{"id":15993,"date":"2009-12-09T07:20:51","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=15993"},"modified":"2015-03-24T15:23:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T19:23:48","slug":"uss-cole-memories-not-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=15993","title":{"rendered":"USS Cole memories, not so much"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15992\" title=\"sparenberg3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg3.jpg\" alt=\"sparenberg3\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg3.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg3-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Master Chief Jeffrey L. Sparenberg recited his experiences aboard the USS Cole at the time of the terrible bombing of that ship on October 12,  2000 to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/2009\/12\/navy_deleware_coleflag_originalstory\/\">Navy Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Master Chief Jeffrey L. Sparenberg, the highest-ranking enlisted crewman aboard, was testing oil in the midship lab with Ensign Andrew Triplett.<\/p>\n<p>Sparenberg said Triplett should lunch first, but relented.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Triplett told me to go ahead and eat and he\u2019d stay in the oil lab,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>So Sparenberg, who now lives near Stanton, headed up a few decks toward the galley, stopping to wash his hands.<\/p>\n<p>Then \u201cI felt a noise so loud, you didn\u2019t hear it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like, when you hit your head really bad, that moment you feel before you know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His first thought was that something had gone wrong with the grounding line and the fueling rig exploded.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of a terrorist suicide bombing never entered his mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sparenberg goes on to describe the chaos and his derring-do over the next few days as the ship and it&#8217;s crew tried to recover. The only problem is; <a href=\"http:\/\/hamptonroads.com\/node\/532796\">Sparenberg didn&#8217;t arrive on the ship until four days after<\/a> the bombing;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Retired Cmdr. Kirk Lippold, the Cole&#8217;s skipper at the time, said he distinctly remembers being told after the attack that a new crew member was in Bahrain, waiting to join the ship.<\/p>\n<p>Someone back in the States asked whether they should send the sailor back to the U.S., but Lippold &#8211; who&#8217;d just lost 17 crew members, including a senior chief &#8211; knew he could use more help. He gave approval for Sparenberg to join the crew.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;During the time he was on board the ship following the attack, he did an excellent job in helping the ship through some difficult times,&#8221; Lippold said.<\/p>\n<p>However, he added, &#8220;I know for a fact he wasn&#8217;t aboard the day of the attack.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Luckily, Sparenberg also wore a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the picture above, so the boy is doing jail time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15994\" title=\"sparenberg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg.jpg\" alt=\"sparenberg\" width=\"499\" height=\"161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg.jpg 540w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/sparenberg-300x96.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;d think the Navy Times would have done a bit of research on the fellow whose pants are apparently on fire.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to all of the people who sent the links over the past few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Master Chief Jeffrey L. Sparenberg recited his experiences aboard the USS Cole at the time of &hellip; <a title=\"USS Cole memories, not so much\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=15993\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">USS Cole memories, not so much<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}