NORFOLK, Va. — Twenty-one years ago, terrorists attacked the Norfolk-based guided missile destroyer USS Cole.
Seventeen Navy sailors were killed and 39 were wounded on that day.
The hard lessons learned on that day are saving the lives of modern day sailors today.
It was a different world then. Nobody in the U.S. had even heard of Al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. It was eleven months before 9/11.
The Cole had pulled into Yemen for a refueling stop in the Port of Aden. That's when suicide bombers struck, blowing a 40 by 40 foot hole in the ship's hull.
"Unfortunately, the Navy was complacent about force protection prior to the attack on the Cole," said retired Navy Captain Joe Bouchard, who was the Commanding Officer of Naval Station Norfolk that day. "It was not doing rigorous threat assessments and made assumptions about the safety of or ships."
Bouchard remembers all too well the pain that Cole families had to endure, and he says the Navy has made numerous operational changes for its ships overseas since then.
As a result, he notes there has never been another similar attack against a U.S. Navy ship.
"The force protection training that crews get is much better," he said. "So, they would react much more strongly to a small boat approaching a ship in harbor. We have much better coordination with the host country and their port officials. And if the host country cannot provide such security and won't cooperate with the U.S. Navy, then we don't make port visits there, period."
Because the ship was at sea, there was no in-person remembrance ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk.
The ship posted a special video tribute on its Facebook page. You can watch it by clicking here.