Jocko Podcast - 327: Attack on The USS Liberty w/ Phil Tourney, Larry Bowen, Joe Meadors.

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

0:00:00 - Opening.0:04:01 - Attack on the USS Liberty.2:18:49 - How to stay on THE PATH.2:38:47 - Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 327 with me, Jocko Willink. The president of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Bronze Star Medal to Petty Officer Third Class Philip Francis Torni, United States Navy, for service as set forth in the following citation. For heroic achievements in connection with the unprovoked and unexpected armed attack on USS Liberty, AGTR5 in the eastern Mediterranean on 8 June, 1967. During the early afternoon hours, USS Liberty, while engaged in peaceful operations in international

waters, was attacked without any warning by a jet fighter aircraft and three motor torpedo boats. The Liberty was subjected to intense incendiary, machine gun, and rocket fire, and was placed in extreme jeopardy by a torpedo hit below the water line on the starboard side in the vicinity of the research compartment. Severe structural damage and extensive personnel casualties were incurred. Petty Officer Turney, serving as assistant on-scene leader in the Ford Repair Party, first assisted in organizing the evacuation of wounded personnel from the exposed weather decks.

With complete disregard for his own personal safety, he continued to fearlessly expose himself to intense rocket and machine gun fire to move a firefighting team to the bridge. He then returned to the forward weather decks to ensure that no more wounded were still exposed before going below to maintain damage control conditions of compartments below the water line. He remained below decks during the torpedo attack

and immediately afterward assisted and directed emergency repairs to minimize further flooding and damage. His aggressiveness and coolness under fire was exceptionally inspirational leadership in an hour of awesome peril. Petty Officer Turney's initiative and courageous actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. Petty Officer Turney is authorized to wear the combat v. distinguishing device. And that citation reflects an obviously, intense and dire situation for a U.S. naval ship, the USS Liberty, during a vicious and determined attack. What the citation does not mention is the state or the enemy force that is conducting

the attack, and that is because the attack was conducted by our ally by the state of Israel. And this incident, the attack on the USS Liberty has been wrought with controversy as to how and why it happened. But there can be no controversy or no doubt about the courage and bravery of the sailors on the ship that day, who suffered significant casualties, but who fought to save their shipmates and their ship, and his honor to have three of those sailors

with us here to share their experiences and their lessons learned. Phil Turney, Larry Bowen, and Joe Meadors. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. It's an honor to have you all out here. I appreciate you traveling and getting out here. Thank you, sir. That's about as good as it gets from an American hero, as yourself,

a sailor, seal, bent through it, understands what battle's all about. when you have nothing to fight back with but only your will and your guts to stay alive is inspirational for all the crew. It was all hands on deck. Regrettably, many of our shipmates lost their lives. They were so severely wounded. They had to be evacuated the next day.

And we didn't get any help from our government. during the attack, after the attack, 18 hours later, we say a cruiser or a destroyer, Maddox, not the Maddox, but the Massey. Yeah, Massey. Come alongside in the USS Davis, and that was it. And those guys come aboard our ship on whale boats, and they were actually crying to see the devastation of what they did to us. Chalka was over 850 cannon rocket holes in our ship. Over 5,000 armor-piercing bullets in our ship.

They dropped napalm on the bridge of the ship, trying to burn us to pieces. They shot our life rafts out. We only had three left. They shot them out of the water to ensure no more survivors. They sent troop carrying helicopters to finish us off, and for some reason they didn't do it. I guess they got the word that had the gigs up. And so we're just calling it a mistaken identity.

And that's what everybody says. It was a mistake. Oh, if we're so sorry, we say no to that. And it was a deliberate premeditated attack, premeditated attack by the people of Johnson administration. And the Esco, I believe his name was the ambassador. I mean the premier president of Israel at that time. A small cabal of people did so much damage not only to us and our dead shipmates, but to America.

This is just not our problem. It's America's problem. And Americans like you, this good gentleman over here and your whole staff are bringing it to light. And God bless you for that. And it means the world to me, and I know it does my shipmates. It's very respectful and very honorable to you, sir. Thank you. Man, it's just the story is harrowing to hear.

