My special friend and hero, Ron Berens, who was a crew member of USS Pueblo, AGER-2, which was captured by the North Koreans. RON AND I GO BACK TO THE 60's WHEN WE WERE YOUNG 20-SOMETHING YEAR OLD NAVY BUDDIES...HE WAS THEN A 2ND CLASS BOATSWAIN MATE ABOARD PUEBLO AND ME A 2ND CLASS GUNNERS MATE, ABOARD USS PALM BEACH. I SAY "HERO", AS RON IS THE RECIPIENT OF BOTH THE BRONZE STAR MEDAL WITH COMBAT "V" and THE PRISONER OF WAR MEDAL. (important note.... A lot of people would say something like he 'WON' those medals. Wrong, baby, you don't 'WIN' something like that...like WINNING the lottery or WINNING the office football pool.) He was AWARDED them for BRAVERY and SURVIVING HELL IN A NORTH KOREAN POW CAMP. Ron and I are still friends, even though we live several hundred miles from each other. We stay in touch.
To Ron.... take care, my brother.
I don’t know if you saw my earlier post...my dad was an acquaintance of CDR Bucher (my mom once said “...a drinking buddy...”
To this day, I harbor an animus towards North Korea for what they did the the Pueblo and her men.
Bucher was screwed by the Navy. It is those things that I dislike about the Naval Service. (Of course now it is a complete mess. Effing Gender and GLBT Sensitivity Training.)
And I also think we should drop several dozen MK84’s right on the position of the USS Pueblo in Wonsan Harbor. Put that ship out of its misery.