Kirk S. Lippold (born April 29, 1959) is a former

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

officer. He was the

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or commander, or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually give ...

of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

destroyer on October 12, 2000, when the ship was attacked and bombed by

al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

terrorists during a refueling stop in the

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i port of

Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...

, killing 17

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor'' ...

s. Lippold assumed command of ''Cole'' on June 25, 1999, and served until he was relieved on March 9, 2001.

Education

Lippold is a 1981 graduate of the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (USNA, Navy, or Annapolis) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as United States Secre ...

. He received a Masters of Science in Systems Engineering (Joint Command, Control and Communications) from the U.S.

Naval Postgraduate School Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a Naval command with a graduate university mission, operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. The NPS mission is to provide "defense-focused graduate education, including clas ...

, which he attended from 1987 to 1989. He graduated from

United States Army Command and General Staff College The United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC or, obsolete, USACGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military ...

in 1994 and from

Joint Forces Staff College The Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC), located in Norfolk, Virginia, was established as the Armed Forces Staff College in 1946 and incorporated into the National Defense University in August 1981. It educates and acculturates joint and multinat ...

in 2001.

Military

Before serving as commanding officer of USS ''Cole'' from 1999 to 2001, Lippold was

executive officer An executive officer is a person who is principally responsible for leading all or part of an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. In many militaries and police forces, an executive officer ...

on the cruiser . He also served as the operations officer on the commissioning crew of the destroyer , the

lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships that are all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very comple ...

of the same destroyer class as ''Cole''. He was

division officer A division officer (known as a divisional officer in the UK) commands a shipboard division of enlisted personnel, and is typically the lowest ranking officer in their administrative chain of command. Enlisted personnel aboard United States Nav ...

aboard the cruiser and the tank landing ship . Following his departure from ''Cole'', he received a series of desk positions at

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

.The Virginian-Pilot
Former ''Cole'' commander to retire today
May 24, 2007. Working in the War on Terrorism Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy, Lippold "was instrumental" in the creation of detainee policy in the immediate aftermath of the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. A Navy promotion board had selected Lippold for promotion to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

(O-6) in 2002 but he was not confirmed by the

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, this despite a 2001 Navy investigation that concluded that Lippold and his crew probably could not have prevented the attack and should not be punished (although investigators found that had Lippold followed twelve safety procedures, among several dozen which were not observed per the existing security requirements in Aden, the attack could have been mitigated or prevented). Subsequent Navy promotion boards continued to select Lippold for captain, and in all cases the selection was subsequently struck down by the Senate. On August 22, 2006, the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

reported that

Secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...

Donald C. Winter Donald Charles Winter (born June 15, 1948) is an Americans, American technologist and business leader who served as United States Secretary of the Navy. A former top executive of TRW, Aerospace & Defense, he was nominated in 2005 by President Geor ...

removed Lippold from the promotion list. Secretary of the Navy Winter concluded after reviewing the matter that Lippold's actions before the attack on October 12, 2000, "...did not meet the high standard..." expected of the Navy's commanding officers. Based on that assessment, Winter determined that Lippold was "...not the best and fully qualified for promotion to the higher grade..." of Captain and struck him from being further eligible for promotion. Lippold's final U.S. Navy assignment was to the

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations The structure of the United States Navy consists of four main bodies: the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the operating forces (described below), and the Shore Establishment. Office of the Chief of ...

in the International Strategy Division. He retired as a

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many army, armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countri ...

in May 2007 at the age of 48 during a ceremony at the

United States Navy Memorial The United States Navy Memorial is a memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring those who have served or are currently serving in the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marine. It lies on Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 7th Street No ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Civilian career

Lippold is a senior military fellow with Military Families United, an advocacy group opposed to the release of prisoners held at

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo as jargon by the U.S. military) is a United States military base located on of land and water on the shore of Guant ...

.Military Families United website
Commander Kirk S. Lippold, United States Navy (Ret.) Biography
accessed on February 24, 2009. by Jeff Zeleny and Elisabeth Bumiller. On June 22, 2009, ''

The Washington Times ''The Washington Times'' is an American Conservatism, conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It covers general interest topics with an emphasis on Politics of the United States, national politics. Its broadsheet daily edit ...

'' published an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...

by Lippold that was critical of the

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

administration, for not showing enough sympathy to American victims of terror. Lippold asserted that the families of the victims of terror should play a role in deciding which terror suspects should be tried, and in which kind of court they should be tried. On February 4, 2010, the ''

Las Vegas Review-Journal The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area. The ''Review-Journal' ...

'' reported that Lippold was considering a run for U.S. Senate in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

against

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2 ...

. He did not enter the race. Instead, he ran for the Republican nomination in the 2011 Nevada 2nd congressional district special election. He lost to

Mark Amodei Mark Eugene Amodei ( ; born June 12, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district since 2011. The only Republican Party (United Stat ...

and declined to run as an Independent. On December 12, 2012, Phillip Stutts & Company Inc., a political marketing organization, announced that Lippold was joining the firm as Senior Vice President for Military Policy and Strategic Development. On October 12, 2015, the fifteenth anniversary of the bombing of USS ''Cole'', Lippold appeared on '' Your World Cavuto'' and repeated his call from 2009 for justice for the ''Cole'' victims.

References

External links

Official website of USS ''Cole''
* * Official Department of Defense FOIA files on the USS ''Cole'

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lippold, Kirk S United States Naval Academy alumni Naval Postgraduate School alumni Living people United States Navy officers Recipients of the Legion of Merit United States Army Command and General Staff College alumni Place of birth missing (living people) 1959 births Recipients of the Defense Superior Service Medal Nevada Republicans