Justice For Liberty

And so I was down on the floor, said a few prayers, and then all of a sudden everything exploded. 2 hours of pure hell. Napalm burning fires. Bombs. Armor-piercing bullets. Rockets, cannons. We have so many holes blown in that ship from the rockets, it was ridiculous. I mean, it was divine intervention that the ship stayed afloat.

The closer they got, I could tell. And I could see the Star of David flags on it. Israeli Defense Forces. I don't know why they call them defense because they were attacking us. That's that's when I knew that, you know, they were the enemy and not there to help us. And our government still supports that theory that it was a mistaken identity. There was no mistaking who we were. You knew this wasn't a mistake. It was no accident. It was absolutely a deliberate attack.

I still have visions of it to this day. I still see the stretchers that are being brought over. But more than that, I see the body bags. 34 men killed. 174 men wounded. There was blood everywhere. Just blood everywhere. Terrible, you know. Just terrible. And Congress just looked the other way. The United States Israeli relationship, which began at that time, is based on fabrication and lies. It's just a shame that our government is afraid, actually afraid to tell the truth about what happened on June 8th, 1967 and those that were responsible for those actions.

Hi, my name is Ed Bechtel and I was born and raised in northeast Ohio and I joined the Navy in 1966 and my first tour of duty was aboard the USS Liberty. My name is Terry McFarland. I'm a survivor of the USS Liberty attack. On June 8th, 1967. My name is Larry Bowen. I was a second class petty officer on June 8th, 1967, the day of the attack on the USS Liberty. My name is Phillip F. Tourney, I was 20 years old aboard the USS Liberty. I was a third class petty officer. Damage control. My name is Ernie Gallo and I was a communication technician maintenance second class petty officer. My name is Thomas Bradley and I'm a retired master chief petty officer in the United States Navy. My name is John Horne. I was a communications technician. Bob Scarborough. I was a cryptologist on the USS Liberty. I was a CTR-SN at the time. I was an E5 second class maintenance technician. I was 22 years old at the time. I was a CTR3 third class petty officer. I was a cryptologic technician, chief petty officer. I was in charge of the Technical Research Department. My job was to get on the radio and see what kind of traffic I could pick up. My job was to ensure that the equipment that the other communication technicians used operated properly. I grew up in Michigan and it was fine. I was a country boy. My function was to intercept foreign communications. I was stationed in the research compartment of the ship where the torpedo struck. My name is Moe Shafer. I was a CT3 communications technician and called an "R brancher" and with the Naval Security Group, I was stationed on board the USS Liberty, and I'm a survivor of the June 8th attack on our ship.

So, to tell you what kind of happened in my life that day, is parallel, probably, with most every other life on that day. But we were all in different positions across the ship. So we all saw or felt or had different experiences happen to us. We sailed to the coast of Africa and pulled into the port of Abidjan at the Ivory Coast. And then during that weekend, we were there. We were instructed to leave Abidjan and go up to the Mediterranean. So we went to Rota, Spain, and picked up some supplies and some additional personnel, Russian linguists, I think an Arabic linguist. And we sailed to the eastern part of the Mediterranean to travel up and down the coast of Egypt and Israel, there in - remaining in international waters, of course. And it was a spectacular day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. And we were obviously at that point in the Sinai Peninsula and the Six Day War had just started a couple of days earlier. And we were cruising back and forth. And just at a slow speed to see whatever we could pick up. We were intercept operators. And I was set in a position copying international Morse code. But suffice it to say that we were over there monitoring the effects of what was going on in the Middle East and copying the various traffic going on between the various countries over there. So...

On that day, around 11:30 my buddy Bob Eisenberg and I went to lunch and he told me that some of what I was copying was extremely important and that there was evidence based on what I was copying that there was going to be a a target. Not knowing exactly what the target or who the target was, but that the target was going to be attacked. Apparently, whatever it was that was being discussed, they didn't identify the target, they just called it "a target." It was a beautiful morning. And my particular situation was that I was topside helping cleaning antennas and and just doing maintenance while I wasn't doing my regular job as a CT. The entire morning, we saw airplanes traveling overhead at very low altitude. It was possible to see them taking pictures and so forth and observing what our position was and what we were doing. Reconnaissance aircraft clearly marked with the Star of David. We clearly had a flag on our ship and we thought everything was good. We were glad the Israelis were there because we were in a war zone. We knew that. We could see the bombs going off on that on the coast. And so on and so forth. One plane came so low that you could even see the pilot's face and he rocked his wings. And all morning long. In fact, some of the sailors were sun– sunbathing. Relaxing because we we did not feel threatened. We had a GQ practice. General quarters was called around 1300 about 1:00 in the afternoon. And I went to my GQ station, which was down in below decks in RR1, in "Radio Shack." And we were supposed to at that time turn on our radios and see if we could pick up anything. And shortly after the general quarters, we were approached aggressively by aircraft. It was unidentified aircraft, but they came in at us and started attacking our ship. They didn't attempt to radio us. They did not attempt to inform us in any way, shape or form to leave the area. They simply attacked. And all of a sudden, like a "shwooo" and you, this jet flew over our head and we heard then the firing of of rockets and missiles that they were firing. And then I watched my friend Spicher, the mailman, go down next to me. Spicher trying to run from the starboard side to the port side of the ship. And a plane just sent a rocket through the 01 level aft, through and it caught Spicher on the left side of his body with shrapnel. And I ripped him all up. And then Jim Ennes says, I think we're in trouble. All of a sudden, we hear on the 1MC, which is the internal communications for the ship, Captain McGonagle made the announcement that we were being attacked by unknown aircraft. And everyone scrambled to get back to their battle stations. Our ship was not equipped with any defense armament at all. We had four 50 caliber machine guns on board that were used in ports to repel mortars if necessary. All of a sudden I heard the gunfire– I didn't really hear gunfire. What I heard was the bullets hitting the top of the ship– hitting the overhead. We could all hear the bullets striking the ship, all the sound. The word was passed that we were under attack. What do you mean under attack? We hadn't heard anything. Not realizing being well below the waterline, we wouldn't hear the sounds above. We tried to see if we could pick up any information. And eventually the radios, I guess because of all the gunfire hitting antennas and things that some of the equipment started to smoke. So we had to shut it all down. I was headed back to my repair station when the explosions started. I went immediately back to my damage control station and started putting together a repair team as much as I could because a lot of them I didn't know where they were at if they were dead or shot or whatever. At one point I was asked– told to find a stretcher and take it up to the bridge. And so I left my general quarters area and found my way. It took me a while to find a stretcher. They were all in high demand at that point, and found one and took it up to the bridge and it was a bloody mess up there. We had the Captain McGonagle was injured. Commander Thompson was extremely injured. And there was, I believe, a bosun's mate that was was killed at that point that I was up there. There were many, many guys on that ship that were blown up really, really bad. During that time, there was– there were many sorties that were attacking us. And it became pretty intense for a while. The attack lasted, I want to say, an hour with ship– with airplanes just continuously attacking us with rockets, napalm, whatever armament they had. But um– and then it seemed like a long time before the shooting stopped. And then we started hearing other types of machine gunfire and I was told that we all had to get down low because there were some shells that were starting to break through the side of the ship. We finally heard the armor piercing coming through the ship. I was in my office when this occurred and for all of the strafing runs. I actually was wounded by one of them. I had– got shot in right leg. I have scars on my right leg where it happened. And I have the bullet yet because it bounced off of me and went across the floor of my office, and I picked it up and carried it home. I still have it. And then at that point, after, it seems like a long time, but it couldn't have been more than probably 20 or 30 minutes of this everything went silent. It was just dead. And then there was this lull, again trying to remember time. Let's say it's 20, 30 minutes. The captain comes over the speaker and says, "Prepare for torpedo attack." And I looked at my friend Jimmy and we're there and I says, "How do we do that?" And I'm cleaning up my language tremendously there with that. I saw the torpedo boats. They– there were three torpedo boats. I saw two of them, both of them had the Star of David on it. And I was pretty excited about that. I thought they were there to help us because we didn't know who was attacking us. The jet aircraft were unmarked. So we thought, well, who knows? We certainly did expect it to be the Israelis, that's for sure. And then. I could tell the ship was at flank speed because it was not a fast ship, so when they cranked up to about 18 knots, the tables started vibrating and you could really tell that we were all out at flat– at flat speed. Once again, I heard several more times to 'stand by for torpedo attack starboard side.' On my way back down from the bridge I did see, off in the distance, two more motor torpedo boats approaching us. And then finally I heard 'brace for torpedo starboard side,' And that definitely shook us up. Remember we were young. We were all young. We were all in our early twenties. We had never been exposed to warfare. This was our first experience. We're scared. So we had never been taught, in any military situation, how to prepare for a torpedo attack. So we laid down on the floor, wrapped our arms around the table leg, and buried our heads. And so I was down on the floor, said a few prayers, and then all of a sudden everything exploded.