And, you know, one of the things I want to go over today is the account that you've written of what you went through. Before we get to that, just to get a little background on all of you, just if maybe you could introduce yourselves, where you came from, maybe a quick note on how you ended up in the Navy. I mean, this is 1967, how you ended up in the Navy, and really what your job was when you were on the Liberty. Let's start with you, Joe.

Okay. Joe. No, Larry. Oh, sorry, let's start with you, Larry. All right. I'm Larry Bowen. I'm the current Liberty Veterans Association president. In 1965, during the height of the Vietnam War, I got drafted.

And I didn't want to be boots on the ground over in Vietnam, so I went and talked with a Navy recruiter. And he says, go take the Army. me physical and then we'll put you in the Navy. I was 19 years old. I didn't know if I could trust them or not, but, you know, I went, I took the physical, I passed, and by the end of March I was active duty Navy going to Great Lakes Naval Training Center for boot camp. I became a cryptologic technician or communications technician shortly thereafter boot camp I went to a school down in Pensacola, Florida, and got my first assignment to Burmurhaven, Germany. And I thought this was a great tour.

I just, you know, you can't beat this. And four months later, I get old. to the USS Liberty. So this was my third cruise that I was on when we were reassigned to the Mediterranean for the Six-Day War. And the mission of the Liberty, it's an interesting mission.

It was really just collection of radio traffic from all over whoever you were near. Right, right. And am I correct in saying that there was literally no, weapons on the Liberty? Do they have any weapons at all? We had four 50 caliber machine guns, two forward, two aft, and then we had small arms, which Phil and Rick Amati were trying to get into when we thought we were going to have to repel borders. But the gun locker was secure

and they were using, they didn't have a key, so they were trying to break the lock with a sledgehammer so that they could get in and get small arms out in case we, you know, case those helicopters with the troops on board tried to board us. And like Phil said, they, for whatever reason, they stopped and, you know, asked whether or not we had any casualties and whether or not that could help us.

And a skipper told them, basically, we don't need your help. Not in those terms, but, you know, I made it very clear that we didn't want them. Phil, how did you end up in the Navy? That's a good question. I wasn't good in school. I dropped out of school in the seventh grade, went to work for my dad. Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Denver, Colorado. Now I live on the western slope of Colorado. I got a 40-acre ranch there, me and my bride, and Lisa's sitting over there. Wonderful lady. Love her a lot. We've raised our kids, but getting back to the Navy, I went to boot camp,

and I was the most thrilled person you could ever imagine because I was 17 years old. I just turned 17 and joined, and luckily I passed a test, but, I mean, really, I was not very smart bookwise. And all of a sudden, I get awarded to be an educational petty officer.

I said, how did I get this? And my peer took it good. We got along and I'll be darned if I wasn't voted outstanding recruit of my troop. And that was done about my peers. I'll never forget that. A bunch of good guys and they're as old as I am now. 40. What year was that? What year did you join? 64. 1964. Okay. And what was your job? My first job was being a Boilermen and machinist mate. I was on different ships. The U.S. Monakia, U.S.

Haleakala that I won't overseas with to Vietnam. We unloaded ammo to Constellation and other ships. And we would also pick up bodies that were flown to one part of the other. We take them back to Subic Bay because we had coolers for the ammo and stuff. And that was basically our our deal for a couple of years and then I got transferred the liberty I said oh god this has got to be great and what a good ship though beautiful ship good people uh enjoyable uh good skippers uh I can't say enough about the about the USS Liberty and you're right it was a

Abelmore said it was like a giant lobster out in the sea nobody could misidentify that ship so that's pretty much my naval career up to the attack then I got transgender after the USS Maddox, Tofongton. So it's been an interesting ride. Joe, how'd you end up in the Navy? In 1966, I was in my second year of college. Didn't know what I wanted to do in my life. I wasn't ready for graduation or anything like that.

