The USS Daniel Boone was born into a world balanced on the edge of annihilation. When her keel was laid down on February 6, 1962, at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War that relied as much on unseen submarines as on visible missiles and soldiers. The Navy’s new fleet ballistic missile program had already begun to take shape, and the Boone was part of that second generation of boats that would carry America’s most destructive weapons into the deep. She was designed to remain hidden, to roam the world’s oceans in silence, unseen but always present, serving as a reminder that any attack on the United States would come with unbearable consequences.