U.S. Submarine Earns Highest Military Honor for Spying on America's Enemies

The USS Washington, a conventionally armed 7,900-ton Virginia-class fast-attack submarine, was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for "outstanding performance in action while conducting operations within U.S. Sixth Fleet" during its recent six-month deployment.

The PUC, the highest unit award in the Pentagon, is presented to any U.S. military unit that has distinguished itself by "outstanding performance and heroism in action against enemy forces," the Submarine Force Atlantic said in a news release on Friday.

"The PUC is indeed a fairly rare unit award and a significant honor," Tom Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submarine commanding officer and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Newsweek.

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Citing a publicly available document, Shugart said the U.S. submarine forces used undersea concealment to provide unique intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in support of national interests in contests that "characterize today's unstable international environment."

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