Many a men have helmed the U.S.S. Constitution since the three-masted wooden Navy frigate was built in 1797. After 225 years, a highly decorated commander with as much salt and combat experience as her male predecessors is making history aboard America’s most historic ship.
Cmdr. Billie J. Farrell took command of the U.S.S. Constitution on Jan. 21, 2022, becoming the first woman captain of America’s oldest warship.
To her two young children, Farrell is nothing short of the coolest mom on earth. “You get to do this every day,” Farrell’s 6-year old son said to her excitedly as he watched his mother for the first time stand watch over the first of two cannon salutes. They are fired off daily aboard the Boston-berthed 204-foot ship.
To the Navy, Farrell is not a woman who happens to be a great commander, but as Navy Petty Officer Elliot Fabrizio, who heads the operations department of the U.S.S. Constitution, put it, “a great commander who happens to be a woman.”
“Because it’s special duty, it’s on par with the Blue Angels and the Ceremonial Honor Guard. You have to have an amazing record of excellence in order to be considered for it and then you have to be selected for it.” said Fabrizio, one of 80 active duty sailors who serves under Farrell’s command.
Only 77 naval officers have been bestowed the elite honor to command the U.S.S Constitution. But this is far from Farrell’s first commanding post. During her 18-year career in the U.S. Navy, Farrell served as combat systems officer aboard the U.S.S. Jacinto, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser that fired the opening shots of Operation Desert Storm. Farrell, who is just 39, was also an executive officer aboard the Navy missile cruiser U.S.S. Vicksburg, part of the Carrier Strike Group Twelve fleet, which polices our nation’s water for enemy threats.
She also completed two tours, including her first as an electric officer, during the Gulf War conflict and was deployed multiple times in active combat.
Of the multitude of her endless milestones, her most unforgettable moment remains the times she and her crews would come along stranded civilians at sea. “Just to see some of these people that are literally hanging onto their lives when you get there and being able to save them and how grateful they are that we happen to come along,” said Farrell, “it’s rewarding.”
With maybe some surprise, Farrell’s influences are not passed down from generations of a military family like it so often is. Her mother is a retired school teacher and her father a retired police officer.
A native of Paduka, Kentucky, Farrell didn’t even grow up near the ocean, defying yet another common trait of Naval enlistees. But she did grow up on a lake and in the sixth grade, a televised graduation of the U.S. Navy Academy caught her attention and ended up navigating her future plans.
Farrell not only went on to be a student at the prestigious academy, but after she graduated from it, she served as the Academy’s deputy director for professional development.
She has since earned two meritorious service medals, four Navy and Marine Corps commendation medals, three meritorious unit commendations, and a dream come true that she didn’t even see coming.
“Even in retrospect, when I knew I wanted to join the Navy, I don’t think I knew exactly what was going to lead me to,” said Farrell. “And I am so happy and privileged that it led me here, to give me this opportunity to show my love for the Navy and my country and to just hopefully get people excited about the ship.”
Not bad for a lakeside sailor.
A picture of Farrell next to the U.S.S. Constitution taken during a family vacation to Boston in 1988 suggests that fate had all along intended her to command the famous ship.
Many only know the historic vessel as a major tourist attraction that draws thousands to its decks year round to marvel at its well-preserved seafaring wooden bones, complex rigging, and towering masts.
But the ship has its own share of unparalleled bragging rights.
In fact, Farrell said what she loves most about the U.S.S. Constitution, once recommended for scrap, is its nickname “Old Ironsides,” a sobriquet it earned during the War of 1812 when cannonballs fired by the British ship Guerriere bounced off its thick three-layered wooden hull.
“When you walk the decks you just feel this certain presence,” said Farrell. ”This is still a battlefield. There are soldiers that gave their lives on the deck in the War of 1812 and beyond to establish the freedoms we have today.”
Today, the attraction serves uniquely both as a still actively commissioned Naval frigate and a preserve of one of America’s most cherished seaborne battlefields.
Since it was docked at the Boston Naval Shipyard, it has conducted 700 underways in commemoration of U.S. veterans. This summer, for the 60th anniversary of the Vietnam War, it will host the first inauguration put on by the U.S. Department of Defense to honor veterans of the 20-year conflict. By the time it ended, 58,220 U.S. service members lost their lives. Another 1,626 remain missing.
Thanks to modern technology, you can visit the U.S.S. Constitution and meets its crew virtually too. You can, of course, also go in person.
If you are lucky enough, you might even have chance to meet its new commander, a modern patriot who stands on the very patriotism that America was built on.
