U.S. NAVY

Anderson serves aboard USS Cole

Petty Officer 2nd Class Connor Anderson, of Northampton, serves aboard USS Cole, a U.S. Navy warship operating out of Norfolk, Va. Anderson graduated from Northampton Area High School in 2020.

The skills and values needed to succeed in the Navy are similar to those found in Northampton, he said.

“Moving states during high school helped me in being able to quickly adapt to a new living environment and connecting with new people, which is crucial to success in the Navy because we are changing commands every few years, and new people are always coming in,” Anderson said.

Anderson joined the Navy four years ago. Today, he serves as an information systems technician.

“My father, grandfather and my stepbrother all served in the Navy, and I felt like military service was the best life path for me, too,” Anderson said.

This October marks 25 years since the deadly terrorist attack on the USS Cole while the ship was refueling in Yemen. The explosion, carried out by two al-Qaida suicide bombers, killed 17 sailors, wounded 37 more and blew a 40-foot-wide hole in the side of the ship.

The crew worked tirelessly for more than 96 hours to free their shipmates trapped by the blast, limit flooding that threatened to sink the ship and address other issues that could have led to catastrophic fires that would have cost the lives of more sailors.

The ship, nicknamed the “Determined Warrior,” returned to the fleet in April 2002 after 14 months of repairs and has served on numerous deployments since, including most recently in 2024, spending seven months in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Gulf providing deterrence and defense to U.S. allies and partners.

USS Cole is a Navy destroyer, a multi-mission ship that can operate independently or as part of a larger group of ships at sea. The ship is equipped with Tomahawk missiles, torpedoes, guns and a Phalanx close-in weapons system.