And I didn't want to be in the Army and go to Vietnam. live in a foxhole for my four years, so I decided to join the Navy instead. So I went and joined, and then I went home and told my mom what I did, and she about had a fit. But in hindsight, she told me that it was probably the best idea that I had, the best thing I ever did. Went to boot camp in Great Lakes and got assigned to the drill team, which was fortunate for me.

He was number 9-12. Fortunate for me and the rest of the guys because I don't think I did more than 100 push-ups during my time in boot camp. And what would you rate? I was a signalman. I went from boot camp to Class A Signalman School in Newport, Rhode Island, and then graduated from that and went to the Liberty. And I never could figure out why, since the Liberty,

steamed independently. In my rate, I had flashing light and semaphore between ships. What was I doing there? Who were you going to talk to? Yeah, really. That's an interesting thing about the Liberty. Because of its mission, it would just go out by itself. Like the normal Navy ships, they go out in a group, in a carrier battle group or an amphibious ready group, but there's multiple ships. But you guys on the Liberty, you would just kind of sail around by yourselves. Exactly. And that's because of the mission. With, you. if we were in a group, their communications would interfere with our ability to collect communications that we were trying to collect. So it was by design that we would go independently, typically off the west coast of Africa. In fact, our first port on that last cruise was we pulled into Abidjan, and it was in May of 1967. when we got orders to go to Road to Spain to pick up supplies and some additional people. And we were going to the Eastern Med. Couldn't tell our folks or anything, you know, they said, hey, this is all hush, hush.

And at that time, I don't know that any of us knew what was going on in the Middle East. Yeah, that's a good point. I know when I first got in the Navy and I did a couple deployments as a seal on a ship, I mean, there was no internet, so you really were isolated in terms of what was going on in the world. So what was going on in the world at that time was that the Israeli six-day war was happening. This is a war that took place from the 5th of June until the 10th of June. It was Israeli, it was Israel versus a bunch of Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, little elements of Lebanon in there.

And the Israel had initiated, and there was a bunch of things that led up to this, but Israel had initiated the war with air strikes on Egyptian and Syrian airfields. They'd pretty much wiped out the Egyptian Air Force. On the 6th of June, there was ground fighting that was taking place as the Israeli military pushed into the Sinai Peninsula. On the 7th of June, they pushed even further into the Sinai. The Israeli Navy was kind of probing the Egyptian Navy. There was Israeli missile boats, missile ships that were out there that engaged Egyptian shore batteries. So this is a, even though it's a short war, there's a lot happening in a pretty small area as well. the Jordanians attacked and sent a lot of artillery into Jerusalem.

By the seventh, though, I mean, Israeli, and this was just a couple days into it, Israel had gotten control over much of the West Bank. Eighth of June, these things are continuing to happen. So I just wanted to kind of give some background as to what was happening when this event took. place for you guys. So I was just talking about June 8th. You know, this is when these attacks are just continuing. This is in the midst of this war. And even though, like I said, it's short, but there's a lot of fighting going on.

There's 20,000 Arab troops were killed in this short period of time. Israel lost under 1,000, but that's, you know, still significant. So in the midst of all of that, this attack on your ship happens. And Phil, you've got some personal accounts that you've written out. And these are just, to me, a great way of tracing how this went down from your perspective, Phil. And then, you know, Larry and Joe, you guys can give some input as well. But I just want to read some of these accounts because, you know, I always think when I write things down, they've come across a little bit clearer and it solidifies my memories.

So here's what you said about the first day and how this whole. thing kicked off Phil you say this my job on the morning of June 8th was sound and security I would make the rounds to ensure that everything on my checklist was in good condition that the ship was watertight and ship shape as I reported hourly to the bridge I did not see the first overflights by Israeli aircraft but the other guys told me about them we assumed that they were our friends and knowing that they were merely confirming that we were an American ship caused our moods to further lighten after lunch a general

quarters drill was conducted right after that. I had to accompany another engineer to the starboard gun mount on the forecastle on the folks. Did I just say that? You just busted a damn Navy guy, totally messing that one up. You can edit that out. To fix the phone located there. David Scolac, am I saying that right?

