She was built by Ingalls Shipbuilding and delivered to the Navy on 11 March 1996.
On 12 October 2000, Cole was attacked from a small inflatable boat by suicide bombers. 17 Sailors were killed and 39 were injured. The U.S. government is offering a reward of up to US$5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those persons who committed or aided in the attack on the Cole; see http://www.dssrewards.net/english/usscole.htm or http://www.dssrewards.net/arabic/usscole.htm for more information. On 4 November 2002, Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harthi[?], who is believed to have planned the attack, was assassinated by the CIA using an AGM-114 Hellfire missile launched from a RQ-1 Predator unmanned drone.
Cole was returned to the United States aboard the Norwegian heavy transport ship MV Blue Marlin owned by Offshore Heavy Transport of Oslo, Norway. The ship was off-loaded 13 December 2000, from Blue Marlin in a pre-dredged deep-water facility at the shipyard of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Ingalls Operations. After a successful 14-month effort to repair the damage Cole departed Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 19 April 2002, and returned to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.
There was another Cole; see USS Cole (DD-155).
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump