Chapter 1: The Frigates
The fleet's fading workhorses, Perry-class frigates run themselves ragged all over the globe, whether it's Halyburton hunting submarines in the Baltic Sea, Kauffman working with ex-Warsaw Pact navies off Romania, Thach enforcing embargoes in the Persian Gulf, or Doyle slowly circling South America.

Chapter 2: The Carriers
America's aircraft carriers remain the military's on-the-scene big sticks, even as manning shortages make work on the giant flight decks even tougher. Take 1998. As tensions grew in Kosovo, Dwight D. Eisenhower raced across the Mediterranean to take up station off rump Yugoslavia. One month later, Indy ended a distinguished career as America's most combat-decorated ship. And in the Persian Gulf's August heat, Abraham Lincoln's crew found the summer heat more dangerous than Iraqi warplanes.

Chapter 3: The Orions
The first aircraft whose electronic gear cost more than its airframe, the venerable P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft is doing much more these days than hunting and killing submarines above the Arctic Circle. Equipped with a new suite of optical zoom lenses and synthetic aperture radars, patrol squadrons -- such as VP-16 in Iceland or VP-26 over Bosnia and Romania -- keep track of targets on land and sea.

Chapter 4: The Cruisers
The Navy's air defense specialists, the guided missile cruisers are entering a new ascendancy as Tomahawk shooters. Stories from Vella Gulf in the Baltic Sea, Shiloh in the Persian Gulf, and Princeton off San Diego.

Chapter 5: The Hornets
Aboard the carrier Eisenhower, the maintainers of the fleet's newest strike fighters sweat, endure long chow lines, and Spartan racks to be part of the elite VFA-83 Rampagers. Their pilots talk about what keeps them in the Navy, and what might drive them out.

Chapter 6: The Gators
Amphibious assault ships like Wasp and Duluth have always lived a double life, as conveyors of Marine Expeditionary Units, but now they carry everything from surveillance drones to SEAL teams. Stories from Wasp in the Adriatic, Duluth in San Diego, and Trenton in the Black Sea.

Chapter 7: The Tomcats
In the Virginia hangars and ready rooms of VF-101 -- Tomcat Central -- the Navy's fighter jocks talk almost religiously about their beloved F-14 and their prayers to save the aging platform from its doom.

Chapter 8: Big Ship, Little Boats
The Navy's hidden nooks: the Special Boat Squadrons that ferry SEALs and do much more; the submarine tender Simon Lake, a tinker for the Nuclear Age; and Hawaii's torpedo recovery boats, which might be the best duty in paradise.

Chapter 9: The Submarines
Whither the shrinking Silent Service? Cut in half in five years, the sub fleet is learning to operate in the shallows instead of the deep ocean. Aboard the attack sub Houston off San Diego.

Chapter 10: The VR Navy
If the reserve squadrons that fly the Navy's cargo are all but invisible, they are also indispensible. But if they don't get new planes to replace their 30-year-old, rapidly aging C-9Bs, getting off the ground may become nearly impossible. Stories from VR-57 in Italy and the Persian Gulf and VR-58 in Hawaii.

Chapter 11: The Minesweepers
Mines have inflicted most of the Navy's recent combat damage, yet the minesweeping fleet is strapped for cash. To stretch they limited resources, the Navy's Persian Gulf minehunters swap out crews instead of sailing from the U.S. -- a rotation system that may be a model for future warships.

Chapter 12: The Bases
The number of bases is going down, but many of the biggest are better than ever. Stories from Singapore, Japan, Iceland, Sicily, and Egypt.

Chapter 13: The Sailors
The Navy's overworked hearts and souls, brains and hands.