Front Burner (23 page)

The night after the attack, Commander Patrick J. Keenan and Lieutenant Commander Matthew Long, the Officer in Charge and Assistant Officer in Charge of the Navy Ship Repair Unit stationed in Bahrain as part of the Fifth Fleet Staff, had arrived in Aden. They planned to conduct a SCUBA dive under USS
Cole
to see if the ship could eventually be moved to a safer location. They were using the diving gear of a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal team that had been helping the Yemeni government remove thousands of mines left over from the civil war in the 1990s.

In the early morning hours of October 13, they had disappeared into the eighty-five-degree water under
Cole
and slowly and methodically swam the length of the ship. A large sheen of oil coated the water, but beneath it there was visibility of about fifteen feet. Taking their time to ensure they did not miss any damage, Keenan and Long worked their way up to the forward part of the ship near the sonar dome, then back along the keel to the stern of the ship near the rudders and propellers. They planned to enter the hole in the side only to the extent necessary to determine the structural integrity of the ship and perhaps take some measurements, because jagged and sharp metal protruded inward around the entire circumference.

While the curve of the top of the hole could be seen above the waterline, the widest part was several feet below water. Carefully, both divers measured the hole's extent down the side and underneath the ship. They were awestruck by the amount of devastation caused by the force of the hydraulic impact from the detonation. Numerous cracks emanated away from the blast hole where the steel had been deformed and torn like thick paper. The bilge keel, a large strake of metal attached to the ship on each side and running along most of its length, had been torn in about a sixty-foot
section, although it was still attached at each end. It was clear from the amount of fuel still in the water that the fuel tanks underneath main engine room 1 had been breached by the force of the explosion. These were still leaking fuel into the harbor.

The explosion of the suicide boat had created a massive shock wave, which in the incompressible water of the harbor instantly translated tremendous force in all directions outward and downward—outward into the side of
Cole,
punching through the half-inch hull and inward into the ship, and downward into the seabed to form a crater about twenty feet across and four feet deep, then reflecting upward toward the bottom of the ship and its keel.

The initial damage assessment listed the following:

The divers estimated that 200 tons of fuel (almost 60,000 gallons) had been lost from the damaged tanks and that the ship had taken on approximately 2,300 tons of floodwater.

This information was sent to the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington. There, experts developed a plan of action to continue the work the crew had begun to stop progressive flooding, maintain power and keep the firemain operational, and reduce the list (sideways tilt) and trim (longitudinal tilt) of the ship caused by the flooding. Later, they developed a plan to move the ship from Aden to a safe location.
¹
Our own next step would be to decide how to begin the recovery of the remains of sailors trapped in the wreckage of the mess line, galley, and main engine room 1.

Today there would be no rest for the weary. While the crew had already seen Ambassador Bodine, Vice Admiral Moore, and several Yemeni government officials come out to the ship to view the results of the attacks, General Tommy R. Franks, U.S. Army, the Commander of Central Command, was to make a visit (his only one) to the ship.
Cole
was under General Frank's operational control and this visit, while expected, came sooner than we anticipated.

A tall and imposing figure, the general arrived by one of the Marine anti-terrorism security team's zodiac inflatable hull boats. With an armed security detail in tow, he strode quickly and confidently across the refueling pier and up the brow. There was no place to mount the ship's bell and still no fanfare for any visitor, regardless of rank. Chris, Master Chief Parlier, and I greeted him at the brow. After a quick brief about the stability of the ship and the welfare of the crew, we started to walk the now standard visitors' route.

At the epicenter of the explosion, the galley, the general paused and we talked about the effects of the blast on the ship. He seemed very interested
in how watertight integrity on the ship worked. I explained—in probably more detail than he wanted or needed—how our decision to set modified condition Zebra on the damage control deck and below and to compartmentalize the ship as much as possible was a key factor in our ability to save it. He had also heard how, despite an inoperative 1MC and no one to tell the crew what to do, they had performed magnificently and used their training to respond to the attack with damage control and security measures. He seemed impressed at how well the crew had held up in the days since.

But as we walked about the ship, he repeatedly did something that made me think he was disconnected from the reality of what had happened to us. As we passed crew members going about their work or standing their watches, he would stop them, shake hands vigorously, and slip from his palm to theirs small metal coins. These were called challenge coins, with a red Central Command emblem on one side and a miniature relief map of the region on the other. These were his personal challenge coins, with his name on them, and he seemed fixated on handing them out to crew members right and left.

At first, I thought it was a nice gesture and a measure of his respect for the crew. As we continued to walk around, however, it seemed to me that he thought this was just another peacetime visit to troops in garrison. We still had bodies trapped in the wreckage of the mess line, galley, and the destroyed engine room. The crew, only hours before his arrival, had barely been able to prevent the ship from sinking. Everyone was traumatized and exhausted. Yet here was the commanding general in charge of a major theater of operations, walking about a devastated ship, handing out coins and backslapping the crew as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

As we wrapped up the tour and walked back to the flight deck, General Franks asked if he could address the crew for a few minutes. While I looked composed on the outside, inside, my mind was churning with the disbelief about his casual demeanor. As calmly as possible, it was explained to him that the crew was extremely busy preparing for the coming onslaught of support personnel. While they would probably have enjoyed hearing his
remarks, it would be disruptive to stop everything. No doubt disappointed, but thankfully accepting my explanation without a clue as to the real reason, he prepared to leave the ship from the quarterdeck. Again without fanfare, he saluted, walked down the brow and across the pier, and quickly faded into our memory as he went ashore, with his security detail in tow.

