Memories

It’s a duty day (back in homeport obviously) and I was just topside doing a tour and I glanced over to the ship across the pier, the USS COLE (DDG-67). It’s a cold, rainy night here in Norfolk and the COLE sits on the pier looking no different from the other hard working warriors on the water front except for that patch in her port side where terrorists attacked her while she was taking on fuel in Aden October 12, 2000.

The Navy doesn’t give up on ships, the TRENTON, the STARK, the SAMUEL B. ROBERTS, the COLE… we bring them home, we fix them we send them back in to harms way. It’s been that way since the beginning.

The Sailors standing watch on the COLE’s quarterdeck understand the history of their ship, but the history doesn’t have the same impact as memory.

I was a Strike Officer doing a training exercise on another ship that day. We were in Norfolk practicing how to launch missiles in a timely manner when we heard on CNN that our sister ship had been attacked. We were one of three ships to serve as a backdrop when President Clinton came to Norfolk for the ceremony honoring 17 Sailors, we gave tours to stricken families so they could see spaces resembling the ones their loved ones died in.

I’m an old hand at this Navy thing and over the years there have been many memories, more good than bad but a melancholy memory goes with a rainy duty night.