus leaving them mastless
after their main mast soon followed.
That is how we won the day.
That is how we got the, earned the nickname Ironsides,
the moment that they actually surrendered.
Back then you would have to surrender
by raising a white flag or lowering your own country's flag
down from the mast that they didn't have.
So they had to perform what is called a leeward shot.
That's when your enemy is this way,
you fire shot that way, essentially saying I surrender.
And so from the moment that shot,
from the instance that shot echoed across the skies
and through the clouds,
we officially earned the nickname Ironsides.
And I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you
that this story is chock full of accountability,
initiative, toughness, and integrity.
Because it took integrity
for those directly next to the captain to not say,
"Sir, respectfully, are you crazy?"
Or it took accountability for them
to make sure that they honored the oath that they took
when they joined the Navy
to not mutiny against the commanding officer
that potentially could have gotten them all killed.
It took initiative for the commanding officer
to even think of such a strategy.
It took toughness from everyone on board
to stick to their guns, proverbially and literally.
It took honor, courage and commitment to the cause,
to the mission for them to not abandon their post
in the face of a daunting enemy.
Because I can guarantee you that they had no guarantees
when they were inside of these gunports
waiting for the enemy to attack,
knowing that they could not retaliate quite yet.
You never had any guarantees that the next shot you heard
would be the last shot you heard.
And of course, as intense as this is,
our story doesn't end there.
We will conclude everything very nicely
once we finish talking about the Cyane and Levant,
but right now it is time for the Java to shine.
With the HMS Guerriere,
our commanding officer was Captain Isaac Hull,
but with the HMS Java incident, our commanding officer
was none other than William Bainbridge.
Now, what I'd like to tell you
about Captain William Bainbridge
was that he had a reputation at the time in the Navy
for not necessarily being the most capable officer
or the nicest officer.
Essentially, he had a reputation for kind of messing up,
and thus he was going into this fight
with something to prove.
And I believe once you hear how it went,
he was pretty successful.
And so why do we have this broken wheel
right here as a display?
Well, that is because this battle was the one
in which the USS Constitution suffered
arguably the most damage in her career.
Why is that?
And that is because on December 29th, 1812, sorry.
1812, we encountered the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil
and we immediately went into battle.
Now I don't have as many details for you
as I did for the HMS Guerriere,
but let's talk about the main tidbits.
During that fight, each ship is just going at each other,
firing broadside after broadside.
But finally, I'd like you to keep this in mind,
with the commanding officer at the quarterdeck of the ship
where he's supposed to be,
giving his men the orders needed for us to win the day,
a shot flew across the quarterdeck,
broke off the wheel,
injured our commanding officer in his legs.
He couldn't even stand properly.
And yet with his first lieutenant,
his XO telling him to go down below
to get attention from their medical officer on board,
he decided, no, I'm staying here.
My men need to see me.
They need to hear me.
They need to know that their commanding officer
is not giving up so that they don't end up giving up either.
So that being the case, he had men hold him up.
And of course, with our wheel gone,
we had issues with steering.
So we had to basically go down into the tiller room
and have men, sailors and Marines, play a game of telephone.
Except in this case, it was life and death
if you got it wrong, so we certainly had to get it right.
Channeling the commanding officer's orders
all the way down to the tiller room
so that we could properly steer the ship.
And for those of you not familiar
with the constitution of the Constitution.
I couldn't resist, I'm sorry.
The constitution of a Naval warship.
The helm is a three-part system.
It is comprised of the wheel with lines
or rope tied around here, going down the deck,
connected to the tiller, which is a large rod,
which is thus, or then connected to the rudder.
And that is the helm.
So rudder, tiller, wheel, like so.
Without the wheel, now the only way to steer
is through the tiller.
And so we basically, with all those damages
done to our ship, had to finish the fight.
And we did with a victory,
because one of our Marines shot their commanding officer
and mortally wounded him.
So that being said, their second in command,
their first lieutenant took over and surrendered their ship
because he saw no other options at the time.
