There was nothing out of the ordinary when the USS Cole, a $1 billion guided missile destroyer, anchored at the port of Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000, for its routine fuel stop.
With 250,000 gallons taking several hours to replenish, the crew took a break for lunch, and Commander Kirk Lippold returned to his office to diligently tackle a stack of paperwork.
All was quiet. Then, at 11:18 a.m., a thunderous, forceful explosion nearly knocked Lippold out of his seat. In that alarming moment, lights flickered out, ceiling tiles dislodged, and a staunch odor of dust, fuel, and metallic debris crept into the senses.
“You could feel all 505 feet and 8,400 tons of guided missile destroyer suddenly and violently thrust up and to the right,” Lippold told government students at Liberty University last week. “We seemed to hang for a second, then slide back down into the water, rocking from side to side.”
