Navy Awards Confirm That U.S. Sailors Were Under Attack in the Red Sea

By Dominic Pino

Tuesday, January 02, 2024

 

The Navy Times reports that members of the crew of the USS Carney, a destroyer that shot down dozens of Houthi drones and missiles while on deployment in the Red Sea, are receiving awards for their service.

 

“On Tuesday, the head of U.S. 5th Fleet, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, visited the ship and presented ‘combat medals’ to five sailors for their ‘exceptional performance’ when the warship shot down 14 Houthi air drones on Dec. 16,” the story says. In addition to those medals, the entire crew received a “combat action ribbon.” (The crew also received more than 1,000 pounds of barbecue, the story says.)

 

The awarding of the combat-action ribbon was significant, the Navy Times reports:

 

Officials have regularly declined to say whether Carney and other Navy destroyers are the targets of the attack drones they have taken out.

 

But the Navy’s combat action ribbon eligibility guidance states that a sailor “must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in a ground or surface combat engagement,” suggesting that the Carney was in fact intercepting attack drones that meant to do the warship and its sailors harm.

 

These are well-earned awards, and the crew of the Carney performed exceptionally well under pressure. But the awards raise the question that Noah posed this morning: Why is the U.S. so hesitant about striking Houthi bases in Yemen?

 

It’s not only the general U.S. interest in the freedom of navigation that is under attack in the Red Sea. The awards confirm that U.S. sailors were under attack too — and that this situation could have been much worse had the crew of the Carney not performed as well as it did.