On the Hurley in the Morning radio program, Seth Grossman of Liberty and Prosperity discussed his ongoing efforts to keep the legacy of Naval Master Commandant Richard Somers alive.
Grossman organizes an annual memorial event in Somers Point, New Jersey, and argues that Somers is an unjustly forgotten, early American hero whose history offers essential geopolitical lessons.
The Barbary Wars and Richard Somers
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Historical Context: For centuries, Barbary corsairs raided ships and took enslaved captives, requiring nations—including the early United States—to pay costly tributes.
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The Mission: Refusing to continue appeasement, the U.S. Navy pushed into North Africa. On September 4, 1804, 26-year-old Richard Somers commanded the USS Intrepid, a captured vessel rigged as a floating bomb intended to enter Tripoli Harbor and destroy the enemy fleet.
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The Sacrifice: Somers and his 12-man volunteer crew died when the ship prematurely exploded. Despite the immediate mission’s tragic end, American forces subsequently took the fight ashore, ultimately securing victory and ending the tribute payments.
Grossman’s Historical Parallels Grossman connects Somers’s fight against the Barbary states directly to modern global conflicts, including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He contends that a long-term pattern of Western appeasement followed by armed response mirrors modern struggles against Islamic fundamentalism.
In his view, radical factions—specifically the rise of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and the Taliban via Indian seminaries—exploited regional pushback, Western division, and subsequent oil wealth to foster global jihad.
Grossman argues that understanding Somers’s resolve against early militant threats is crucial for contemporary American civic education and foreign policy.
