Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Five Years Ago Today...

On October 12, 2000, USS Cole (DDG-67) was attacked in Aden, Yemen, by suicide bombers. Seventeen Sailors made the ultimate sacrifice. Sailors, rest your oars.

In 1898, USS Maine was "attacked" in Havana harbor; the U.S. declared war on Spain. (It's since been proven fairly conclusively that this was actually an internal explosion.)

In 1917, Germany launched submarine attacks on our shipping; the U.S. declared war.

In 1941, Japan attacked our ships in harbor; the U.S. declared war.

In 2000, we sent FBI agents to Aden. It took most people eleven more months to realize we were already at war.

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of others in the blogosphere who are honoring the heroes of the USS Cole today. For background and photos of the attack and aftermath, this site is a good place to start.

I will never forget...

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's the poop from a former surface sailor. In 1973 we went to DEFCON 3. We put people on watch that never had even fired a weapon. I was on roving security patrol (aka FZ wathch). I had been in VN on gunboats so I was OK with this, but we had a guy on bow watch that was an OSSN. Doubt the guy was qualified to even load the 12 guage he had.
Navy people are not killers by nature. I hope the new MA rate takes care of that. When I was at CI training in Coronado Island, SEALs and UDT would typically make fools of security on the gray Navy ships across the harbor.
I served on a Tango in VN, and the truth is I am glad the USMC is taking over the river interdiction role we used to do. They know a lot more about small arms, and aren't afraid to use them.

10/13/2005 12:42 AM

 

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