Were struck by one of the five torpedoes that were released on us. When the explosion hit, it was like an incredible wind. And you could feel things– I could feel things hitting me in the face and in the arms. The next thing I know, I was being– I was shot into the air because of the explosion. All I remember is falling. And I remember falling and then I remember water catching me as I fell. Anyway, I flew up into the overhead, slammed back down on the deck, and I had– and I don't know how long I was unconscious, but I was awakened by the water coming into the ship. I woke up, I don't know, maybe a few seconds, maybe a minute. It couldn't have been long. The torpedo had blasted a huge hole into the side of the ship. And what woke me up, because I was face down on the floor, was I was gurgling a mixture of water, seawater and oil. And then it's just pitch black. It's unbelievable. You're saying, okay, I just lived through this and I'm going to drown and you're grabbing onto people or what– holding on. When the torpedo blast occurred, of course, our first instinct was to get out of the compartment because the sea was rushing in on us. I was up to my neck and water. It blows this massive hole. 39 feet wide and 24 feet high, comes through, takes out a bulkhead, a wall, thin metal wall. The ladder takes out another thin metal wall, goes through the other side of the ship, through our research spaces. Over there. And there is this ladder, the only exit to get out. And God left the ladder. There was nothing. The walls were gone. There was one sailor that was ahead of me, at the top of the ladder trying to turn– the hatch is held in place by a dog, which is a wheel. And he was trying to turn it to the right. And that was tightening it. So I had to remove him– his hands from that that dog, and turn it the right way. And then I helped him out. Once we got that open, it was the first light to come down in because the space was entirely black. There was no light whatsoever. It was full of smoke and the smell of oil. Yeah. It was quite a scene. I couldn't move. And so I'm tasting the water. I'm waking up to the realization that something happened. And I'm looking around and I'm trapped in debris. I'm in like a debris pile, and the water is coming in fast because the hole, as we saw later on, was quite huge. And so it was dark. So I felt my way down the passageway through the RR1 to where the doorway was into the passageway. And by that time, I was up to water on my knees. There was a– there was a guy coming out of the P&R office, which was across the passageway from the RR1. And he had his foot caught in the door and the on-rushing water was pushing it against his foot and he couldn't get his foot out. So he and I pushed on the door, got his foot out. But by that time, we were starting to tread water. So the oceans coming in fast. I'm scared I'm going to drown and I'm kicking and pulling and shoving debris out of my way. And as– by the time I got up, maybe a foot or two, the ocean is up to my waist by this point. I'm looking for the ladder which Red Addington had come down previously, and it wasn't there. So I heard– heard voices. I heard screaming and hollering. So I headed for the sound. I kept going up and up and started swimming. Because now that the area is almost filled with water. When I got to the end of the passageway, I was swimming and apparently a lot of guys had already gotten out. The hatch was about six feet by three feet wide, but it had been dogged down because of the general quarters drill. And there was a scuttle, which is a small round hole with a wheel to lock it down in that– in that hatch. So I was hanging on to a pipe in the overhead and we had about 18 inches of breathing space left and I was waiting for the ship either roll over or that hatch to open. So I rendezvous up in the ceiling area where the fluorescent lights were with several other men that had actually survived, as I did, some injured. We were all injured to some extent, but we didn't know what our injuries were. We were just reacting to the fear that we were going to drown if we didn't get out of there. So we get near the hatch above us, which would have taken us to the passageway above if we could get somebody's attention that would be running by that hatch, or walking by and hear us pounding and pounding on that hatch to get somebody's attention, which we ultimately did. Time wise, I don't have a good recollection. Some guys say it was 15 minutes, some say 20, but it seemed like a lifetime because every time the ocean would come in, the tide would come in, we would hold our nose and wait for the tide to go back out so we could take another breath of air. So we just waited there in silence and just here in the water, splash around and the level, going up and down with the movement of the ship. Until that hatch was finally opened. The bulkhead that I would have been sitting at was actually totally annihilated from the blast of the torpedo. Everyone in the Com Center was killed, everyone in the maintenance shop was killed, and a good number of the people in the radio research spaces were– were killed or wounded as a result of that. I'm just fortunate to have survived it because there was a lot of sailors that were killed in the space that was forward of mine. There was only one person that made it out of that space alive, and that's because he got hit with a bullet and was on his way to Medical Central when the torpedo hit, and everybody else in that space was killed. And after it happened, I went out the door to my room and the hatch to go down to the next deck below was right there. And I opened it up and saw two of my friends that were dead right below me on the– on the deck below. I went down to see if there was anything I could do, but it was all full of water, and there was really nothing I could do. It was– it was a mess, to say the very least. We had 25 members of the crew that were– ended up in that watery tomb before we ended up closing it up. And that– that was something that was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. When– when the water kept rising, and we got to a point where it looked like the water was going to come up out of the– the spaces. Lieutenant Bennett said that he wanted to get everyone out of there, and he said with emotion in his voice. "If anyone is still alive in there pound on a pipe, let us know that you're alive and we'll come in and get you." And we heard no, no one, you know, call out, no one was pounding on any pipes at that time. And we dogged down the hatches and closed up everything. And we did make our way onto the ladder. So to to go topside or at least go to the next level. And they started pulling us out of the water one by one, and giving us life preservers. Larry Bowen was standing there with a lifejacket and he was passing those out as as we came up on that next level. And said head– go topside. And word came down to prepare to abandon ship because we weren't sure if the ship was going to actually sink. You get up there you see this napalm burning fires. There was so much shrapnel on the deck at that time that I– I was wearing leather soled shoes and the– the shrapnel stuck into my shoes. Every time I tried to stand up, I would slide down to the to where the starboard side of the ship was partly– The main deck was partly in the water. And so I literally hung on to things to try to pull myself back up. There was one of my fellow sailors right– There's a hatchway right– coming into that compartment. And it turned out it was a postal clerk. And I had heard that he'd gone outside to take a look and was machine gunned. And our– one of our medics was trying to keep him alive, and he needed help. And Ernie Gallo and I and the third class corpsman tried to– tried to you know, provide triage to to keep them alive. And he had a life jacket tightly wrapped around him because he received punctures to his lungs. And we were trying to keep him breathing and keep, keep the– In other words, the air within his chest. He was so badly damaged that the only way that the corpsman could could keep him breathing was to do a tracheotomy. And in the meantime, Ernie and I were doing mouth to mouth resuscitation and chest press– compressions to try and keep him alive. We kept that going until the medic came back to us and pronounced dead. We had heard him say, "I've been on this ship so long, I'll probably die on this ship." And he did end up dying on that ship. And after that, I had to ask, ask to be given a chance to go outside and get some fresh air. So at that point, things kind of quieted down. But then there were additional approaches by more motor torpedo boats and so we had to go through that drill again of preparing. But fortunately, we weren't hit by any more torpedoes. But the motor torpedo boats did strafe our ship, shooting our life rafts, shooting personnel on board trying to put out fires from a napalm attack. The lifeboat that I was scheduled to be on– It was the only one on my side of the ship that stayed float. But eventually the torpedo boats ended up putting– putting shells into that one. And, you know. There wouldn't have been any, any– any boats, any lifeboats that would have been able to be used. So they were planning on putting us down. Came extremely close to that. The life rafts were shot up. I did see that and there– like I said, there was so much shrapnel on the ground. There were holes everywhere. And I look over and I see my friend Birdman laying on the floor with his head– like half his head shot off or whatever with a fire hose almost drowning him. I could see the three– torpedo boats back on the horizon. I could see what looked like an aircraft approaching from the starboard side. The motor torpedo boats continued to fire their 40 millimeter cannons at the bulkheads of the ship. The closer they got, I could tell, and I could see the Star of David flags on them. So that's, that's when I knew that they were Israelis and that's when I knew that, you know, they were the enemy and not there to help us. There was quite a bit of confusion and not having an actual duty station, I heard over the loudspeaker that we were to stand by to repel boarders. We heard helicopters hovering and someone passed the words that they were Israelis. I had no idea that all of this was being perpetrated by the Israelis. So I went running outside to see what these– what the helicopters were going to do. And and I saw armed troops. They sent over Marines, IDF Marines. Israeli Defense Forces. I don't know why they call them defense because they were attacking us. And I'm saying I just lived through a– excuse me, an attack on the topside and the sun, whatever, I just lived through a torpedo hitting a room. I just got to the top of the ship or whatever, and now they're going to shoot and kill me. There was a helicopter outside, that I could see out through one of the holes, with men at the doorway. And I figured they'd be shortly coming on board. It looked like they were coming into you know, board the ship. So I wasn't to be taken without a fight. We didn't have a key for our repel-boarder locker, for– for the gun cabinet. Our first class– our second class petty officer Gunner's Mate Thompson was up in one of the gun tubs and he had the keys for that. The gunner was literally blown to pieces. His body was lying on the edge of the fo'c's'le and his blood was running down the– down the the bulkhead there and puddling up every– It was amazing to me. There was blood everywhere, just blood everywhere. So I went to the station where the small arms locker was and had a group of sailors there and sent one down to the machinery spaces to get a pair of bolt cutters to cut the lock off so we could access the– the small arms and weapons that were stored there. He never came back. I think Phil Tourney was trying to get into the locker to no avail. He was trying to open up with a a hammer and an ax. And we just, we couldn't get into there to to get any weapons to repel boarders. And at that time, they called off the attack and the torpedo boats turned away. Why they didn't stay, why they didn't attempt to board the ship, I don't know. However, there was really no safe place for the helicopters to put down onto the ship. And I don't know if they had rope ladders or whatever to put troops on to the decks of the ship. But thank God it didn't happen.

