In 2012 Lippold wrote a book about the incident, and I spoke with him the day before the 12th anniversary of the attack.
It didn’t start with September 11th.
Almost a year before al Qaeda terrorists flew planes into buildings, suicide bombers affiliated with al Qaeda attacked the destroyer USS Cole as it was refueling in Yemen. Seventeen American sailors died in the attack.
The commanding officer of the Cole was Kirk Lippold, a 41-year-old Navy veteran. And even though an exhaustive investigation found nothing to indicate Lippold could have foreseen or prevented the attack, he was subsequently denied a promotion several times.
So here now, from 2012, Kirk Lippold.
Kirk Lippold is now 64. He works for a political marketing organization
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