Sailors were working on the deck of the USS Cole as the Arleigh Burke class destroyer took on fuel at an offshore mooring station in the Yemeni port of Aden on the morning of Oct. 12, 2000. The Cole, en route to the Persian Gulf, was operating under Threatcon Bravo—the Navy’s second-highest state of alert—when it steamed into Aden harbor on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, yet eyebrows were not raised when a small skiff approached the Cole’s port side nearly 45 minutes into the four-hour refueling process. Just a few hours earlier, many small boats such as this one helped the Cole tie up to the fueling depot. This boat, however, was packed with C-4 explosive, and as the skiff approached the Cole, the small vessel exploded in a blinding flash.

Eight thousand miles away, retired Army General William W. Crouch ’63 was waking up in his Breckenridge, Colo., home. After eating breakfast, he flipped on the television and was stunned by the breaking news story greeting him:

American Naval destroyer refueling in Yemen...explosion ripped into the ship’s hull...suspected terrorist attack...lives lost.

"Oh no, not again," Crouch thought, as images of the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing flashed before his eyes. For the rest of the day, Crouch followed the story. He learned that one of the world’s most sophisticated warships was crippled, but not sunk. He learned that four sailors were dead; several more were missing (the death toll eventually would reach 17). And he learned that the explosion was, in fact, an act of terrorism.

The next morning the phone rang in Breckenridge. It was the chief of staff for the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Within hours of the disaster, the FBI was on the ground in Yemen, launching an extensive criminal investigation into the attack. The Navy, too, initiated an investigation of its own, to determine what had actually happened on the Cole itself. And finally a third commission was formed. This panel, dubbed the Cole Commission, was given a far broader mandate: to review force protection and recommend what changes needed to be made; the commission’s findings would not only affect the Navy but the entire U.S. armed forces. Crouch was asked to co-chair the panel. It was a request he couldn’t turn down.

General William Crouch '63
(Jeremy Green)