Front Burner by Kirk S. Lippold Page B

head to toe with residue from the black, sooty wave of water that the explosion had washed up onto the ship. Their eardrums were ruptured and they were dazed and confused.
    Despite his shock at the scene around him, Chris quickly got his bearings and fell back on the training provided by hundreds of damage control drills. The Navy trains repetitively for this very reason: during a crisis, people don’t have time to think, they only have time to react, and everyone had to get to work immediately to save the ship.
    The standard list of tactics, techniques, and procedures—manning general quarters stations, manning the repair lockers, closing all hatches and doors, assessing the damage to the ship—this is what everyone was thinking, as if each step had been indelibly imprinted on their brains. At this point, Chris did not know if the captain was killed, wounded, or incapacitated. He began barking out orders, and the crew organized itself to stop the flooding, stop the spread of smoke, prevent fire, and man the battle-dressing stations to treat the wounded. With the ship’s communications system knocked out and the battery-powered backup system out of commission, all that could be heard were the shouts of crew members as they went to work to save their ship and shipmates.
    Making his way to the central control station, Chris was shocked to come across one of Cole ’s leading damage control experts on the Damage Control Training Team, Gas Turbine System Technician-Mechanical Chief Mark Darwin, lying seriously wounded on the deck. Ships like Cole in the Arleigh Burke –class of guided missile destroyers were intended to have a chief petty officer in charge of the damage control division. However,
chiefs with that kind of experience and leadership were scarce. Our ship had worked hard to train and educate other personnel, including Darwin, to fill the gap with their background and experience in the Engineering Department. Now, with him wounded and unable to directly contribute to the damage control effort, Chris began to seriously worry about our prospects for saving the ship. Kneeling down, he saw that Darwin was having trouble breathing. Some of his ribs had been cracked or fractured. In the past, Darwin and Chris had had a very contentious relationship—now all Chris wanted was to stay and give comfort. Even so, Darwin told Chris the best thing he could do for him was to keep moving and look after the ship and crew.
    Topside, with Chief Larson standing by me, I now understood what had happened. My mind was clear and sharp. I told Larson, “I have got to get to the bridge to tell the Yemeni port authorities what’s happened. Do not allow any more boats to come alongside the ship. We cannot afford another hit.”
    I walked up the port side, opened up a watertight door, and in the dark began to climb the stairs leading to the bridge. Why us? Why now? What did we miss that allowed this to happen?
    As I opened the door and stepped onto the bridge, I came upon the Navigator, Lieutenant Ann Chamberlain, as well as my leading electronics technician, Senior Chief Pam Jacobsen and leading operations specialist, Senior Chief Al Trapani. I still held my 9 mm handgun at the ready as the three of them looked at me wide-eyed and asked what was going on. Although they were shocked by what I told them, I needed them to focus on getting me in touch with the Yemeni port authorities immediately. Without power on the bridge to operate the ship’s bridge-to-bridge radio, used earlier to contact the Aden Port Authority, Ann found an alternative and passed me the hand held bridge-to-bridge walkie-talkie that operated on the same channel. As the operations officer, Lieutenant Derek Trinque, came onto the bridge from the port side. I keyed the radio.
    â€œAden Port Control, this is USS Cole , over.”
    â€œThis is Aden Port Control.”

    â€œThis is USS Cole . We have experienced an explosion