Former sailors and their families prepare to go aboard the Roberts at Naval Station Mayport during their April 13-14 reunion, which marked the 25th anniversary of the day they saved their ship.

Tomorrow marks a quarter-century since Operation Praying Mantis, the one-day campaign of retribution launched by the United States against Iran for the April 14, 1988, mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts.

Naval Institute Proceedings is marking the anniversary of Praying Mantis, the U.S. Navy’s largest surface battle since World War II, by publishing in its April issue an interview of mine with the Roberts’ first chief engineer, Gordan Van Hook. USNI’s other magazine, Naval History, published a brief retelling of the Roberts story in its March issue. As well, the Naval Institute Press chose this week to release a Kindle version of No Higher Honor, my book about the Roberts.

Many of the sailors who helped save the Roberts marked the anniversary with a weekend reunion in Jacksonville, Fla. The frigate is homeported at Naval Station Mayport, and the current captain and crew threw open their ship to the visiting former sailors. For many of the several dozen Roberts shipmates in attendance, it was the first time they had been aboard in more than two decades. “The ship seems a lot smaller than I remember,” was the comment I heard most as the former sailors walked around the ship, finding their racks and old duty stations. But by Sunday night, when the friends and former shipmates compared notes on the Sammy B mine-blast survivors’ Facebook group, more than one had posted, “This is the best weekend of my life.”

Naval War College, Newport, R.I.

Well, this is exciting. No Higher Honor has been picked as a Title of Interest by the CNO’s Professional Reading Program.

Maintained by the Naval War College, the CNO-PRP’s reading lists include some really great books, such as A Sailor’s History of the U.S. Navy by Tom Cutler, Wired for War by Pete Singer, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by Jim Hornfischer, The Twilight War by David Crist, and many more. It’s an honor, and quite humbling, to be listed with them.

I’m happy to report that Naval Institute Press has released a paperback edition of No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf. You can buy it on Amazon or, if you’re a Naval Institute member, through the USNI site.

If you happen to seek the book elsewhere, kindly remember that you’re looking for the  Cheap Jewelry Canada  “No Higher Honor” by me and not the one by Condoleeza Rice. (No, I’m not mad that her 2011 memoir used the title; my book was hardly the first book by the name.) Also, you’re looking for the 2013 paperback edition, not the 2006 hardcover, which Amazon generally insists upon selling at truly ridiculous prices. (By the way, mine is far from the only book to attain such Pandora Bracelets Canada  crazy valuations; here’s a 2011 article about the phenomenon, which seems to be linked to various booksellers’ computers comparing each other’s prices rapidly and repeatedly.)

Anyway, I’m grateful to the Naval Institute Press for reissuing No Higher Honor, and to Paul X. Rinn for encouraging them to do so. I occasionally hear from sailors whose ships or schools have made the book mandatory reading; this new edition will make it easier for everyone to get a copy of their own.