![]() That being said, I was quite interested to hear about a number of details that I knew nothing about. It may have been more confusing at first, but over all I believe it would have made for a more engaging read. I think part of the problem was that Kirk Lippold decided to break down the events into categories, such as "what people did to save the ship," and "what people did to save the crew." While this made it clear and easy to process, I think it would have been more dynamic to tell the tale along the actual timeline rather than jumping back and forth with different aspects of the saga. I started losing interest shortly after the main details of the attack and what the crew of this vessel did to save their ship. Parts of this book were very interesting, but it was not interesting enough to keep me engaged throughout the entire book. The defensive tone Lippold takes throughout the book, pointing his finger at anyone who didn't wholeheartedly take his side, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There's no way Warner was actually convinced by the JAG report that Lippold was deficient in his duties, or that the ones playing politics were the admirals who overrode the report. ![]() According to Lippold, this was all politics - two of the sailors who died under Lippold were from Warner's state and it was an election year, so they must have used sway to force Warner into opposing the promotion, never mind that Warner didn't change his stance after election. The simple facts are these: the JAG report issued after the attack placed heavy blame on Lippold for his failure to properly implement the proper force protection plan in Aden, but Navy brass overrode the report and exonerated him when his name was submitted to the Senate for promotion, John Warner personally kiboshed it and threatened to open hearings on the Navy's handling of the Cole if they ever submitted Lippold's name again. The worst part comes in the epilogue when Lippold discusses how he was denied promotion to captain. ![]() Although Lippold assures us right at the beginning that he accepts full blame for what happened, he spends the entire book pointing out every extenuating circumstance and shifting responsibility for his errors to superiors - "Oh, nobody told me that the alert against Middle Eastern terrorists targeting the US Navy in the Mediterranean extended into the Middle East, and there's no way I could possibly have known." While it's great to have a first hand account of the USS Cole attack from the commanding officer, I'm disappointed to find it stuffed with self-serving apologia. Front Burner captures a critical moment in America’s battle against al Qaeda, telling a vital story that has-until now-been lost in the fog of the war on terror. Bureaucrats and politicians sought to shift and pin blame as they ignored the danger signaled by the attack, shirking responsibility until the event was ultimately overshadowed by 9/11. Seventeen sailors died in the explosion and thirty-seven were wounded-but thanks to the valor of the crew in the perilous days that followed, the ship was saved. Yet even with al Qaeda’s intentions made clear in an unmistakable act of war, the United States government delayed retaliating. In this gripping first-person narrative, Lippold reveals the details of this harrowing experience leading his crew of valiant sailors through the attack and its aftermath. What he didn’t know was how much the world was changing around him. The bombing of the Cole was al Qaeda’s first direct assault against the United States and expanded their brazen and deadly string of terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East. ![]() In a matter of moments Lippold knew that the Cole had been attacked. Tiles tumbled from the ceiling, and the ship was plunged into darkness, beginning to sink. The ship’s commander, Kirk Lippold, felt the ship violently thrust up and to the right, as everything not bolted down seemed to float in midair. At 1118, on a hot, sunny morning, the 8,400-ton destroyer was rocked by an enormous explosion. On October 12, 2000, eleven months before the 9/11 attacks, the USS Cole docked in the port of Aden in Yemen for a routine fueling stop.
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