And a fun fact for you,
once they came on board as prisoners of war,
he had to then later on explained to the British Tribunal
why he surrendered a British ship.
And he said that had he known the Constitution
or the state of the USS Constitution,
he never would have surrendered.
So take all of that information that I just presented to you
and compare it to your own life.
Compare it to your own career.
What do you do when life is attempting to beat you
within an inch of yourself?
Do you give up or do you keep fighting?
What do you do when the person fighting you
or the person giving you a hard time
seems like they're in better condition than you are?
What do you do when the odds are against you?
When it seems like nobody is there to support you?
Do you buckle under the pressure
or do you dig your heels in and say, no, you surrender?
Because that's what they did.
They stayed honorable.
They stayed committed to the mission,
thus displaying courage.
And I remind you, courage is not the absence of fear.
It's the conquering of it.
It's the transitional use of it.
You transform that energy, like I mentioned earlier,
into something useful, into something tangible.
Take those chains, smelt them down into basically
something that you can turn into a sword
to fight with, to defend yourself.
That is the hallmark of a true leader.
And I'm not just talking to the chief selects now.
This applies to all walks of life.
So we just told you how we won a fight
where we lost our wheel.
Oh, and by the way,
we took the enemy ship's wheel after we beat them up.
So that's pretty cool too.
So let's talk about our final engagement
in the form of the battle versus the HMS Cyane and Levant.
Here we have, actually.
Okay, that is not him.
Here we have a picture of Charles Stewart.
That was our commanding officer at the time.
And this battle occurred on February 20th, 1815.
Still within the scope of the War of 1812,
but this occurred on 1815.
And here's another moment that I think is a great time
to give a shout out to the USS Constitution Museum
because when they have displays like this
that are so intuitive, so interactive,
you don't need constant deep moments of reflection
to try and picture how the ship won the fight because,
why this display matters and is a game changer?
Well, it's because we won the fight against two ships
by performing a super risky maneuver called back-winding.
And that is when you adjust your sails at a certain angle
allowing for the ship to have rear momentum
or to simply just get put in reverse,
for my Millennials out there.
So that being said, I did mention this was risky.
I did mention this was dangerous.
How did we come about this choice?
Well, when we engaged them in battle,
and this was, in terms of geography,
off the coast of the Madeira Islands near Portugal.
We encountered those two ships.
They were chasing us basically and we had to fight them.
They were smaller vessels,
but their total amount of guns exceeded our own.
And their strategy was to sandwich the Constitution
between the two British ships
so that they could be hitting us from both sides.
And I might ask you, have you ever felt like sometimes
life is hitting you from both sides?
Maybe you are having difficulties at work
and then you come back home expecting
or hoping for some form of solace.
And yet at home, you're also met with some difficulties,
some difficult questions, some rough situations
or maybe lack of support.
What do you do?
Do you keep letting yourself get bombarded again and again
from both sides and do nothing?
Or do you find some way, shape or form
to use the momentum of one against the other?
And just like for us, sometimes that might require you
to make some adjustments.
That might require you to prioritize
some other things than you have before.
Because as the saying goes, to get what you've never gotten
you must be willing to do what you've never done.
Basically, to accomplish what you've never accomplished,
you have to be willing to become
what you've never become before.
I'm pretty sure you guys are getting
where I'm going with this.
This has never been done in battle.
Not by us.
And so there were no absolutes, there were no guarantees,
and thus is life.
I have found that rarely will you ever be put
in a position of leadership or of mentorship
or of supervision or basically of a managerial position
to where you have to make difficult decisions
that you feel 100% sure of.
And yet Charles Stewart made that call
while they were attempting to maneuver around us
and sandwich both of us, we damaged one, one of the ships.
Basically, I believe it was the Levant first.
And then they had to break off to make repairs
while we then used that smoke cloud
to reverse back into position enough
so that we could reach the Cyane
and then take her out separately.
So we turned what would have been a two-on-one
into a, well, two separate accounts of one-on-one.
