WHITE CEILING WATCH

By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor

WHITE CEILING WATCH — The recent kidnapping by Somali pirates and the rescue of the Maersk Alabama ship Capt. Richard Phillips is so well known that the heroic episode will surely be recorded in American history. But there’s somebody else who needs to be remembered: The commander of the ship that saved Phillips. That would be Rear Admiral Michelle Howard, an African-American woman. Adm. Howard, who holds a master’s degree in military science arts and sciences from the Army’s Command and General Staff College, had received the assignment of leading the U.S. Navy’s counter-piracy task force just three days before the Maersk Alabama was attacked by Somali pirates.

Howard was the first in her 1992 U.S. Naval Academy class to reach the rank of admiral in 1999 and the first Black woman to command a Navy ship — the USS Rushmore. Adm. Howard’s task force operates with U.S. warships deployed to the Eastern Africa area as well as with those sent from allied nations. Before her present assignment, she was the senior military assistant to the secretary of the Navy. Remember the name: Adm. Michelle Howard.