On a wavy stretch of ocean thousands of miles from North Texas, Petty Officer 1st Class Jessica Ryan was doing what the Navy often asks of its best sailors — fixing something critical, quickly, and without much fanfare. The Fort Worth native, now serving aboard the USS Roosevelt, recently earned a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for repairing the destroyer’s radar, a task that sits at the quiet intersection of technical skill and national security.
Ryan’s path to that moment began far from the steel decks and humming electronics of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. She graduated from Forreston High School in 2008, at a time when the future felt wide open, and the Navy was deep into a new era of global deployments. Eleven years ago, she raised her right hand and joined the service, eventually becoming a cryptologic technician (technical) — a role that demands patience, precision, and a comfort with systems most people never think about unless they stop working.
A ship’s radar is one of those systems. It is the unseen sense that allows a destroyer like the Roosevelt to track aircraft, surface vessels, and potential threats far beyond the horizon. When it fails, the consequences ripple outward, affecting not just the ship but the larger force it supports. Destroyers routinely operate alongside carrier strike groups, NATO partners, and allied navies, providing air, surface, and subsurface defense in some of the world’s most strategically sensitive waters. Keeping that radar online is not just a technical accomplishment — it is a contribution to the Navy’s ability to project stability across the globe…