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American Morning

America Remembers: Cole Victims to be Remembered Today

Aired October 12, 2001 - 10:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Just about 10 minutes away from Norfolk, Virginia, when the ceremony will get underway for the families and sailors of the USS Cole, as we look back one year. One year ago today, a suicide bomb attack hit the Cole while moored in a harbor in Yemen.

Seventeen American sailors were killed that day, and today they are remembered.

CNN's Bruce Morton at the Cole's homeport in Norfolk.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The USS Cole was a billion-dollar supership, a guided missile destroyer equipped for anti-ship, anti-air or anti-submarine warfare. But a year ago, a small boat attacked the Cole while she was refueling at Aden in Yemen, and blew a 40x40-foot hole in her; 17 crewmen, two of them women, were killed.

The terrorists who attacked the Cole appear to be linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. One of the hijackers was seen with a suspected commander of the Cole attack, and been involved in the attack of the Cole, and are also linked to the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.

The Cole itself, meanwhile, was towed back to the United States, first put in dry dock in Pascagoula, Mississippi, then last month, returned to water, and is now at an outfitting pier there, getting ready to rejoin the fleet, probably this coming April.

One hundred of her crew were awarded medals last month. The whole crew got a Navy combat ribbon. And now at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Station, a year to the day after the attack, they are dedicating a monument to the 17 who died in that attack, and to the crew members who fought successfully to save their ship.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MORTON: As you can see, there's an overflow crowd here. This is the biggest naval base in the country here at Norfolk, Virginia, something like 80,000 sailors here, a great many of them out this cool, pleasant, breezy morning in their summer whites to pay tribute to the 17 men and women who gave their lives on the attack of the Cole. This is a week of anniversaries. One month ago, the attacks on New York and Washington. A year ago, the attack on the Cole.

A reminder, if anybody needed a reminder, that the terrorist war against the United States is not new. It has been going on sporadically for a long time. You can go all the way back to the car bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut during the Reagan administration.

This is a way it honors the 17. The plaque honors them for, it says, "in tribute to their honor, courage and commitment." And that's a sentiment that just about everyone here would endorse.

Bruce Morton, reporting live from the Norfolk Naval Air Station.

HEMMER: Bruce, quickly here, I want to take us back to that monument you mentioned in your story right there. I believe we have a picture of it, a live picture. It's off to the left. Oh, we don't have it right now?

Bruce, maybe can you tell us more about the monument. It's described, to me anyway, as one that is built at a certain angle, so that every ship that comes in and out of that Naval station can see it. Is that the case?

MORTON: Ships will see it. It lists the names of the 17 dead. It has three columns of granite, kind of rising up, which is meant to symbolize the uplift, the spirit, the Cole made it through after all. It will be back in service this coming spring, so that is meant to be represented, and there will be 28 trees here for the 17 who died, and the 11 children who survive them.

HEMMER: Bruce Morton in Norfolk. Thank you, Bruce.

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