NORFOLK, Va. - Alternating between words of grief and retribution, President Clinton sought Wednesday to comfort the sailors and families of the USS Cole. He praised the fallen as patriots and sternly warned the ''hate-filled terrorists'' whose attack killed 17 aboard the Navy destroyer: ''We will find you and justice will prevail.''
Under a gray sheet of sky, Clinton addressed a memorial ceremony at a Norfolk Naval Station pier crowded with destroyers and aircraft carriers. Sailors in white dress uniforms lined every deck of every ship, listening to Clinton praise the colleagues lost in Thursday's explosion at a Yemeni harbor as ''our finest young people, fallen soldiers who rose to freedom's challenge.''
''They all had their own stories and their own dreams,'' Clinton said. ''In the names and faces of those we lost and mourn, the world sees our nation's greatest strength: People in uniform, rooted in every race, creed and region on the face of the Earth.''
Clinton described the attackers - still unknown - as ''hate-filled terrorists'' who ''envy our strength'' while holding warped religious, political, racial, or ethnic views of the world.
''For them, it is their way or no way,'' he said. Addressing those attackers directly, the president warned: ''You will not find a safe harbor. We will find you and justice will prevail.''
One by one, Clinton called out full names and ranks of the 17 dead, including those whose bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the end, a lone Navy trumpeter played ''Taps'' from the deck of the destroyer USS McFaul, one of two Cole sister ships docked nearby. A wounded sailor saluted from his front-row stretcher, his wife at his side.
The military's top civilian and uniformed leaders also took part.
''Death snatched them away in one violent, unsuspecting moment while they were making sure America and its friends slept easily in a dangerous world,'' said Defense Secretary William Cohen. He warned those responsible for the bombing, ''Our search for you will be relentless.''
Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was more blunt: ''Those who perpetrated this act of terror should also never forget that America's memory is long, and our reach, longer.''
Besides Cohen and Shelton, Clinton was accompanied by daughter Chelsea, Attorney General Janet Reno, Cohen's wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, and national security adviser Sandy Berger. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived later in a separate car.
Clinton went directly to the 93-year-old Pennsylvania House, a small-scale replica of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, and sat with the grief-stricken. Wounded sailors, 36 in all, came to him on gurneys, on crutches, in wheelchairs, with legs in casts or faces pocked with injury.
Two sailors injured in the attack remain in Germany undergoing treatment, and another was recovering from surgery performed Tuesday night. The remains of eight sailors will arrive Thursday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The president spent more than an hour visiting with the wounded and making his way slowly around adjoining rooms, talking with new widows, childless parents and parentless children, many of whom wore blue-and-gold lapel ribbons and clutched photographs of their loved ones.
''There were, obviously, some tears and sobbing,'' said White House spokesman Elliot Diringer.
The president then went to the ceremony at Pier 12, which was surrounded by the McFaul, the destroyer USS Ross and aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and Eisenhower. In the stories told by the families, Clinton said, he could hear the pride of the first time they saw their loved one in uniform, or ''the last time you said goodbye.''
Clinton pointed out that the dead included Electronics Technician 1st Class Richard Costelow of Morrisville, Pa., who had worked with the White House Communications Agency, helping to update its communications systems.
''All these very different Americans, all with their different stories, their lifelines and love ties, answered the same call of service and found themselves on the USS Cole,'' Clinton said. ''Their tragic loss reminds us that even when America is not at war, the men and women of the military still risk their lives for peace.''
Clinton asked Americans to ''thank God today for the lives, the character, and courage of the crew of the USS Cole.''
The House and Senate passed resolutions Wednesday honoring the USS Cole's crew and condemning the attackers.