How I learned terrorists had hit the USS Cole.
On October 12th 2000 the USS Cole was bombed. I was just finishing my lunch on board the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower nuclear carrier and not looking forward to going back down to pump room 4. We had a pump motor burn up and we were doing a moving refit. In other words it was not important enough for the ship to dock. We were in a port I can’t recall the name of right now. Tomorrow I was going to hit port and cause as much mayhem possible. But then I didn’t know terrorists were targeting us more than usual.
As I carried my tray back to the galley I heard the battle stations announcement. Just what I needed I thought my battle station was 10 decks below the water line. As I headed for my station I saw ship security boiling out of their bunks. Something big must have happened I knew. A security officer grabbed me and told me to come with him. We headed to the gun locker and he pulled out a .50 cal machine gun.
We hit the port side of the ship right at the smoking area which I had spent a lot of time. He told me to man the machine gun, which he had placed in a hole made for it on the posts. In my mind I was going through boot camp where the only thing I fired was a laser rifle. I had no idea what I was supposed to watch for when over the mc1 speaker system they announced “it” was on the port side headed right to where I was. The security officer then told me of the Cole explosion. A small fishing boat had come into our secure area around the ship and had ignored demands to leave. And he was headed for us.
I could hear helicopters and people yelling, sweat was poring into my eyes and my hands were shaking. Then I spotted the intruder. I could see someone at the tiller and a guy standing waving his arms. My gun moved automatically to aim at them and my finger was near the trigger. If they wanted to kill me they were going to have some holes in them. My finger went to the trigger and stopped. I knew I was way out of range but I wanted to fire to warn them off. The security officer put his hand on my shoulder and told me to calm down. As they got closer to range I watched the man in the boat waving he had something in his hands that looked like a jacket. The boat slowly turned away from us. As it ends up they were trying to sell jackets with USA printed on the back.
I never got to hit port because everyone was called back and I didn’t touch land again for two months.
17 sailors lost their lives and 39 were injured when the USS Cole was hit. May they never be forgotten.
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