Posted on 10/10/2014 10:47:26 AM PDT by Dave346
NORFOLK--Fourteen years after al Qaida suicide bombers attacked the USS Cole, shipmates, friends and families of the fallen sailors will come together to remember. A private ceremony is planned Sunday at Naval Station Norfolk.
It was October, 12, 2000, when the guided missile destroyer was refueling at the Port of Aden, Yemen, when terrorists blew a 40 x 40-foot hole in the ship's hull, killing 17 crew members.
Former Cole sailor Anthony VanCampen served as ship's bugler then. He plans to play "Taps" at this weekend's memorial service.
"The biggest thing for me is that somebody has to tell the story," said VanCampen.
He says he and other survivors of the attack are angry that all these years later, the alleged mastermind of the attack, Saudi Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, has not been tried, and he remains at the U.S. detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"We have been told that the full power of he federal government will be used to go after the people that did this to us, and provide swift and sure justice," said VanCampen. "I don't know how swift it is when, fourteen years after the event, and three presidents full of promise later, you're still trying to decide what to charge the guy with, where to hold the trial and when to actually hold the trial. The wheels of justice are moving slowly."
Sunday's ceremony, which is not open to the public, will take place at 10 am at the USS Cole Memorial, at Iowa Point, overlooking Willoughby Bay, where the Elizabeth River, James River and Chesapeake Bay merge, and, where the Cole as sailed by many time, both before the attack and since it was repaired.
Obama will send this one home with a New Suit and $100
this is one of the guys obama is looking to trade for a quick deal so he can close gitmo before he leaves office
I heard Russia supplied the high explosives to do the job. No one answered the question of how a small boat could blow a hole that large in a military ship without a shaped penetrating charge. This wasnt c4... if it wasnt where did a bunch of barely literate terrorists get the explosives? Was this russians revenge for the perceived american destruction of the kursk?
One of the first things Obama did in January 2009 was halt the impending military trials of both the USS Cole and 9/11 suspects that Bush had set in motion.
6 years later we are still waiting.
Clinton legacy
They aren’t called “tin cans” for nothing. The hulls on these vessels is pretty thin to keep them light.
First, he must have another traitor to swap him for.
A couple hundred pounds of high explosives would do a job on just about any ship.
Some sources say it was a shaped charge.
Might as wells also look at when Saddam Hussein’s AF attacked the USS STARK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_%28FFG-31%29
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