Local couple spent their careers in Naval Intelligence

Dan Cole and Carol Hanson of Leavenworth spent their careers keeping a lot of secrets. One secret they could not keep was their love for one another, which really didn’t happen until the end of their long careers in the Navy. 

Hanson joined the Navy shortly after graduating from Leavenworth High School in 1975. Her dad was not too crazy about the idea of his daughter following him into Navy, but he still signed the authorization allowing her to join at age 17. 

Not too long after joining the Navy, she decided to pursue intelligence work. She went on to become the first female intelligence specialist instructor at the ISA School (Intelligence Specialist Class A School) at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. 

In Brunswick, Maine, she was on a patrol squadron for submarines. She became the first female intelligence specialist enlisted in this aircraft squadron. 

Hanson said she picked intelligence work because it was being offered at Lowry Air Base. 

“That’s the only reason I picked intelligence. Nobody knew anything about it. It has just been created. It took a yeoman rating and a photo interpretation rating and combined them and made intelligence specialist. I thought it might be interesting,” Hanson said. 

“She was the first female intelligence specialist, Master Chief Petty Officer, in the history of the U.S. Navy. Breaking ground as a woman in a male dominated domain,” Cole said. 

Breaking all those barriers for women was no big deal, Hanson said, because she was so young when she joined. “Back in the day, if you got pregnant, you were gone. Women couldn’t be in the military if they had children,” Hanson said. “A lot of people that were more senior than me got out to start families. I just chose not to do that. I was in it for the long haul, so that’s why I was first all the time.”

The fun part, she said, was when the Bear (Soviet Union) was still alive and they were tracking Soviet Union aggressions. 

“Just following them around, tracking their every movement, just like they were doing to us,” she said. 

Hanson retired after 23 years. The best part of being in the service, the travel. 

“Got to go all over the place. There’s hardly anyplace inside the United States. Doing West Pac deployment. We were out of Japan, Diego Garcia, Korea. It was just a blast traveling,” she said. 

Dan Cole also joined the Navy when he was 17. He was from North Hollywood, California, where his folks were involved in the picture business. He could have gone that avenue but wanted to get out on his own. 

He actually had to forge his parents signature on his paperwork so he could join. He went to boot camp in San Diego in 1977, then moved to Lowry Air Force Base for entry level training as an intelligence specialist. 

“I chose that. I knew I didn’t want be undesignated, which means you don’t have a school, you just go to the fleet. I wanted a guaranteed school seat. I went through that training and did really well. I was number one in my class, which allowed me the option ... they had this program if you were doing really good in school, you get meritorious promotion to Petty Officer 3rd Class. I jumped from E1 (Seaman Recruit) to E4 (Petty Officer 3rd Class) six months after I graduated from school,” Cole said. 

Cole worked as satellite photo interpretation specialist. He spent a lot of time looking at Soviet subs and ships in the Pacific Theater. 

“What I used then was top secret classified stuff that you now find on Google Earth. In fact, I still go back on Google Earth and look at some of the targets that I was assigned to look at,” Cole said. 

He also served on an intelligence support team which reacted very rapidly whenever the Soviets made major moves, as far as their Navy. 

“We always had our bags packed, orders written. Whenever they had a big exercise or whatever was going on, we packed up and were out of there. The acronym for the command was Pac Fast, Pacific Forward Area Support Team. The joke was, we would pack fast, work slow,” Cole said. 

In 1984, Cole was selected out of the 1,500 intelligence specialists in the Navy as Sailor of the Year by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Then, he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana and was assigned to the Narcotics Task Force. 

“It was really neat. I was the first enlisted intelligence specialist assigned to this task force. I really did not have a job description and not much oversight. I was running around DEA and Customs, doing some debriefing of narcotics traffickers,” Cole said. 

He was then assigned to the USS Carl Vinson, the first Nimitz Class carrier in the Pacific. He was a multi-sensor interpretation officer on the ship, which meant he was responsible for exporting all the imagery that was collected by the carrier battle group. At one point, as part of a West Pac deployment, they spent 138 straight days at sea. 

During the Iran-Iraq war, they were escorting American flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers. 

“Every time they went through the straight, we had a full strike package up. We were going to nail the Iranians if they messed with those ships,” Cole said. “We did that for 138 days. Had some liberty in Mubassa, Kenya. Went on a safari at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. That was fantastic. Great experience.”

Cole served as a Navy Lieutenant instructor for advanced satellite photo interpretation. 

“I was assigned to Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe, which is in downtown London. I was there three years. I made Lieutenant Commander there. Did resources, money, budget. That’s what happens when you get too senior,” Cole said. “We owned all the ships and assets in Europe and were responsible for them.”

He did a deployment in 2000 on the USS Tarawa. Cole thought it would a slow cruise, but it turned out to be just the opposite. They ended up responding to the attack on the USS Cole. 

“We had just gotten into the Arabian Gulf at midnight. I was rousted from my sleep by the Commodore and found out the Cole had gotten blown up. We went down there and spent almost two months, assisting with the recovery of the bodies, food, everything,” Cole said. “I was designated the joint intelligence officer for the operation, which meant I was in charge of all the intell assets being used to identify, track and potentially do something. We never did, but we found the bomber at one point.”

After that, Cole served on the staff of the Amphibious Squadron 3. There, he was involved with the planning for the invasion of Iraq. 

“We moved just about every bit of Marine Corps gear from the West Coast to Kuwait, which took a lot of amphibious ships and their assets,” Cole said. “I was providing the intell to the staff as far as what do with detainees, these kinds of things.”

Cole served a total of 31 years, retiring as Commander at age 50 in 2009. His favorite part of being in the service was the camaraderie and the secrets. He’s still in touch with old friends. 

“In the intell business, you are the first to know. We both had top secret special access clearances. If the U.S. Navy was going to do anything, the intell guys had to get their act together before they could present the intell to the operators to make the decisions on how they were going to act,” Cole said. “Being in the know all the time was kind of cool. Lot of good training. Lot of travel. I’ve been to 32 different countries. Lived overseas twice. Been all over the U.S. Just been a lot of fun.”

Hanson and Cole first met at ISA (Intelligence Specialist Academy, Virginia) school in 1977. They did go their separate ways, he to Hawaii and she to England. They did not keep in touch over the years. They both made Chief the same year. He became an officer after that.

“I was working in London and she was up north, getting ready to retire. I had an extra bedroom. She said, I want to do some traveling, can I bivo (bivouac) out of your apartment there. That was that,” Cole said. 

Twenty some odd years later, they connected. 

“When I first met her in Denver. I looked like I was about 12. She showed up and had a little experience in the Navy. I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world. I had this big crush on her,” Cole said. 

Cole and Hanson have been married 11 years. They came back to the states in 2000, when Dan was transferred to San Diego. They stayed in San Diego until 2013, when they decided to move to Leavenworth permanently. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.