Monument to the Cole Is Dedicated

With a promise never to forget, the Navy dedicated a monument Friday to the 17 sailors killed in the bombing of the destroyer Cole one year ago.

A bell tolled as each of the sailors’ names was announced in a final roll call during the private ceremony at the Norfolk Naval Station. About 1,000 current and former Cole crew members and relatives gathered.

“Today, we honor 17 American heroes at this beautiful site that will forever carry their names and remind us that as Americans we cherish life and treasure all that a life of freedom stands for,” said Rear Adm. John B. Foley III, commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s Naval Surface Force.

The monument, a 10-foot monolith encircled by 17 granite slabs, overlooks Willoughby Bay--which is passed by ships leaving for and returning from sea.

With the bombing of the Norfolk-based destroyer in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000, and the attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center last month, Foley said terrorism is “a word that is now part of our daily vocabulary.”

“These terrorist attacks will never be forgotten, but nor will they deter us.”

To those who lost loved ones on the Cole, Foley said: “You are not alone. We cannot help ease your pain, but our country and our Navy will stand by you.”

Foley and Cmdr. Kevin M. Sweeney, who became commanding officer of the Cole in March, laid a wreath at the memorial. The wreath contained 48 white roses representing the 17 Cole victims and their surviving parents, spouses and children.

The ceremony also included a 21-gun salute and the playing of taps.

Sherman Saunders of Danville, Va., lost his cousin, Timothy L. Saunders, 32, of Ringgold, Va., in the blast that tore a 40-foot-wide hole in the Cole’s hull.

“The more we remember, the less likely we will become complacent, the less likely we will be less alert, the less likely this kind of thing will happen again,” said Saunders, an Army veteran.

The monument also pays tribute to the 39 sailors injured in the attack and the crew who saved the ship from sinking after two suicide bombers maneuvered a skiff alongside it and detonated explosives.

U.S. officials believe Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network is behind the bombing of the Cole and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Monument designer John Blackburn, a landscape architect with the Navy’s worldwide engineering corps, took input from some of the Cole’s crew in developing his design.

At the memorial’s entrance stands a plaque describing the crew’s ordeal. Steel from the ship’s damaged hull is forged into the plaque as a symbol of the crew’s strength and resolve.

A pathway winds 170 feet from the entrance to the centerpiece, a 10-foot pillar of mahogany granite, the top sloping 45 degrees so that the monolith points upward to symbolize the brightness of the Cole’s future.

The names of the dead are inscribed on two plaques. A third plaque in the middle bears the Cole’s shield and reads: “In lasting tribute to their honor, courage and commitment.”

Private donations paid for the $143,000 project.

The Cole is being repaired at Northrop Grumman Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss.