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American Morning

America Remembers: Memorial Services for USS Cole Bring to Mind Recent Homeland Terrorist Strikes

Aired October 12, 2001 - 10:55   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: Sunny skies in Virginia on rather somber day. It was about this time a year ago, October 12, 2000, when first stated getting the initial reports from the seaport town of Aden, in Yemen. The reports that were coming in I remember quite vividly, talking about a major explosion that hit a U.S. military target in the Gulf. And immediately, there were family members in the United States calling our newsroom, trying to find out if their husband or their wife or their son or their daughter was indeed OK. Seventeen sailors lost their lives that day. And how poignant this memorial is today, knowing what happened a month ago yesterday.

Alec Fraser is retired from the U.S. Navy. He is a captain and also a CNN military analyst. He joins us now.

While you were watching that, you were remarking how the line has been crossed now just in military ceremonies but also with civilians as well.

CAPT. ALEC FRASER (RET.), NAVY: Bill, the American people have been seeing for a long time memorial services for military people, but now we have been seeing "Taps" played across America for those victims of the World Trade Center. I think there's a combined front between what the military has been doing for years and what the American people are now joining the military in responding.

HEMMER: You are also talking about, fro a military standpoint, the comparisons being drawn now as we look back in the window of hindsight between the USS Cole and what happened in the New York City and the Pentagon.

FRASER: As was said during this ceremony, this was, in retrospect, not an isolated attack. It was a precursor of something much more terrible to come; it was a precursor of an attack that was unknown and had never been done before, an attack that was unique. It was a suicide bomber. Had we known that those types of events would continue in a major scale, we would have had a different response.

HEMMER: Had we known. Indeed, you're right. What's interesting and ironic is just a few days after 911, the Cole was put back in the water, in that port in Mississippi, not out at sea just yet, but again it is buoyant.

Alec Fraser, live in Atlanta. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com