The USS Woodrow Wilson was built to disappear. Not in disgrace, not in secrecy, but in purpose. She was one of the original Forty One for Freedom, a ballistic missile submarine whose job was to slip beneath the ocean and make sure the unthinkable never happened. For more than thirty years, she did that work quietly, patiently, and without applause.

What makes her story worth telling is not just where she began, but where she ended up. Few submarines lived three distinct lives. Fewer still succeeded in all of them. From Polaris patrols in the heart of the Cold War, to the Poseidon MIRV era, and finally to an unexpected second career as a special operations attack submarine, the Woodrow Wilson adapted as the world around her changed.