Front Burner (28 page)

Admittedly, both of us were quietly defensive as we listened to him. But while we felt embarrassed, we both knew he was right. After John left, we gathered up Master Chief Parlier and put our heads together to plan the next day.

Given the extraordinary circumstances, since the explosion I had been holding morning quarters, announcing general instructions for the
day. Traditionally this is the XO's responsibility, and we decided that Chris should take it up again. Normally, he would hold an Officers Call with department heads, division officers, and chief petty officers in attendance, and the department heads would then assemble all their divisions and brief them. In the wake of the bombing, and with so many chiefs missing or injured, Chris had the crew assemble by department. They needed to realize that they were part of a division, not just a large amorphous mass. Chris also resumed issuing a formal Plan of the Day, a schedule of events and notes of interest to the crew, including liberty call arrangements on the support ships. At quarters, he announced that the crew would be expected to sleep in their own racks inside the ship and grooming standards would be strictly enforced henceforth. While there was some grumbling, the crew now knew we were back in business as a group of combat-hardened professionals.

We knew the crew felt they were not getting enough news from the chain of command. To address this issue, I decided to share a key piece of information with them at a special Captain's Call, with all crew members not standing a watch assembled on the flight deck. I told them that we had learned the previous afternoon that a ship, the Motor Vessel (M/V)
Blue Marlin
, was confirmed as being available for hire for possible use as a transport platform to take
Cole
back to the United States for repair. M/V
Blue Marlin
is a semisubmersible heavy lift ship designed to transport very large drilling rigs and other outsized equipment, and it had just delivered two Navy minesweepers to Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. It was currently pierside in another Middle East port undergoing routine maintenance with no immediate follow-on contracts. M/V
Blue Marlin
would be available in about three weeks.

This news had the exact opposite effect I had hoped for. The idea of having to face another three weeks in this port was devastating. Most of the crew looked down with expressions of discouragement. One started crying out loud. I might as well have told them the ship was sinking again. Sensing their mood, I backpedaled with a promise to find out more information as soon as possible.

What was going on here? This intrepid crew had just saved their ship. Couldn't they see they were bonded to it? What was their problem? As professionals, why couldn't they just toughen up and realize that we were in a combat situation? My World War II frame of reference wanted this crew to reflect those same heroic values as they continued to valiantly fight to keep their ship afloat and save themselves. For the sake of history yet to be written, we too needed to live up to that standard. Darrell S. Cole, awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously after the Battle of Iwo Jima, would have expected nothing less.

At sick call Tuesday morning, the Fifth Fleet surgeon had seen the few remaining members of the crew who were still suffering from diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems and brusquely recommended that the entire crew be evacuated off the ship. Calmer heads prevailed and that action was not taken. He may have been a good doctor but as a naval officer, he just didn't get it. Later that morning the issue became a moot point when I threw him off the ship for interfering with the FBI's investigation and crew recovery efforts.

Even Chief Moser, a key leader and informal counsel to the crew, began to suffer from the stress of what he had been through. While hesitant, he recognized his condition and was reluctantly convinced to turn his duties over for a day to another senior corpsman who had arrived from the Naval Support Activity in Bahrain. By the end of Tuesday, the crew was beginning to realize the value of the psychiatric support team. A series of shipwide, divisional briefings were held, and 85 percent of the crew were in attendance.

John told us he thought they needed a clearer sense of what their mission was to be over the coming days and weeks. Up to now, it had been a matter of saving the ship, and keeping it from becoming a trophy for the terrorists at the bottom of the harbor. Now the mission was to prepare the ship to leave port, and the crew to depart for home once
Cole
was on M/V
Blue Marlin
and ready for transport back to the United States.

The growing Joint Task Force Determined Response support infrastructure supporting
Cole
greatly expanded in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning when the
Tarawa
Amphibious Ready Group arrived
off the harbor in Aden and prepared to take over the support role for us. The USS
Tarawa
is an amphibious assault ship, specifically designed to conduct combat operations using landing craft, helicopters, or both to transport Marines ashore. Two other ships in the ready group, USS
Duluth
, an amphibious transport dock, and USS
Anchorage
, an amphibious dock landing ship, accompanied
Tarawa
. In charge of this group of ships was Commander, Amphibious Squadron Five, Captain Bob Wall.

After its arrival was reported to Admiral Fitzgerald, the Commander of Joint Task Force Determined Response,
Tarawa
took charge of all logistical support from the ships offshore. This meant laundry services, meals, and mail and e-mail support to families back home, and sailors who began to stand many of the watches previously supplemented by crew members from
Donald Cook
,
Hawes
, and
Camden
. Their crews had been an absolute godsend to us, and while they would now work under
Tarawa
's direction, for the most part they were ordered into an indirect support role.

In addition to basic crew service support, there were other significant changes. The security for
Cole
was shifted from Captain Philbeck and his Marine FAST platoon to a Marine rifle company deployed with the
Tarawa
amphibious ready group. The rifle company, along with other security-related forces like the Navy SEALs who had joined us, significantly increased our force protection posture. It was a much-appreciated deterrent to any plans the terrorists might have to attack again. And intelligence was picking up signs that they might be getting ready to do just that.

Another welcome development was the setup and installation of more robust communications, including a portable radio and satellite telephone with the ability to send and receive classified and unclassified transmissions. After days of my reliance on a cell phone, a key link from the ship directly to the Joint Task Force headquarters was in place and operational.

On Wednesday, October 18, we pressed for more detailed information about what was going to happen to us and when, and were told that M/V
Blue Marlin
might be available as soon as the end of the month—a lot shorter than three weeks. This was great news. But no sooner was one morale problem solved than another completely unexpected one took its place.

