Life's Surprises

October 11, 2000

We were a few days out of Phuket, Thailand, sailing in the Persian Gulf heading toward Bahrain. I was holding morning quarters with my crew as usual. As I gave out the morning work assignments, I felt a tightness in my chest, my left arm was a little numb and my jaw ached. I felt a little nauseous and week. One of my guys looked at me and asked, “Are you ok? You’re not looking too good.” Well I didn’t feel well, but didn’t want to make a deal out of it either. “I’m ok, thanks.”

As the time went by I continued to feel worse. The same guy asked “Are you sure you don’t want to go to medical?” At this point I thought it was a good idea, and said so.  I went down four decks, and through half the ship, to reach the Medical Department.

The Medical Department was full, all chairs were taken, and about twenty people were standing around.  I walked to the reception desk. A Corpsman asked if he could help me. “Well, I am feeling nauseous, and I’m having chest pains.” He didn’t even look up, “Grab a seat and we will be with you as soon as we can.”

You never want to admit that there could be something serious wrong with yourself, so I just said ok and found a spot on the deck to wait. About an hour later the same crew member who had asked about me came down to check. I told him I was still waiting, not wanting to admit anything was wrong.

As we were talking the head Medical Officer walked by. My guy called to him, and told him I had come down because of chest pains. The doctor looked at me and said “Did you tell them you had chest pains?” I said “Yes, and that I was nauseous.  They told me to have a seat, and they would get to me when they could,”

“Come on back to one of the rooms and let me check you out.” I got off of the floor and followed him back. He had me lie back, gave me oxygen, and hooked up the EKG machine. After a couple of minutes he said “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

Everyone liked Doc Javery, he was always friendly and nice to everyone. Soon after he left the room I hear him yell, “Which one of you stupid morons told a man having a heart attack, to sit down, and we would see him when we could?”  I cleaned the language up a little,

Heart attack? Oh crap, he meant me! No, he can’t mean me, I’m only 41.

Well he did mean me. Since our ship had a hospital, they admitted me and arranged to have me admitted to the Emir’s Hospital, in Bahrain.  We were due to pull into that port in two days.

The following day was October 12, 2000. The USS Cole and several other ships had pulled into Yemen. The Cole was attacked by a suicide bomber and all US ships in the Persian Gulf left port, and all private ship to shore communication, phone and email, was halted.

I had not told my wife of the heart attack. I did not want to worry her. Now I could not let her know what was going on. While underway, when any of our accompanying ships had problems with their encryption communications equipment, that their technicians could not fix, they flew me over to repair it. I had been on several other ships during the tour and my wife knew it. Now she did not know if I was on the Cole, and there was no way we could communicate. She was worried sick.

Two days later, October 14, they took me via helicopter to Bahrain. They admitted me and performed a heart catherization.  Once I was left the hospital, I was kept in Bahrain, for observation, and to arrange orders back to San Diego.  After about a week the base moved all temporary personnel from the barracks, to hotels out in town.  The Cole was finally sending its members back to the States, via Bahrain and Germany.  They wanted to keep the ship’s members in the barracks, and away from the press.

While awaiting orders back to the States, I was given a new duty, to take the members of the Cole around the base, and help them with anything they needed. This turned into the most heartbreaking job I have ever had. After a few days several of the members opened up to me about their experiences. They had been left on the ship for two weeks after the explosion. All of the remains weren’t recovered and the whole ship smelt like an open tomb. This alone mentally tore at some of them.

I remember one young sailor in particular telling me about how he and his buddy from home had enlisted together, in the Buddy Program. After four years, they were still stationed together and due to get out in less than a month. They were together, heading for the Mess Decks, when they came across their chief. The chief asked his buddy to run up to the work space to get his briefcase, as he had to meet with the Mess Chief in a few minutes. The young man I met told his friend to go on to the Mess Deck, and he would get the briefcase for the chief. After he went to the work space, his friend and chief went into the Mess area, and were killed in the explosion.

All I could do was talk to the kids and give them a shoulder to cry on, while trying not to cry myself. I hope it helped.