Missing?

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.

The missing have been declared “presumed dead.” The bodies have not been found but it’s pretty certain they won’t be found alive, since enough time has gone by that if they were alive there would have been some sign. There’s a lot of twisted metal, and a deck that was driven up into the next, so it’s possible that they may cut open some of that metal and find bodies. Some of them may also have gone overboard through the hole in the hull, or be in bits too small to ID.

Some people in their grief can’t believe that their loved one is really dead unless they actually see the body. It’s an odd reaction, but pretty common.