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 Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

officer. He was the

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) 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 given wide latitu ...

of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

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

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terrorists during a refueling stop in the

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i port of

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, killing 17

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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. The profession of the s ...

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

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

Naval Postgraduate School The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a public graduate school operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. It offers master’s and doctoral degrees in more than 70 fields of study to the U.S. Armed Forces, DOD ci ...

, 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 multina ...

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, o ...

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 all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very complex and may ...

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 Navy ...

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. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

.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, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Suicide attack, suicide List of terrorist incidents, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, ...

. 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 of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

(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 non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

reported that

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

Donald C. Winter Donald Charles Winter (born June 15, 1948) is an American politician and businessman who served as United States Secretary of the Navy. A former top executive of TRW, Aerospace & Defense, he was nominated in 2005 by President George W. Bush, conf ...

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 An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

in the International Strategy Division. He retired as a

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

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. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

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 ( es, Base Naval de la Bahía de Guantánamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo as jargon by members of the U.S. military) is a United States military base ...

.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, ''

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'' published an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

by Lippold that was critical of the

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

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 U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

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 senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...

. He did not enter the race. Instead, he ran for the

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

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 U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district since 2011. The only Republican in Nevada's congressional delegation since 2019, Amodei se ...

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