I personally, firsthand don't know– didn't know why that happened. But subsequently, I heard that we were able to get a communication out from the ship, an S.O.S. indicating that– what our situation was. And they took all of our antennas out on the first pass or so. And we were a spy ship and they were all gone, all of our communications. Luckily, one guy, Terry Halbardier, got a message out on a jerry-rigged coaxial cable, on a tuner that he had turned off and he got it working. And that's when we got a mayday that a ship was being attacked. We did not know who it was. We did not know where it was at. We got one message back. It said, "Help is on the way." And it comes back to what does that mean? Help is on the way. So you're sure that somebody, this fleet that's out there in the Mediterranean Sea is going to come and help you. And from that point on, we took off and we were steaming and we knew where we were going because we had access to the search radar. So we knew roughly that we were headed for the east side of the Mediterranean. That night, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen to the ship as we were sitting there, pretty much dead in the water trying to make our way north. But I stayed up on topside and spent the entire night up there, and– for fear that if I was to go back down– down below decks and try and grab some sleep, I didn't know if I'd ever come back up. It was a difficult time immediately after that, a lot of things were taking place. The mess decks where I was stationed became the hospital room, if you will. Every table– every chair and table was used to treat sailors for injuries they'd received during the attack. I discarded my communication equipment because there wasn't a need for it at that point and started just helping where I could, taking care of the sailors. We had a makeshift hospital triage in our mess decks, our place where we ate our meals, and the tables were set up as beds. And we went through the ship moving people down there where Doctor Kiepfer and our two medics were doing their best to keep people alive. Where our doctor, God bless him, Doctor Kiepfer was a solo doctor on the ship who had had his guts shot up and sewed himself up, put a lifejacket on to keep himself together. And out of the 171 wounded, I'm going to guess he saved 100 lives that night. I was down in the mess decks and there were so many wounded people there that had– that were really seriously, seriously wounded. You know, body parts all over. You don't even have time to record everything I could tell you about the different injuries. I mean, it was just terrible, you know, just terrible. They asked me to go over and help this guy, and I don't remember his name. He had a hole through his head with a 20 millimeter or whatever. Another one over through here, here. And then I just counted because taking whatever I counted 51 holes in. But that's still one single person of 174 wounded people. One of the guys came, was brought up. His leg was literally crushed in a doorway and there was blood running out of his shoes. And I'm over with our commanding our excuse me, our executive officer, Lieutenant Armstrong, and he's on the table says I'm okay. I'm okay. Get me a bottle of liquor. Give me this or what so he can have his drink of liquor or whatever, but don't mess with me. I'm fine. So we don't and we look around and he just lay there and bled to death because he wasn't going to let a minute get away from people taken care of his crew on the ship. Tommy Thornton, a guy that I– I had my guitar aboard ship, and Tommy was a kind of a folk singer, and I was interested in that music. And he taught me how to finger pick during the cruise and that's something I still play that way today. And, but he was killed. I had shrapnel in my back from the explosion. The torpedo. I still have a piece of that shrapnel on my right shoulder. So I had three gashes on my leg. But I also had– I was wearing dungarees and I had blood on me from working with some of the other injured. So I had blood on my my shirt, blood on my pants and the adrenaline was pumping so hard. And I didn't realize that I had been injured until two days later when I had to report to sick bay and strip down to be examined for just a normal medical check. I had minor injuries, some metal– I had one piece of metal that, from the explosion, had registered in the side– in my one side. And I had cuts and bruises on my arm, both arms and hands. So, but I was one of the fortunate ones. I was one of the walking wounded. Other people had a variety of injuries, some worse than others of course. We had a significant loss of life. The doctor and the corpsman were doing the best they could, and we anybody who could lend a hand would lend a hand. If they– if somebody said, Okay, take care of this guy, hold this bandage on, do this, do that. So we sat there dead in the water wondering why we were going to go to stay afloat or sink or whatever was going to happen. It was 17 hours, I believe us the– the number of hours before we saw anybody coming from the Sixth Fleet. We were told that help was on the way after having gotten out the S.O.S. but we didn't really know what that meant. Okay? And as it came out later that the aircraft off the 6th Fleet aircraft carriers was en route, but they were recalled back to the ship twice, back to the ships twice. We have what's known as "Ready Cats." There are two planes, when you are in a tense area we always kept two planes on the catapults and they were ready to be launched within 5 minutes. When we went to general quarters, what I first saw, as one who was up on the Vulture's Row and where I would like to hang out a lot, was it was general quarters, general quarters. And you immediately, you– you head out as fast as you can to where you're supposed to go. But they were already firing up those two jets that were on there, and so they were launched immediately. Our military tried, they were called back by the political– the political machinery of our government at the time. Because the military wanted to do their jobs. Those aircraft on the America did take off. They were launched. They were on their way and they were called back because they did not want to embarrass one of our key allies in the Middle East, Israel. And when the planes were being recalled, the officers, which were senior officers, not captains, but commanders the conversations began to turn very angrily as they talk to one another. And without getting into the expletives, you could tell that they were pretty angry, pretty confused. And it was almost like they themselves did not know why the planes were being recalled. All they knew was get them back out on the deck to quote, you know, some of the things that are in writing already. And now their job was to bring them back, clear the deck, set it up for landing, which they weren't prepared for, and to bring them back down. There was a whole night of not knowing if we were going to sink, if we were not going to sink, if somebody was coming. It was just wait and see. But then that next day, when the fleet comes and helps us, we the wounded are flown off the ship. I could see in the distance the USS America. And even though it was still probably 20 miles away from us, it was so big that the superstructure was very distinguishable on the horizon. Now, we were able to pull up along side of the Liberty and from my perspective again as a 19 year old, this is my first cruise. I'm thinking, my gosh! We saw a hole in the side of the ship. We saw how it was all shot up. And I'm a farm boy, I'm a hunter, a fisherman and I know what different bullets can do, but these holes that were in the side of the ship is nothing that I had ever seen before. They were probably eight inches, maybe ten inches in diameter. They they said that they were 30 millimeter shells. And, you know, then we again sent the medical people over to help them. And now the helicopters started bringing the wounded from the Liberty over to our our deck. And it was one flight after another after another after another. I mean, we had so many horrific situations there that were taken care of. I'm not sure if I was affected very much until I started seeing the body bags coming in. And I think that's when I began to really realize we really were at war. That night, I went out with a repair party and we– we tried to patch holes. The– the deck force sleeping quarters were in the bow of the ship. And there were so many holes in the bow we had to go around and we'd take, you know, a large cone shaped piece of wood and hammered actually in the– in the hole to stop the hole and to keep water from coming in. Our captain, in the meantime, was attempting to get us out of that area. We didn't have a helm or pilot house. We actually had to steer the ship right at the rudder. Our our engineers kept our boilers online and were able to turn it, turn our prop and get us out of there. And the ballast tanks were tanks that held water so you were– could level the ship. And so they had to move that around so they could get– try to get to the deck out of the water and get some– We still had a pretty good list but not not as bad as it was. And from there, we had– we sailed about a thousand miles to Malta, where we went into dry dock.

