“Old Ironsides,” launched in 1797, is the living evidence that the US has been struggling with pirates since its founding. And our columnist HDS Greenway, a Navy man himself, brings the history of that wood-sided frigate alive in his most recent piece for GlobalPost. We just published it on the site as part of our on-going coverage of the Somali pirates and the American captain they are still holding captive on a small life boat that is out of gas near the Gulf of Aden.

It is a riveting drama that our correspondent in Kenya, Tristan McConnell, has covered with great mastery, providing all of the twists and turns of the still unfolding story. In the end, it seems to be a story of a hero, the Captain Richard Phillips, who had the nobility and old-world understanding of the law of the sea to risk his own life to save his ship and the crew on board. The drama is still unfolding and you can only hope for the best. But if the sketchy facts are accurate about how he put his own life on the line to save his crew, then no matter what turn the story takes it will end in honoring a hero.

Our Senior Editor Andrew Meldrum has done an outstanding job coordinating the coverage from here in Boston. Check out Meldrum’s appearance tonight on the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News.