Some of the laundry that had been sent out to
Tarawa
for cleaning had come back stripped of the USS
Cole
patches sewn onto the crew's uniforms. Additionally,
Tarawa
sailors who had come aboard to supplement the damage control and engineering watches that had been manned by
Donald Cook
and
Hawes
were also suspected of stealing patches off uniforms, as well as ball caps and belt buckles from the berthing compartments.

For sailors at sea, the most corrosive force is a thief in their midst. On Thursday morning, Chris kept the crew assembled after morning quarters, where the issue was addressed head-on. I tried to convince them that the problem would be swiftly dealt with, and to stand tall and know that they were better than the sailors on the other ships who had done this to us. All they wanted, albeit quite wrongly, was to have a piece of history and, unfortunately, we were the victims of their perverse admiration.

While logically that might sound like the right thing to say and do, the words that came out of my mouth felt sour and disingenuous. I was just as mad as the crew and spoke critically of the other ships and their apparent toleration of this behavior. Despite my best effort, this attempt to buck them up went over very poorly—a bad start to a long day of challenges that soon got even worse.

A couple of days earlier, the Commander of Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic Fleet, Rear Admiral John “Jay” Foley, had called to find out about the explosion and how the crew and I were faring, and he had asked me if there was anything we needed that he could provide. I had told him that cellular phones that would allow everybody to communicate with families back home had been promised, but that nothing had happened. Getting those would be the single biggest boost I could think of to crew morale. Admiral Foley had delivered. The arrival of the phones on the pier, provided free of charge by AT&T and converted to operate on an analog rather than digital voice signal that would not work on the cell phone system in Yemen, was announced after I had wrapped up my remarks. At first, only two phones were activated and worked; the rest were expected to become operational later that day. Nothing seemed to be going quite right yet, but two phones were better than another day of no phones at all.

Two small draped-off areas were created on the ship to ensure absolute privacy for these sensitive conversations, which were initially limited to five minutes. Chris, Master Chief Parlier, and I agreed that the calls would be done in reverse rank order. The most junior seaman and fireman would call first, and the CO and XO would make the last two calls.

Over the course of the next several hours, every sailor signed into the call log and took a phone behind the curtain. Five minutes later, almost to a person, they walked out wiping their eyes but smiling with a sense of relief that they finally reached home. It was the phone call they had been waiting for days to make, the good news call that had been promised to them. The few who did not get through to someone were given first priority for another chance to reach family later in the day. By the end of the day, all the phones were working, and everyone had an opportunity to make a call home every few days.

That morning was also the last morning for
Hawes
and
Donald Cook
to deliver our meals to us.
Tarawa
had informed the Joint Task Force Determined Response commander that they had taken over those duties as well. It was a shift that everyone would soon regret. As noon approached and a hungry crew, as well as the support teams, prepared to take a meal break, a boat from
Tarawa
moored to the back of the pier. Box after box was then passed onto the pier and loaded onto
Cole
's flight deck. As soon as the boat was empty, its crew hopped back in and left to go back out to
Tarawa
.

As the boxes were still being opened, Chris came up from the flight deck and got on the communications satellite telephone. For several minutes he engaged in a rather pointed conversation, then hung up and walked over to me with a look of exasperation. Lunch from
Tarawa
was not a lunch. All that arrived were boxes of tuna fish snack packs with crackers. Chris contacted someone in the Supply Department from
Tarawa
who bluntly informed him that that was all we would be getting for lunch; there was nothing more coming in for us. Chris had explained to him that we needed lunch, not snacks. The individual he spoke to then off-handedly informed him that we could expect better at dinner.

This was unacceptable. Ever since their arrival, most of the people from
Tarawa
had been acting as if their support to us was an imposition on their day. Now they were not even properly feeding the crew and everyone else on board. How could anyone in their right mind expect me to keep not only
Cole
's crew but the FBI, NCIS, the divers, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard workers, and the supplemental watch standers nutritionally sustained with only a small tin of tuna and a meager stack of crackers? In no mood to accept this, I hopped down from the fender and headed straight to the phone. On top of the theft problem, this was not something to leave festering.

Dialing the number to the headquarters element of the Joint Task Force, I got Captain Hanna on the line. “What can I help you with?” he asked. Taking a deep breath before I spoke, I curtly replied, “Captain, the
Tarawa
just delivered lunch to the ship. All we received was a load of snack packs filled with tuna fish and crackers. They did not deliver lunch.”

“What do mean they didn't deliver lunch? That's all you got?” he testily replied.

“Yes, sir. The XO contacted the ship but they just told him that was all that was coming in and that the chow line was secured until dinner. Sir, I can't keep a crew going in this environment unless I can keep them fed and tuna snack packs just don't cut it,” I told him.

“Dammit! I'll take care of the problem right now. Don't worry; we'll get food out to you as soon as possible. I'm sorry this happened,” he snapped back at me.

I knew he wasn't angry with me but he was clearly frustrated.

I went back to work and told Chris that we should expect to get some chow sent out to us soon and that Captain Hanna had the situation well in hand. Chris said he would get word out to the crew and tell everyone to stand by for more food to arrive soon. Less than an hour later, the
Tarawa
watch team manning the communications equipment took a call. It was Captain Hanna with an update—and the news wasn't good.

“Kirk, Commodore Hanna here. I contacted
Tarawa
. I don't know what their problem is but I'm sorry; no more food will be coming out to
you until dinner. I know that's a lot to ask of your crew but can you hang on until then?”