Commander Kirk Lippold "Front Burner: Al Qaeda's Attack on the USS Cole"

Commander Kirk Lippold, USN (Ret.) will discuss his book "Front Burner: Al Qaeda's Attack on the USS Cole." Lippold was the Commanding Officer of the USS Cole when it came under a suicide terrorist attack by al Qaeda in the port of Aden, Yemen.

Reservations are required for this event and may be made at [email protected] or by calling 202-662-7523. This event is free for NPC members, $5.00 for all non-members and member guests. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Proceeds benefit the National Press Club Journalism Institute. No outside books will be permitted.

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. On a hot, sunny morning, the 8,400-ton destroyer was rocked by an enormous explosion. 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. Tiles tumbled from the ceiling, and the ship was plunged into darkness, beginning to sink. In a matter of moments Lippold knew that the Cole had been attacked. 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 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. 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.