Bombed Trini heading to Iraq

Trinidad-born US seaman, Sean Taitt, was injured in the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and worked at the Pentagon when it was attacked on 9/11, yet is now hoping to join the US forces heading to Iraq.

Taitt, 34, is the son of Glenda Goddard and step-son of music arranger Pelham Goddard.  Having emigrated to the United States in 1989 he signed up with the US Armed Forces for a career which he vowed would be undaunted, even by one of the worst attacks on the United States military in peacetime. He joined the US Navy in 1989, and Taitt progressed, rotating in different jobs. “It takes a lot of hard work. After two years doors just started opening. As a West Indian you are no less of a man,” Taitt said. After that stint Taitt went to explosive ordnance disposal school for three years where he worked in supply logistics literally as a computer-based store-keeper.

He related how he then decided to sign up for the USS Cole, a fateful decision. “I told them to put me on any ship leaving. They had just commissioned that ship, very close to my hometown in Maryland.”  He said he spent a year visiting the ship in port to get accustomed to the crew, before joining it in 1998 to patrol the Gulf.  “They smuggle a lot of diesel oil to be converted into fuel oil. I did that for six months. I always liked risk and would volunteer for every task force, including the In-Port Emergency Team, Rescue and Assistance and the At Sea Emergency Team.” He praised the US Navy training programme, which would later be truly put to the test under the most dire circumstances. “In addition to your duties there is continuous training, from Sunday to Sunday. Much of it is based on survivability, including blind-folded drills. It was a very strict 24-hour regime. The power you have, you have to live with. Would you send into a fire your best friend on the end of a hose-nozzle, to save the rest of the ship, if you knew he would not be coming back out? A similar thing happened on the USS Cole. In fact after that attack a lot of guys retired and one guy committed suicide. When you are out there all we have to sustain ourselves are memories of our families.” 

When his ship was patrolling the Gulf as part of the US Sixth Fleet, crew had heard rumours from the Fifth Fleet that a terrorist attack might be imminent.  One fateful morning, he related, he had offered to do a deck-watch recalling: “But my friend said ‘No, you take the next watch’.  I went below to process bills for things like fuel and potable water. My boss, a female lieutenant- commander, came below to join me. Then the explosion struck! He only remembers the effects of the explosion like smoke making him unconscious, recalling: “I went ‘blind’, like going to sleep. I didn’t feel a thing; I was knocked out.” He later found out that from the time the Lt-Cdr entered his door, she had been blown backward. Then he woke, recounting: “When I came to at first I thought I had just overslept. It was pitch black and I was lying on my back facing upwards. It was just darkness but hot. My work space was under the waterline and flooded out, although this helped cool it down a bit.” He was suffering a damaged leg, multiple fractures of his ribs and damaged lungs plus a two-inch scar above his left eye. “It took about three hours to get me out. I was going into shock. I was in water and fuel. I didn’t realise I’d been hurt. They had been calling me but I had not responded. I was in a tattered uniform and my face was bleeding. “I had been in the proximity of the blast. The power of the blast goes right through you, like radiation, creating a light pocket of blood around your heart like a blister which is what kills you. They finally rescued me. There were injuries all round, panic and chaos. The heat of the explosion had melted metal which had wrapped around people - I had got off easily.”

He said that many senior members of the ship’s emergency teams had been injured and had to now rely on their juniors. “That showed that our training is paramount.” Perhaps as horrific as the actual explosion was trying to survive its aftermath. “They had to keep me conscious, to keep spitting out the blood from my lungs, to stop suffocating. One kid, Greg Wibberly they were trying to wake but he was damaged to the point of unconsciousness. If they couldn’t wake you within a certain time they would put you in a helo (helicopter) tower on the flight deck. The bodies piled up.” Some 17 seamen died and 39 were injured, all including Taitt being awarded the Purple Heart medal. “Our ship had lost all power; It was unprepared. They took us off the ship. They took people to donate blood, while some stayed to fight the fire. Our dog-tags told our blood-type. I was one of the last to be taken off the ship. They surveyed our injuries but didn’t have sufficient paramedics. A French aircraft flew us out of Yemen to Germany, a 17-hour flight, to get medical care.”

 In Yemen the wounded had received dressings and minimal painkillers, just enough to stabilise them to fly. Taitt said two other Trinidad-born seamen were also abroad the USS Cole — Sean Sylvester who was not injured and Johann Gokool who eventually had to have his left lower leg amputated. Taitt praised Gokool saying: “He’s got more heart than I, and decided to amputate his leg. He decided that being an amputee would involve less surgery and he would be able to run faster, than if he had a fused leg.” Taitt too nearly suffered ill-effects from the long delay in getting to Germany for hospitalisation. He suffered an episode akin to a minor heart attack whereby his fractured ribs could not support his lungs. “I was suffocating as blood was getting into my lungs. It feels like a cold and you have to cough. I couldn’t even talk. I just thought ‘I may not be making it this time’. “On the plane I refused to lie down in the Stokes Basket because I knew from previously that blood collects if you lie down. You lie down and they strap you in. “It was very painful but when you see all the other people, with crushed arms and legs, stomach blown out, one guy’s thigh-bone cracked and coming through his back who had more burns than me, you don’t think about your own pain.”

When he was flown to the US for more intense medical treatment in Virginia it was discovered that his injuries were more extensive. “The chief surgeon said to me ‘You are strong lad.  I’ve been doing lectures on your type of injuries and I haven’t had a survivor in 70 years, going back to World War Two. I’m glad you’ll live to be my first ‘live’ subject’.” He suffered haemotobia, a blood pocket around the heart, and a damaged leg.  Taitt remembered the chief surgeon telling him: “I don’t know if you are going to make it, because you have blood sitting in your chest that is going nowhere.” Taitt had objected to chest-surgery so the chief surgeon instead treated the haemotobia by a defibrillator to clear the chest. He was transferred to Bethesda National Navy Medical Centre and then to a US Army hospital which had more experience treating leg injuries. “I had looked at my leg and threw up. My leg was the size of my arm, and with the burns and scars. I couldn’t even move it. It was a whole different experience - terrible! “The basic stuff  you take for granted I couldn’t do. Learning to walk again took six months of intensive therapy and care, including electric-shock therapy on my leg which had become stiff. I had 47 staples in my leg. Generally after minor surgery it takes six months to walk, but for me it would be two years. My rehabilitation was very painful. I decided not to be handicapped. Two years later I am now able to run, walk, jump and wine.”

After his rehabilitation he was offered a job at the Pentagon in 2001, and was there when 9/11 took place and the commanding officer of the USS Cole was there too. He marvelled at having survived not one but two terrorist attacks. Despite some international protests against US policy on Iraq, Taitt had no qualms about being part of the US military build-up in the Gulf, although adding: “Hopefully it will not come to war.” He is currently a statistical analyst at the Pentagon, a job where he helps plan the lives and careers of other servicemen.  Looking forward he said: “The earliest I could go to Iraq is June 2004, but I would have to train someone to do my job at the Pentagon to relieve me. I have  four tours, 12 to 15 years, left in the service. It’s a great opportunity”.