Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Ahmed El Haroun almost didn’t join the Navy. An immigrant from Egypt, he was proficient in a number of languages but insecure about his English skills and worried his different background would make it hard for him to fit in. But during a 2023 deployment to the Middle East, that background would enable him to engage with attacking Somali pirates and ensure the safety of his shipmates during a critical prisoner transfer.
El Haroun, 38, ultimately followed his American wife into the Navy, becoming a boatswain’s mate and embracing the exacting work of a boatswain’s mate, ensuring that ships run smoothly and safely.
“We do a lot of dangerous evolutions,” he said. “We have to pay a lot of attention to detail in everything we do.”
That focus would serve him well when he deployed to the Red Sea in late 2023 with the destroyer Mason, as the Middle East was still roiling in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. As the leader of a team of five boatswain’s mates and 19 deck seamen, El Haroun put extra effort into preparation, arranging for the ship to carry extra repair parts so the crew could fix any equipment quickly, without outside resources. Throughout the deployment, he said, the ship had no major equipment casualties.
El Haroun’s duties took a turn on Nov. 24, 2023, when the Mason was tasked with responding to an emergency: Five pirates from Somalia were attempting to hijack a commercial vessel, the chemical tanker M/V Central Park in the Gulf of Aden, and holding its 22 crew members hostage. El Haroun was assigned to the Visit, Board, Search and Seizure, or VBSS, team before receiving a special job from the captain: to use his fluent Arabic to communicate with the pirates via megaphone.
The boatswain’s mate used not only his language skills but his cultural understanding to seize the upper hand, shouting and posturing aggressively in a show of dominance. As the VBSS team took the pirates into custody and transported them back to the Mason, El Haroun made sure he was their only point of contact, addressing them exclusively and facing them out to sea so they couldn’t threaten or intimidate crew members. He kept up the commanding posture and bravado even as the team spotted incoming missiles in the Gulf of Aden overhead.
For El Haroun, the mission demonstrated that his language background was not a weakness, but a unique strength.
“This is one of the reasons I really love the Navy,” he said. “They really don’t care where you’re coming from, they don’t care about your background. Just come be part of the team; do what you’re supposed to do, and you will succeed.”
El Haroun continues to be passionate about preserving the culture and traditions of the boatswain’s mate rating. He shares with more junior sailors the lessons he’s learned about remaining mentally ready under fire and in unfamiliar situations, and he recently made a series of how-to videos he plans to publish to YouTube about how to make by hand the elaborate traditional boatswain’s mates braided lanyards that he loves to wear and make for others.
