Iranian American Commander of the US Navy Aircraft Carrier May Be Deployed to Persian Gulf

Aug 14, 2019

Society , Iranians in Diaspora

Independent Aggregator of Iran-related News/Events, Kodoom.com:

Iranian-American Navy Captain Kavon Hakimzadeh took command of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in July, achieving a goal he set for himself 30 years earlier as the son of an immigrant after he first laid eyes on an aircraft carrier in Norfolk, Virginia.

Capt. Kavon Hakimzadeh

Hakimzadeh (pronounced Ha-KEEM-za-day) was born in Texas to an American mother and an Iranian father, but moved to Iran when he was still a baby. He fondly remembers his childhood there during the 1970s. He attended an international school where they spoke Farsi and English. It was, as Hakimzadeh says, an "idyllic" childhood which quickly changed during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He and his family were forced to flee to America when he was 11.

Hakimzadeh enlisted in the U.S. Navy from Petal, Mississippi in January 1987. He completed Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, FL before earning an NROTC scholarship in 1988. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and was commissioned in May 1992.

Capt. Hakimzadeh (left) with Vice Adm. Grady on USS Mount Whitney

Hakimzadeh holds Masters Degrees from Old Dominion University, the Naval War College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is a Joint Qualified Officer and has completed the Aviation Nuclear Officer training pipeline. Hakimzadeh, whose call sign is "Hak," spent much of his career as an E-2 Hawkeye flight officer based in Norfolk. He has accumulated over 3,100 flight hours and flown in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and has completed eight operational deployments on seven different ships, earning the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit.

His most recent assignment was as Executive Officer of USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) from October 2014 to August 2016.

While he knows his last Persian name is uncommon in the United States, in some ways it helps serve as an icebreaker when he's deployed in the Middle East working with U.S allies or during port visits. Hakimzadeh still speaks a little Farsi and is not ashamed of his Iranian and immigration heritage:

"I love to tell people that it's a testament to our merit-based Navy that a kid at 19, 20 years old can look at these things and go, 'You know what? I want to command those one day.' And it's certainly a testament to the United States of America that a guy named Kavon Hakimzadeh can do that."

Hakimzadeh is now preparing for the possibility that he could be called to return to the Middle East and possibly Persian Gulf near his father's homeland, Iran.

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