Anchors aweigh, full speed ahead with Capt. Hegseth at the helm | Opinion

A big shoutout to my man Pete Hegseth for his latest victories against the narcoterrorists.

First, he blew a ship out of the water off New Bedford that was cleverly disguised as a whaler. A floating piece of debris identified it as the “Pequod.” Hegseth’s men recovered a ship’s log in which the vessel claimed to be carrying ambergris and blubber, but the SecDef wasn’t fooled. He knew there was nothing but narcotics aboard.

There appeared to be a survivor, a guy staying afloat by clinging to a homemade coffin, and yelling.

DOD lipreaders later said he was screaming something that looked like “Call Me Ishmael,” but they disregarded that because it made no sense.

Anyway, they blasted him out of the sea, the drug-smuggling hooligan.

Pete’s second recent conquest came when he obliterated a narcoterrorist disguised as an old fisherman floating off the coast of Cuba. People on shore said he went by “Santiago.” His small boat was hauling something that looked like a half-eaten big fish – maybe a marlin. But that didn’t fool Pete for a nanosecond; he knew it was drugs.

Whatever the old goat called himself, what was left of him is now sleeping with the fishes, thanks to Pete.

Informed sources at the Pentagon say Pete has his eyes on the biggest prize of all, a huge drug-smuggling ship in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. It’s disguised as a passenger liner, but Pete’s people say its hold is stuffed with fentanyl and cocaine.

Intelligence agents are advising Pete to move quickly on this one, while the weather holds. If they don’t act soon, the ship could run into stormy seas, or hit an iceberg or something.

I can’t tell you how much safer I feel with my man Pete on the job.

Say, the weather’s great today. Anybody up for a cruise on the Bay?

In addition to being an avid reader of classic literature, Bob Cuddy is a former Tribune reporter and columnist.