Captain Phillips brings inspiring story to Classical

LYNN – He may not look like a typical Hollywood version of a Merchant Marine, but when Capt. Richard Phillips walked into Classical High School’s auditorium Thursday, he was met with thunderous applause as 1,600 students rose to their feet giving him a standing ovation before he even had a chance to speak.Phillips told students that he learned three important things during his 2009 ordeal where he was kidnapped by Somali pirates on the Indian Ocean, and they hold true for everyone, including them.”One, you are stronger than you know, you can stand more than you think. Two, nothing is over until you choose to give up or you quit, and three, a dedicated, united group can overcome anything,” he said.Classical staff and students each read Phillips’ book, “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs and Dangerous Days at Sea,” as part of the school-wide summer reading program.Candace MacCallum, assistant director of English Language Learning and Reading for the school department, said having Phillips speak as a post-summer event was more than any of them expected.Phillips told students that he had always been different. He didn’t know what he wanted to do when he got out of school except not go back. A chance meeting with a guy in a leather coat and pressed jeans during his cab-driving days gave Phillips his first introduction to a Merchant Marine, which eventually led to him attending Massachusetts Maritime Academy. It would be 12 years before he would become a captain and another 18 before he would walk onto the Maersk Alabama and into history as the first American sea captain to be held captive by pirates in roughly 200 years.”I do not consider this a good thing,” he said, referring to the latter statement.The morning the Maersk was taken over by pirates was a beautiful sunny day, the water was like glass, calm and motionless, he said. Just the day before Phillips had run a security drill with the crew, part of his philosophy to hope for the best but plan for the worst.It would prove fortuitous.The cargo ship was headed for Djibouti.”I always told the crew that piracy was a when not an if,” he said. “But I thought we could take care of it if we planned.”When four pirates boarded the Maersk armed with AK-47s, however, two things happened that no one expected. The pirates’ ladder ended up in the ocean and their skiff sank. That meant the pirates were stuck on board with Phillips and two crew members. The rest of the crew was also on board, but Phillips said they were in a safe room with instructions not to come out unless they heard a decided-upon code word, which he did not utter.His last words to his crew over the loudspeaker were, “pirates on board, pirates on board,” he said.Phillips said at first the pirates were happy because they realized it was an American ship, and they thought they hit a big pay day. Then reality set in. The lights went down, the air conditioning shut off, the engines went quiet and the 508-foot ship was adrift, Phillips said.After 12 or 13 hours of relentless searching for his crew and death threats, Phillips said he convinced the pirates to leave on the lifeboat, but they decided a crew member needed to come as well to assure their safety.”Here’s where I can clear up some misconception,” he said. “I didn’t turn myself into some heroic fatted calf.”Phillips said volunteering to go was in his mind the best answer. He didn’t want to have to worry about his crew, and he liked his odds of survival if he were on his own with the pirates.”I knew they could have killed me,” he said.Once in the lifeboat, the Maersk came to life and began tailing the lifeboat, which Phillips said did not make the pirates happy.After three days of indescribable heat, very little food, some water and one failed escape attempt, Phillips was rescued by the U.S. Navy and a SEAL team.”The Navy and the SEALs are the real heroes,” he said.What seemed to surprise him most was the realization, even after being tied up and subjected to a