This is a question about the attack on the USS Cole. According to the reports I’ve heard, there are 8 missing sailors. What exactly does that mean? It’s not that big a boat (yeah, yeah, I know, ship), I’m guessing they haven’t simply been misplaced.
With all due respect to the families (my thoughts are with them) does this mean that the sailors have been blown into bits too small to identify? Or that they went overboard?
I’ve seen “missing, presumed dead” but not in any official reports. Is there any reasonable hope of recovering these men and women?
This kind of raises the whole MIA issue. . . My grandfater was a WWII POW, and is active in the POW/MIA movement, and he’s convinced that there are American prisoners still being held in Russia and Vietnam. I find this highly dubious. In the chaos of war I can imagine many scenarios where, tragic as it may be, a body is unidentfiable and/or unrecoverable. It seems like clinging to the idea that a missing loved one is still alive is understandable, but misguided.