REAL Heroes

Today I attended the unveiling of a beautiful 15 foot bronze statue dedicated to POWs at the new Miramar National Cemetery. Hundreds attended – many former POWs – and there was standing room only. The car exiting the cemetery before me had a license plate” “Survivor of the Bataan Death March.”

The statue, called “Liberation” shows an emaciated warrior breaking through barbed wire toward freedom. It was done by a retired Navy Commander in Poway and it is a moving tribute.

Some real heroes were there, from Japanese, German, Vietnamese and North Korean prison camps. I was there with Rose Bucher, widow of the Comanding Officer of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2), Commander L.M. “Pete” Bucher.

Pete and I had been shipmates, and when he and his crew were captured by the North Koreans, his first letter to his wife told her to find me and take my advice on everything. He had no way of knowing that I had been at her side an hour after hearing the news, although in his book on the subject, “Bucher, My Story”Pete said his captors later  told him that I was acting as her spokesman.

Although Time Magazine said I was Pete’s “best friend” that was not literally true – we were vastly different personalities, but both very aggressive Submariners. Ours was a more distant relationship – he was my BOSS, not my “friend” but I stood in awe of his natural leadership abilities. We were both former enlisted men and had a special bond with our men  —  enlisted men transfered with each of us as we went from submarine to submarine. The devotion his men showed to him after capture, and after return from prison was nothing short of religious.

In my book I tell the story of Pete having to be separated from his men in the hospital imeidately uon return because his men would not let him alone long enough to sleep, and the day after return Pete and I, with Rose and Jean walked to the crew’s special mess hall for the Christmas meal. I literally saw his men, on their knees reaching through the legs of the crowd to touch his trousers!

THAT is LEADERSHIP!

Pete, like may POWs, suffered terrible medical problems upon his return – weighing 126 pounds, fattened up in the last month from 95 pounds – and he died prematurely, the fate of many POWs.

The story of our activities – Rose, my wife Jean and I and The Remember the Pueblo Campaign is in my free book, online, at http://bit.ly/gzLDmX

While there have been more than 20 commercial books published on the subject of the seizure of the Pueblo, perhaps the most exhaustive book, “An Act of War” will be published soon by Jack Cheevers. He has been researching the subject for more than a decade, aided by the Freedom of Information Act.

After Pete returned, I wrote his speeches, traveled nationwide with him as a bodyguard and when he was dying, I helped select his casket and made the funeral arrangements. He gave me a recently bought pair of his shoes on his death bed – he said he would not need them again.

Today I wore those shoes.

I could never fill them.

 

 

Protection is Getting Too Legalistic For Me

Interesting article in the NY Times that there is a serious debate within White House circles about how deep it is legal to go, under International Law, to kill those planning or training g to attack the US or kill Americans.

Obviously, Afghanistan and Pakistan are not debated. Yemen…not so much, but even there is a question, or at least an active debate between the State Department and the Defense Department as to — as they say in Limbo Dancing, “How low can you go?”

Everyone in the White House is apparently choosing sides: Can you kill those in training camps of organizations that are not Al-Queda but associated with Al-Queda? Some of those organizations are associated with Al-Queda but their emphasis is primarily or exclusively local in nature with no, or little thought about attacking the US.

What about Al-Queda soldiers fighting in Afghanistan who deploy back to their native land and continue to train? Or train others?

Our Drones are now so numerous that we can deploy them against just about anyone, anywhere — and when  we have operational Drones from aircraft carriers there will be little land mass anywhere out of practical range of armed drones.  (Of course, everywhere on the face of the earth is available to missiles.)

So, how selective must we be? Must we limit ourselves to the equivalent of, say, Colonel and above, or can we hit the (equivalent) Gunnery Sergeant training grunts at a firing range in some unnamed Middle Eastern or African country?

How much proof do we need of their “intent?”

Protection is getting too legal. I tend toward the philosophy of “Kill ‘em All. Let God Sort it out!”

Back in the Texas of my youth, we had an attitude about self defense: “I would rather be tried by 12, than carried by six.”

Exactly!