Remember how they used to ridicule Reagan on his proposal for a missile defense system?

Here is a beginning account of the April 14 Aegis Missile Defense success.

"This evening on the other side of the world, from an atoll 2,300 miles away, an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) was launched towards Hawaii.

As the threat missile arched over the vast Pacific, a forward-based US Army radar on Wake Island bristled, locked on to the target, and immediately handed off the missile's trajectory to the missile defense command & control system. Meanwhile, two state-of-the-art satellites gazed down from above, tracking every flicker of the hostile missile.

Hundreds of miles away in the waters west of Hawaii, the USS O'Kane was alerted. Using the early trajectory data supplied by the US Army soldiers on Wake Island, O'Kane sprang into action. Launching their interceptor much, much earlier than possible had they relied solely on their own shipboard radar, the US Navy sailors anxiously waited."

Read more here.