After we got to Malta and they drained the water down, we had a team of men that went into the compartments looking to recover body parts. The ship had just gotten into the dry docks, and Ron Kukal and his team were still cleaning out the 25 guys that were killed in the room the torpedo hit. And then I joined in the next day. First of all, they told us, initially that we could go on liberty and they were going to have a medical team come in and remove all the bodies. and, and all that. And all those bodies were down in our spaces that were classified spaces. And they decided no, they can't have– these people are not cleared for secret type stuff to remove the bodies. So we had to cancel our liberty to go in town. So we had to go down and take– remove all the bodies that we could. We went down into the spaces to retrieve remains of– remains of those that didn't make it. It was gruesome. I was part of the– part of the group of guys that helped take the bodies out of the bowels of the ship after we got into Malta and dry-docked. What I experienced was worse than the attack itself because of what we– what we picked up. It was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Is having to pick up body parts and put it in a bag and– Keeping in mind these were our fellow shipmates and some of our friends. And the bodies, they were they were chopped up from all the shrapnel below decks. It's amazing that more of us weren't killed. Incredible. Some of the guys that went down, made two or three trips to retrieve remains. I was only able to make one trip down. I couldn't emotionally take it. You know how your mind works. Sometimes things are so bad you don't remember them, okay? And there's very, very, very few things that I can remember about that. And the one thing that sticks in my mind was I remember finding a boot, and I quite honestly don't know if there was any– if there was a foot in that or not, but I remember one of the sailors having a specific boot because, you know, I knew him not well, but I knew him and I said, I know where that goes. And but it was– there were a lot of things like that as people were– as sailors were trying to clean out the torpedo damaged area of the ship. It was very hard. Yeah. It was really hard. And I think every one of us took time to grieve and, and I haven't– I'm not ashamed to say that I did. And that– the memory of that will never leave me. I still have visions of it to this day. I was there when Larry Bowen found Bob Eisenberg. Some of the men that have suffered even to this day, this was their second and some had a third cruise that they were on when we got attacked. They establish relationships. They were closer to each other. They were almost like brothers. I, on the other hand, had only been there a few weeks. And I think primarily, I didn't feel it as deeply as they felt it. And I didn't feel it as long as they felt it. But I still. Felt it. Emotionally with some of the bodies, because of, you know, they were in my division you know, I felt a little bit sad for them. And I think at our 15 year reunion also, one of– We had a young lady sitting at our table. And once we found out what her name was, I told her that I found– I, I found her husband amongst all the rubble in our shop. And I don't know of anybody else that would have found him other than me. So, and I I took it pretty hard. And I guess that's about all I could say.

