USS Charlotte torpedoes the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off Sri Lanka.

OK. Hold the phone. Wednesday morning. The U.S. Navy submarine USS Charlotte, a Los Angeles-class fast attack boat, nineteen nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka, in international waters, fired two Mark 48 torpedoes at the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, which was returning to Iran from India. The Dena sank in three minutes. One hundred and four sailors went down with the ship, including, by Iranian state media, members of the Iranian Navy band.

The Defense Secretary, hon, that same afternoon, at the Pentagon, at the podium, called it the first submarine torpedoing of a ship since World War II.

World. War. Two. He said.

Buddy. No. The British submarine HMS Conqueror, in the Falklands War, in 1982, fired two torpedoes at the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano and sank it. Three hundred and twenty three Argentine sailors died. The Conqueror, hon, was nuclear-powered. The Belgrano, hon, was a surface ship. The engagement, hon, is taught at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The Defense Secretary of the United States either did not know this or did not care. He said World War II. On the podium. In 2026. On the day his country did the same thing for the first time in forty-four years.

Forty-four years, hon. That is Reagan to now. That is the period in which the entire personal computer industry was invented. That is not since World War II. That is since we sold the Falklands movie rights to HBO.

The Pentagon released the targeting video. On the video, hon, you can see the bow of the Dena going down in three minutes. The Pentagon released the video. In the press conference, the Defense Secretary called the engagement a quiet death. In the press release, the Pentagon called it a milestone.

A milestone. That is the word the Pentagon used for the engagement, hon, the milestone. That is the word you use for a baby’s first steps. That is the word you use when a small business hits a million dollars. That is not the word you use, in any room I have ever stood in, for the moment a hundred and four young men die in a steel tube on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

You ever notice how the people who say war is hell are usually the people who fought it, and how the people who say quiet death and milestone are usually the people who did not?

The Dena was a frigate. The Charlotte is a fast attack submarine. The one hundred and four are one hundred and four. The Defense Secretary, on the podium, was the same Defense Secretary who, one year ago, was on a Fox News set explaining why the Pentagon should be more humble.

Funny how that works.