Now I would encourage you,
if you are interested in the deeper dive
of how this battle went out or played out step-by-step,
once again, please, please, please do yourself a favor,
check out the USS Constitution Museum website,
because they are the ones
that give us what we share with you.
And it is credible information, all gathered painstakingly
throughout the years from ship logs,
from special accounts in letters, whatever it is,
anything that is made to be authentic.
And that is why historical information
is constantly evolving throughout times,
because they are constantly researching more.
They are constantly searching for more outlets or inlets,
in this case, for historical knowledge.
So they have proven themselves
to be a credible source throughout the years.
But back to our situation here,
what would we focus on this during Chief Heritage Weeks?
Difficult decisions.
That is something that as a chief
you will have no shortage of.
That is something that as a leader,
whether you're in the United States Navy or not,
somebody in a leadership position,
you will have no shortage of difficult decisions.
To where normally it makes sense,
and sometimes some would argue
you're built to constantly be going forward.
And yet at times, life may call for you to make a decision.
Will you keep forcing your way
just because that's all you've ever known?
Or are you able to make adjustments for the situation?
Are you able to be flexible?
Are you able to prioritize getting stuff done
over being comfortable?
Who are you and what do you stand for?
Are you able to truly take honor, courage and commitment
and apply those holistically
to each and everything that you do?
Are you able to truly stand in front or ahead of those
that you're supposed to be representing
and say that you have accountability?
And show them what it means to use initiative.
Show them what it means to actually be tough.
Not necessarily be mean, be tough.
And show them what it means to have true integrity.
Sometimes being honest is probably the best way
as opposed to faking a front of always having the answers
or always knowing what to do.
Sometimes it may be required of you to be honest
and tell your superiors, I don't know.
I need guidance.
I need help so that I can properly lead those people
that I'm in charge of.
Sometimes it takes going backwards a little bit
to propel yourself forwards.
And one thing that I, lastly, in conclusion,
one thing that I always mentioned
to the chief select groups that came through this exhibit,
especially in this situation here is that a lot of times,
sadly, the perception of leadership is skewed.
It's one-sided because as a leader, you're at the forefront.
So most of what people see is the praise side of everything.
When the good is coming the way of the group,
typically you're the first to get it.
And it's your job to trickle those BZ's down the line.
But then the flip side of that coin is that when the storms
and when the harsh winds come,
it is expected of you to be the first to encounter it,
and then make sure as little as possible
trickles down to those under you
or serving for you or with you.
So a lot of people have this misconception
that leadership is all just about the power that you wield,
or the privileges that you have, or the perks that you get.
And it is all too easily forgotten
about the responsibilities that you have,
the weight that you carry, sometimes alone.
So I would encourage you to take the example
of the USS Constitution,
because it was not just one man.
It was not just one group of people.
It was an entire family.
It was several generations of sailors
that accomplished what this ship stands for.
And I'll add this on
to make it that much more impactful for you,
because according to all the information, the numbers,
the dates and statistics that me and my fellow crew members
have been oh so graciously gifted or endowed with
by the USS Constitution Museum,
none of the sailors, Marines or officers
that ever served onboard this mighty vessel
were ever reported to have been born on Krypton
or bitten by any radioactive spiders.
What I'm getting at is that they were humans.
It doesn't mean they never made mistakes.
It simply means that every single day
as they rolled out of their hammocks
and put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you do,
they had to answer this one single solitary question
every single day.
And before I tell you what that is,
I remind you that, just like them,
because of the little ones that are depending on you
or because of that dream
that you are tirelessly chasing after,
that question does life also pose to you
every single time that you open your eyes.
And that question is, will you keep fighting?
With that, once again, my name is Jason Adele Petitfrere,
a logistics specialist third class petty officer
onboard the USS Constitution, America's Ship of State,
the oldest commissioned warship afloat
in the entire world,
coming at you not necessarily live anymore,
but still from the USS Constitution Museum
in Charlestown Navy Yard.
Thank you very much for joining us today.