Happy 231st B-day, Navy!

Baghdad, Iraq (Oct. 13, 2006) – Yeoman 3rd Class Seung M. Yoo, U.S. ambassador to Iraq the Honorable Zalmay Khalilzad, Capt. Bruce W. Mixer and Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk cut a cake during a ceremony to celebrate the Navy’s 231st birthday. The birthday ceremony was held at the Presidential Palace in the International Zone in Baghdad. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Dennis J. Herring

CNO Message on Navy’s 231st Birthday: Still Defending Freedom:

WASHINGTON (NNS) — For the fifth straight year we will celebrate our Navy’s birthday — this one the 231st — at war. In fact, it was five years ago this month that naval forces launched the first strikes against the Taliban from ships steaming in the Indian Ocean.

Today, from the Western Pacific into the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean, all the way to the Horn of Africa and even to our own shores, tens of thousands of deployed Sailors continue to take the fight to the enemy. We are helping stem the tide of terrorism and preventing the conditions from which it proliferates, and we are doing it all in magnificent fashion. I note with particular pride that there are more Sailors supporting operations on the ground in the CENTOCM AOR (12,500) than we have at sea in the same theater. As Individual Augmentees or as units, these brave men and women are bearing well the legacy of courage under fire left us by our predecessors in Navy blue.