They cut out the damaged exterior walls. They welded new plates in. They also cut out all of the the cannon fire, the machine gun fire– I mean, we had so many holes blown in that ship from the rockets it was ridiculous. I think altogether they had like 800 and some holes that ended up in the ship that– from the torpedo boats and the planes and everything. All the holes in the ship were entirely repaired. The ship was almost repainted, which we didn't quite understand why they were going to such great lengths to repair the ship, apart from make it seaworthy. We wanted that ship to come home beat up and bloodied so people can see what happened. And unfortunately, they painted her up, fixed her up like nothing ever happened, brought her in. Of course, nobody went inside to see where all– You know, there was no guts in the ship anymore. During that interim, Admiral Kidd came out to the ship. Then the cover up began. Actually, it began instantaneously on our ship. When we– when Admiral Kidd came aboard. He was in charge of setting up the the Navy Court of Inquiry. And he wanted to, I guess, find out, get some testimony going as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a lot of the testimony never appeared in our– in the Navy– in the Navy Court of Inquiry because it was quite damning to the Israelis. As a matter of fact, they committed– they committed some war crimes. And there were several high ranking officers that advise us in person you know, never to speak about this. If you do, you'll be arrested and prosecuted. And we were dressed down, told never to say anything about it or we'd end up in prison were worse. And the admiral was very nice initially and then became very stern and wanted us to know in uncertain terms that we were never allowed to talk about the attack. We were told not to reveal any detail about what happened. There were huge penalties that we were threatened with. $10,000 fine, ten years imprisonment, or worse. There was the indication that if you, you talked, you were, you were subject to court martial. Don't talk to your families we were told, don't talk to your friends. At your next command, don't tell anybody at your next command anything apart from the fact that you survived an attack in the Mediterranean. And you provide no details. No matter what they ask, you provide no details. But we had people ask us, "Were you guys on the Liberty?" Yeah. That's all we told them. "Well what happened?" I can't talk about that. It's crazy, stupid. I can remember when I got back home, the local newspaper came to the house and wanted an interview. And I told them, I said, Listen, I can't talk to you. I can't tell you anything. I have a friend whose sister worked for one of the newspapers in Cincinnati and she said, "We want to interview. Would you do that?" I said, I guess so. And so they contacted me and said, Well, we called the Navy and they said there's no way we can interview you. We can't do it. We're not allowed. What a lot of people don't even realize is the USS America was a hospital. The Little Rock was a hospital for five of us. Those people on those ships were instructed to never talk, that there was ever an American from the USS Liberty ever on their ship. And then the old man, the captain, he got on the bullhorn and he told us flat out, you know. He says, "We're stopping the mail." But what he said was any letters that are going out from this time on and this is where you really knew you were in a blackout, any letters that are being sent out we will not accept anything until I tell you. But he said, now, don't seal the letters. Don't seal the envelopes. And he had a team that would go through and read it. And they– and they did from my understanding. And those who mentioned anything, it was my understanding they were called up to go see a group who would interview 'em afterwards. We had no idea who shot the Liberty up. They did not tell us. They did not give us any information at all. And the political aspect of it never really came out until, I don't know, days and weeks afterwards. So those people had somewhat of a trauma for their lives, too, to wonder why this whole thing happened. And they're on a different ship and they can't talk about it. They can't go to anybody ever. They were threatened with the same thing. And I think for– for the rest of the time that we were in the Mediterranean it was like you knew you knew this was bigger than what you saw. You knew this wasn't a mistake. So there was a lot of us that were shipping out at one time. So it was interesting to say to Captain McGonagle's credit, he shook every– shook every Sanders hand when we– when we left. And we were reminded once again, while we were in Malta, especially that we were not to talk to any newsmen. And I was I never I never left the ship. I did not– I did not want to be put in a position where I was even asked about the attack. Then they asked for volunteers to bring the ship back to the United States. And I was one of the nine people from the Naval Security Group part that brought– brought her back. We conducted Fire and Security Watch in the compartments that had been– that were newly welded in place to make sure there was no leaks that would

create a flooding problem as we transferred the Atlantic. We pulled into Little Creek. We were there for a few weeks. We had stored bags upon bags of scooped up material from the research spaces that had been exposed to the torpedo, and put all those bags on on a flatbed tractor trailer and took them to the Norfolk furnace. And then they put her in, put her in the– stuck her in mothballs for a year and sold her for scrap. No evidence whatsoever ever again. There would be no physical evidence of what Israel did. So– yeah, it was– it was a cover up.

