(Suffolk, Va.) — Ringgold native Timothy Lamont Saunders is one of 17 sailors who will be remebered in a special ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk Friday.

The U.S. Navy in Virginia is holding a remembrance of the deadly attack on the USS Cole guided-missile destroyer.
Current and former crew members as well as friends and family plan to gather Friday in an auditorium to remember the fallen.

The Cole was attacked Oct. 12, 2000 in a port in Yemen by al-Qaida. A boat posing as a trash barge motored to the ship and blasted a massive hole. The suicide attack killed 17 sailors and injured 37.

The commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Adm. Christopher Grady, will be the keynote speaker. He served as the Cole’s commanding officer in 2003 and 2004.

A local sailor, 32-year-old Timothy Lamont Saunders, was among those killed in the blast. Saunders was an operations specialist with a wife and two young sons.

The Cole recently returned from a successful deployment to the U.S. Fifth Fleet area of operation, which includes the site of the attack.