Not all Rear Adm. Derek Trinque’s sailors know where he was 20 years ago, but the event and its aftermath had a profound effect on his leadership style in the decades since, military.com reports.
Trinque was the operations officer on the guided-missile destroyer Cole when two suicide bombers in a small boat laden with explosives targeted the ship during a refueling stop in Yemen’s Aden Harbor. Seventeen crew members were killed and dozens more hurt in the late-morning blast on Oct. 12, 2000, when the explosives ripped a 40-by-40-foot hole through the destroyer’s port side.