He never talked much about it. Very limited. I think the most I heard was when he had written an article for publication in the Reader's Digest and he said, "You want to see it?" I didn't know it hadn't happened. And I said, sure. And he handed me these papers with– covered with Black Magic Marker. And there were very few words left after the government had taken out the story. Okay. And would not allow it to be published. They covered up in a lot of different ways.

When I got to Germany in July of '67, and I was wearing my dungaree jacket, it was called, was because it was cool there, and I had my ship's patch on the shoulder and the USS Liberty Patch on it. And I was immediately ordered to take all that stuff off your jacket. And I thought at first it was just kind of, because I had heard it was a spit and polish base. And, you know, you always have to have your belt buckle shined and your shoes shined. So I thought that was probably the reason. And then I found out other people had their duty station patches on their dungaree jacket. It was just because it was the USS Liberty stuff, it had to go.

And I don't– I don't remember how long we were there, but I got a– I received a Purple Heart at the– but it was given to me in a private ceremony in the captain's office, with– There were seven of us that were stationed there, all got Purple Hearts, and they did it in a quiet ceremony in the captain's office, not in front of the troops. Nobody turned anything on my chest. He handed me a box and the paperwork and shook my hand. And that was it.

I was awarded a bronze star and they changed it at the presenting ceremony and they changed it to a Navy Commendation Medal. Although I'd seen the Bronze Star and I had the citation. I read it. And then when I got it the next day, it was different. They took the Bronze Star away from me, and gave me a Navy Commendation Medal instead. And as we know, our captain, who got the Medal of Honor was not– it was not given to him by the president of United States. That doesn't happen. They sent him to a Navy yard because Lyndon Johnson would not pin Captain McGonagle's medal on him.

I got a letter from the State Department, I don't know how long that took, in Germany. And I said why the hell am I getting a letter from the State Department? So I open it up and it's this– and I still have this paperwork that– that the Israelis were offering like $500 for compensation for my wounds and I thought that's stupid. I mean, so I'm a 21 year old kid and I don't know what to do with this. So I went to the JAG office there, and there was no Navy JAG officer. I talked to an Army JAG, or whatever he is, lawyer, and I said, so what do I, what do I do with this? He said, "Don't be stupid, kid, take the money." So 20– 21 years old, I took 500 bucks and signed the paper, which meant I could never sue Israel for what they did.

The problems I had with all that was that the government didn't admit anything. They denied everything and we were told we would be court-martialed, if we talked about it. Couldn't say anything about it at all. But that didn't slow me down much. I said pretty much what I wanted to say to the press, even though I was– I was followed by an officer all the time, every time I spoke. He was there to monitor what I said so I wouldn't say anything. But I did. I blabbed too much and I got in trouble with the Navy for that. And I was frozen for promotion. Even though I was picked up for E-8, I never got it because I spoke more than what I was supposed to. They didn't kick me out or anything. They just threatened me. But I didn't pay much attention to the threats. I just did what I wanted to do anyway.

I helped Jim Ennes write his book. I provided a lot of the information for that book because I was in Washington at the time. when the government declassified– when it got declassified I'd send it to him. And then you found out about that. So I was in really big– hot water, but they couldn't court-martial me or do anything because they didn't want the press to know anything about it.

I didn't say anything about it for years and years and years. Probably 18, 20 years. When I got married again, second wife, we're married now– Been married 38 years. I didn't say a word to her until I saw an article in the paper by Stan White. And. I read a book called "Assault on the Liberty" from Jim Ennes. And I began to speak out. And slowly but surely, this has been a long– a lifelong mission. That has gone absolutely nowhere, until recently. And I thank you guys for giving me the chance to tell a little bit about the story.

I didn't really talk about anything for a number of years. With my wife, my family. I followed the dictates of the leadership my Navy leadership that said, keep your mouth shut. And I did. We all did. And it's just a shame that our government is afraid, actually afraid to tell the truth about what happened on June 8th, 1967, and those that were responsible for those actions.

I have a Life Magazine from the week following the attack, That has a victorious Israeli soldier on the cover. And back about on page 26, we were the accident that happened. The picture of the ship and that was it. A short paragraph about this unfortunate accident and it's– it's over. It was the same thing with the newspaper. I have newspapers from Cincinnati "The Cincinnati Enquirer." And the Post that the– of this attack on the ship was on the front page and then it was back on page three the next day. And then the third day is back, you know, somewhere near the ads for new stores. And then gone. Nothing else.

Mass media won't touch the story. If we try and put something out on our Facebook accounts, we get censored. So that's– that's one of those things where you've got to be very careful what you say and how you word things. So that's– I don't know. I think that's another reason why people just so want to get involved anymore. And that's– it hurts us because we can't get anything in the newspaper. We can't get anything on radio or TV. We've tried to get their attention. We've talked to congressmen. We've talked to senators. They say, "We understand, we– We're going to look into this. We'll see what can be done." And it all turns out to be a lip service. 54 years later, we're still getting the same kind of responses when we try to get the attention of our our politicians in Washington, D.C. They're afraid, they're reluctant. They may have other reasons. I don't know if they're being threatened. I don't know if they're being controlled. But I don't I just think they feel like their hands are tied. I really do. But we can't get the true story out as to what and why we were attacked by a primary ally in the Middle East. And it hurts.

It hurts to know that you devoted– in my case, 29 years, today, and 4 months of my life to the Navy, believing in our cause, believing in what we were doing and believing in our missions, believing everything we were told. We believed in what we were doing. But we can't get resolution.

I spent 21 years in the Navy, and part of the reason that I did that was the job that I had was, you know, related to national security. So I, I had a lot of respect for the job I was supporting the National Security Agency. I was part of the Naval Security Group, and that was it was a very meaningful position for me. Plus, in my mind, I thought there was a chance that I might actually have an opportunity to get some of the answers that we didn't have. And as it turned out, later on I'm going to say probably around 1980 there was a report through the agency that, that came across my desk and that was the agency's report on the attack. And it was a whitewash. Just, just like, you know, everything else. And I just, I was, I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe that information that I knew should be in the report wasn't, wasn't there. And I mean, so, you know, for the past 54 years now we've been trying to get freedom of information, you know, information released so that so that the truth will, will get out. We formed as a group and our mission statement was to simply get the truth told about the USS Liberty.

So I found, in certain situations, that some people don't want to hear that, and they will get in your face to prevent you from telling the truth. America needs to know that there are people out there with power that, that will prevent this story from getting out there. I think the biggest reluctance of people wanting or, not wanting to get involved is because of the I guess it's the AIPAC that's got so much power that if you go against them, they, they have the power to bring about you know, harsh things against you. The crew have experienced hate and discontent simply because we want to– we tell the truth about the attack. And there is a group within our country that are Israeli supporters that do not want that information to be presented to the American public.

I go with him a lot to give his speeches. And I see some of the people that are against what he has to say. And knowing Ernie as I know Ernie, I don't understand why they would think he would stand there and tell them stuff that was untrue. He's always been very truthful. He's very religious. I mean, we're not a communist organization. We are combat veterans. We are decorated combat veterans that people do not want to hear our story. Why? And it comes back to this group that's bound and determined to protect this holy relationship between the United States and Israel, no matter what. We've had too many wars because of Israel, in the Middle East.

Our ship was clearly identified prior to the attack. There's all kinds of speculation that our flag wasn't flown, that our ship was unmarked. And that's not true at all. The flag was flying. It was shot down, but it was also replaced immediately. with a larger flag. The insignias on the side of the boat, GTR5, they're as tall as a six foot man, I guess you might say. And anybody that knows anything about identifying ships on– in the ocean would tell you that that was enough indication to say that this was an American ship. Not some obscure Egyptian trawler that has– it's been claimed to be mistaken for. So you know, over the years, I've heard all, all these stories that have been told that try to deflect the truth and identification of the ship should not have been a problem at all. And our government still supports that theory that it was a 'mistaken identity.' There was no mistaking who we were. We were a marked ship. Marked. GTR5 on the bow, USS Liberty on the stern, American flag. They know exactly who they were attacking. They took all of our antennas out on that first pass or so. The story that the attack was accidental was a line that was developed between our government and Israel and fed to the American people. So the, the United States - Israeli relationship, which began at that time, that close relationship began at that time, is based on fabrication and lies.

I do believe that Johnson would have been in the middle of the war in the Middle East as soon as we went down. Of course, it would have been somebody else that did it. It would not have been Israel. So they all got embarrassed, which I'm more than pleased about. I just hate the way they treated us. There was a political machine that would seem to be working and they– that machine, put my life in– at risk. It took the life of these guys on the– on the Liberty. And, and I think that that process really made me begin to question what I have been taught as a Midwesterner that, fly the flag, fight for your country and save it in good perspective for your family and go home and live happily ever after. And, and now what I find is that they whoever they are, they don't care. They don't care about me. They didn't care about the Liberty. They didn't care about America. They didn't care about my ship, they didn't care about the crew. We were expendables. And that's how I felt. As you know, I thought I was doing my my civic duty and in the meantime, I'm just an expendable. I'm fodder for some guy leaning back on his desk in Congress smoking on a cigar, feet up on the desk, drinking a scotch. And they've never probably seen death themself. And I question whether or not they even are bothered a moment when they go to sleep at night time.

The fact that we couldn't tell anyone our story of course, had an effect on each of us in that we couldn't get it out of our system. Some of the– some of my fellow sailors were– had gotten PTSD very– that to this day are affected by it. Thank God I, I don't think I was affected very much. You know, with everything that we've been through, it was almost, it was almost important to talk about it. But, you know, you couldn't that in itself was real stressful. I know that it impacted him because we live close to an airport and one night I heard this banging and he was in the closet. He, he had just, I guess, gone to quarters or something. It was like planes coming over, you know, and and so the men who survived lived it for a long time. My wife said– we were just talking about that a couple of weeks ago. She said, "Joe, I know you came home. I saw you, I knew I lived with you, but you never came back. Your mind was over there, yet." Had a lot of nightmares. I still do. Yeah. I mean, you relive this. The anger comes out. It just– the flashbacks, the anger, everything comes back again. I wake up at night with it. I don't think I've had a total night's sleep since.

I still don't get benefits for my 12 back operations and eight fusions. He has hearing loss due to the explosion. We can't seem to get compensation out of that. So it's been the government has been taking advantage of us ever since. They do that with everything. The government does, what they want to do, and the consequences are of no concern to them, or don't seem to be. I still feel abandoned. I'm abandoned– all of us are. Our government doesn't support us. Israel doesn't support us. We're men without– without a country. And it's, it's disheartening. And then more than anything else, are are living with the memories of the, the smell and the body clean up and the everything that was our home, so to speak, and our place where we, we lived, we fellowshipped, we worked, we had jobs that we went to, to work, to be totally wiped out and destroyed and then wonder what's next. But I remember everything. I haven't forgotten one second of it. And he never told me that because he doesn't open up what happened, but he did go down and he had to retrieve his best friend. And I started having flashbacks and nightmares. So it took me significant time, but not near the time that some of my other buddies did and still some have not gotten over it. And it's just as real today as it was then to them.

When I talked to you the first day about the shelling that we received by those planes when they first came over, and it was it was so– My mind was such that, you know, that happened like, a couple days ago when I was telling you about it. I ask myself these questions. And, and that is Why now? Why now do I have PTSD that don't let me sleep at night, that my bed is thrashed, that my wife wants to know, why am I fighting, why am I kicking, why am I talking in my sleep? But I still see the ship. I still see the stretchers that are being brought over. But more than that, I see the body bags. It bothers me when I hear loud bangs like that. And it sounds like– What were some of the things that annoyed me about that sounded like bullets hitting, and rockets hitting the side of the ship? SHARON BENKERT: Fireworks. Fireworks drove me– I couldn't stand to watch fireworks. It just brought back too many memories, so I didn't– I didn't stay around when fireworks were going off. Or I covered my ears so I didn't hear it. But it sounded– when the rockets would go off, or the fireworks would go off, it sounded just like rockets hitting the side of the ship and they were everywhere. He cannot stand fireworks. We worked for Walt Disney World for 12 years and was in the park during the fireworks in the park. He had to be removed off stage due to the impact. He has PTSD. He does have nightmares. He does not remember his nightmares. He is medicated at night with drugs so his mind will not remember those dreams, per his psychiatrist. He has wanted to leave this world due to all the hatred toward the government.