Back again on my black fender perch, I motioned for Chris to come over. With no one in earshot, I pulled from my pocket a plastic bag of about twenty coins the general had handed me and asked, “Can you believe him? He was totally oblivious to what happened to us. As we were walking around the ship, he kept handing these coins out to the crew like he was on some walking tour of an Army base.” Chris just shook his head in amazement. “Captain, do you want me to take those from you and distribute them?” he asked with a smile. I just smirked back at him and said, “No, I'll just hold onto these for now. I don't know what I'm going to do with them but I'll just hold onto them. I just can't believe him.”

More pressing matters soon consumed our attention.

Besides the FBI team and the divers (joined by the lead officer from their home unit in Norfolk, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2, Commander Barbara L. “Bobbie” Scholley, USN), volunteer workers and technical experts from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and the Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity in Norfolk came aboard to assist in the ship stabilization efforts. Lastly, a Special Psychiatric Rapid Intervention Team (SPRINT) deployed from the Naval Hospital in Sigonella, Italy, plus two Fifth Fleet chaplains, arrived to begin working directly with the crew to start the process of helping everyone deal with the post-traumatic stress from the attack.

Up until this point, Chris and I had, for the most part, mutually coordinated our efforts to organize the crew and work with the lead members from each support agency that came aboard the ship. That approach would no longer work; too much was happening too quickly. Without ever discussing or even acknowledging it, we divided the duties. Chris would handle and deal with the operation and coordination of efforts internal to the crew and ship, while I would deal with the myriad personnel that were coming from ashore. Without even exchanging a word, our relationship
as CO and XO had matured and transitioned to a new level. It was one of the blessings of having a great executive officer.

Initially, the FBI's evidence collection teams had planned to work independently of the ship's crew. They did not know how well the crew was coping with the aftermath of the attack, and in their previous experience at post-blast crime scenes, they had not had people who had lived through the attack available to assist them. After the initial assessment survey on Sunday, however, Don Sachtleben, now the FBI lead forensic advisor on the scene, decided to take advantage of the manpower pool available in
Cole
's crew and use them to supplement the evidence collection teams.

This turned out to be the right decision. Working with the FBI and NCIS agents allowed the crew to participate in the vital task of evidence collection, helping to determine who had carried out the attack and bring them to justice. When off watch, crew members would not be left sitting around to bemoan their circumstances or worry about their fate; they would have work to do. Similarly, the FBI benefitted from having skilled experts familiar with the ship, its components, and how things operated in a shipboard environment.

Time was of the essence. The crew knew that the faster the job of evidence collection could be completed, the faster they would get the ship back under their complete control. While it was always their ship, having a team of twenty to thirty law enforcement agents, plus other support organizations, crawling everywhere created a sense that for the time being they had lost ownership. Most just wanted to be done with this work so they could start the process of cleaning up all the debris topside and give the ship a thorough freshwater washdown. It would also mean being able to clean up the area around the mess line and galley, thereby reducing the growing stench of rotting food.

Throughout the day, the FBI/NCIS forensic teams, including key personnel Supervisory Special Agent Leo West (FBI), Special Agent Cathy Clements (NCIS), and Special Agent Mike Martz (NCIS), worked to section off different areas of the ship and systematically gather evidence, which would all be kept aboard ship or transferred to other Navy ships so as to
keep it entirely under U.S. control. For these seasoned investigators, the entire ship was covered in question marks. Specific material they looked to gather included pieces of wire, batteries, and other mechanisms to indicate the ignition source for the explosives, the type of motor used in the boat, or any other pieces that might provide a clue that would fit into the massive puzzle they were just starting to work on. They also looked for key components that would give them clues about the size and origin of the boat as well as how the explosives may have been positioned in it.

Another major requirement of evidence gathering was to find pieces of the bombers whose bodies had been obliterated by the explosion. Their DNA would make it possible to identify them and give clues to how the attack had been so skillfully planned and executed. Pieces of bone, flesh, and teeth from the bombers had already been found on the ship and more was being discovered as the day wore on.

Every piece of material that did not appear to come from the ship went through careful examination and review. On the forecastle, shaded by a tarp erected over the MK-45 5-inch/54 gun barrel, several tables held the evidence the crew uncovered. At each table, the investigators carefully pored over the material brought to them in bags and buckets, and then sifted through a screen. It was a slow and detailed process that went on for hours at a stretch before the team members would take a break inside the ship to gain some respite from the oppressive heat and humidity.

Once sorted, bags of evidence were deposited in the ship's classroom under the flight deck, and turned over to the FBI/NCIS team as the central office for evidence collection and documentation. Right next door, the ship's career counselor's office became the initial storage point for evidence. Since this space could be locked and maintained under strict access control, it was the best place for evidence to be received, logged in using evidence collection materials and forms—the FD-192, or green sheet, for the FBI—and secured until it could be taken off the ship.