No, we don't hate Israel. We have several friends and my brother-in-law is Jewish. In some circles. The US– the, the Liberty crew, is looked at as whiners, as conspiracy theorists, as antisemites. That– anything negative that you can think of, that one group can can think of another, is what we're portrayed as. As the guys– Instead of wearing the white hats, we're the bad guys. Some of the people do it by saying stuff that you know isn't true and they know it isn't true, but they're just trying to make Ernie, or whoever else is with him speaking, look like they're making this up. And you know, you know that they know they're not making it up, but yet they're still trying to sabotage what they have to say.

I'm a business man. I deal with all ethnic groups of people in my business. I have a lot of Jewish friends, I mean, dear friends. And so I don't ever consider them a part of what happened to me. I haven't been anti Jewish at all. I don't think. Have I? I don't think so. SHARON BENKERT: We close friends that are Jewish. I– I'm mad at the government for covering it up. I knew a lot of Jewish people. I did business with Jewish people. I worked for Jewish people. You know, I'm not– I don't hate Jews at all. I had many friends from the movie industry, but and I've told them the story. And they say, "Well, they couldn't have done it on purpose. Must have been a case of mistaken identity or..." But, you know flying American flag, and, and I don't argue with them about it. You know, they were, they were all supportive of Israel. And I understand that. I just don't have to be a supporter of Israel. And they know that too.

What I would hope to see happen now, 54 years later, is for the truth to come out about the attack and the story to be told of what happened. And so that for America and the world to know what we experienced, that this bigotry is out there and it's being perpetrated deceitfully so that people don't know the truth. So I want the truth to be told completely. What I'm getting at is that the attack is just the beginning of the story because of what the attack represented to the United States. But we're all dying off. So it won't be long. This– there won't be many more of us left. The truth needs to be brought forward so that the people who come after us don't let it happen again. It's important that the world knows that this was not an accident, that this was a deliberate attack on our ship. Let the world know what happened to us on that day.

The USS Liberty Veterans Association's number one goal is to get the truth out about what happened, who attacked us, why the attack was conducted, why nobody was allowed to come to our aid, and any information at all that will bring the truth out is what we're all about. People should know exactly what went on with that ship. And I don't think Ernie or any of the other gentlemen on that ship will rest peacefully until this comes out. I know that my husband and that crew did the very best they could for their country. And I'm very proud of them for all of that. And then all the people that I know, they're writing stories and doing research and people like yourselves that are sitting here listening to me babble along. I appreciate that.

I would like– I would like our government to acknowledge us and the cover up that ensued. And why. I would like Americans just to know that the government covered it up. I'd like America to stand up and say, yes, we made a mistake. Yes, we covered it up. Yes, we did this to our American people. Let the nation know what they did. That's what I think they're all wanting. They're wanting closure to what happened. But we need our government to tell that, to tell the true story, get it out to the public. And let the, let the cards lay where they, where they will. I mean, these men signed up for– to defend their country. They want to walk proud. And they do walk proud but they've been kicked around. What I'd like all Americans to do, is stand by American servicemen who were deprived of help, treated like trash– Because all we did was serve our country, And we got stabbed in the back, not only by Israel, but our own government then and now. Both, both countries covered it up and told us, the crew, never to talk about it. And they failed to open up their books to show us what evidence they have to prove or disprove what we know to be the true story.

I think that Americans need to know that it doesn't matter whether they're conservative or they're liberal, They– the people that we put in office, we need to ensure that they do their jobs honestly. And I think, the only profound comment I can make is shame on Israel's government and shame on the United States government for collectively being involved in this. Make sure that you do your history and do your study on what's actually going on. Find out the why and the what. And I would like to say, you know, you can't always believe everything that's reported in the papers. I think you already know that. So do your homework, do your research. America needs to know the details of what happened that day to make their own judgments. We just need you, the American public, to help us get the truth out. The more people we can reach and reach out to and have them reach, you know, other people and say, hey, we just saw something about the USS Liberty and do some research on it, and start asking your your local politicians and your senators and your congressmen. I just hope that the event does get published to the point where it becomes people start asking questions. Why? And the truth will be known. And perhaps Congress, in all its infinite wisdom, will seek to have the answers.

I think if people hear this story and they, they want to help, the biggest thing that they can do, I think, is to contact their local representatives and say, look, I just heard about this, you know, murderous activity that happened 54 years ago. And you people in Congress did absolutely nothing about it. I want you to do something. I want you to, you know, investigate and and have a full and open congressional investigation. Our end result would be to have a congressional investigation into the attack, and have it finally admitted that it was a deliberate attack by the state of Israel That would give us closure. To have them deny it for all these years– that it was an accident, and to accept that premise. It just doesn't hold water. And this is the only incident that I'm aware of where a U.S. naval ship has been brought under attack by any nation without a full congressional investigation. But yet, here, you've had 34 men killed, 174 men wounded, you know, a 70% casualty rating. And Congress just looked the other way. Write your congressman, write your senator. Call them. Demand that our Congress do the right thing. What we've gotten is just a standard letter that this incident, this has already been investigated and found to be a case of mistaken identity, which we all know is not true. Call your congressman and ask them for a thorough congressional investigation. This incident has never been investigated by Congress. Every bombing, every everything that happened in Beirut or anywhere else in the world gets investigated by Congress. But this incident the attack on the USS Liberty has never been investigated. Let them know that, you know.

The question is would I, would I serve the country again. and my answer is absolutely yes, I have– I love the country. Okay? It's a great country. Sometimes it's run by morons. Okay? And, well, we have to fix that. Okay. But that doesn't make the country bad. We've got a good country. And things that happened to bring this whole attack upon us were contrived by people that had higher plans for their own agenda, you know, but that doesn't make our country bad. And yeah, I'd serve again. At 74, I'd serve.