Yes. David Scolac was the other sailor I went with. And after I explained to him what needed to be done, his response was no problem, attorney. I'll get working on her. This was about five minutes before the attack at 2 o'clock p.m. As we stood there, we discussed the fact that this would be the worst possible place to be in the event of an attack on the ship because the gun tub and the guy manning it would be taken out as the first priority.

I said goodbye to Skolak and the gunner and made my way down the ladder to the main deck and my workstation in the ship fitters shop. As I opened the hatch to go inside, I heard an order over the PA. to test the motor whale boat. Just moments later, I heard a huge explosion right next to the hatch I had just closed. My immediate thought was that the test

had gone wrong and the motor whale boat had blown up. So that's how this thing kicks off. I mean, it was a normal day. Were you guys able to, were you guys tracking the war as it was happening? Were you guys, could you hear explosions? Were you guys seeing fighting taking place?

Were you seeing tracers in the sky at night and that kind of thing? No, we saw. smoke from the El Arish area where they were attacking the Egyptian forces, but we didn't hear anything. And no tracers. Did you guys feel safe and secure out there? I did. Yeah.

Yeah, really. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, who was going to attack a flag to American ship? We thought if anybody was going to get us, it should be the Arabs. Besides, we were told that we'd have an air cover and a... 30 minutes if we were ever attacked. Anything else that you remember about the day before it kicked off? That morning, I was setting a position down in Radio Research 1.

I was an intercept operator, and I had picked up some traffic that was actually part of the ground forces communicating back on Tel Aviv. And my buddy Bob Eisenberg, who was working in the processing and reporting center, we went to Chow together at lunchtime. And he told me that they were planning a big attack and that, you know, it was a prolonged kind of thing where they had, you know, three different prongs to this attack. the jet strafing, the napalm, and the torpedo boats. But what Bob didn't tell me was who the target was. Apparently, they didn't spell that out in their communications. But that was before we had our practice general quarters drill.

So I don't know if maybe Commander Lewis had sent word up to the skipper that, hey, things are going to intensify here, maybe we ought to do a drill. But there were certainly indications in the comms that something big was going to happen. And unfortunately, you know, we didn't know that it was us that they were targeting. Because during the morning, these overflights that occurred,

and they started early in the morning, I bet we had at least four or five overflights by Israeli aircraft. And we would send our photo recon team up to the bridge to take photographs. And we knew, I mean, you could see the star David on the aircraft. So in my mind, I felt pretty secure that our ally was going to cover us and not be the ones that was going to do the attack. And Joe, anything else on that? Yeah, there was a signalman.

I was up on the top deck. It was an open deck. Just has rails around it, not the steel sidings around the deck. And I could see all of the reconnaissance aircraft come and circle us in the morning. And I served quartermaster watches. Which I didn't like, but what's a guy to do? And so I was down in the pilot house, and Lloyd Painter was the officer of the deck,

or a junior officer of the deck, I believe, and he was watching the radar, surface search radar, and he spotted the aircraft coming up our starboard side, very low to the deck, because, you know, we didn't have any air search. It was just surface search. So they got slowly or quickly up our starboard side, turned immediately left, and then left again when they got straight ahead of us and then started the attack.

And the Israelis claimed that they conducted a series of low and slow identification runs, and I don't think anybody would believe that a screaming jet would, nobody could see it, nobody could hear it on those identification runs. So they've lied about it since the outset. Let's pick up Phil with your account after you hear this explosion. So you say not realizing that a rocket had just exploded directly outside the hatch, I grabbed the handle and opened it once more to go out and investigate the trouble. I just barely put one foot outside when I felt myself grabbed by the shirt collar and violently jerked back inside.

I turned and saw it was first class petty officer Dale Neese, who ordered me to get back. We're under attack. The General Quarter's alarm was then sounded and I made my way to my duty station, which was which was one deck, which was one deck above the mess decks. After going down the ladder, I slipped and fell and found myself under trampling feet of sailors as they made their way to their stations.

I rolled over to my right side to get out of the way and got on my feet and joined the stampede to get to my station as well. I got into battle dress and got my gear ready. Chief Thompson was the on-scene leader. As soon as I arrived, he said he'd been hit and he was leaving to get medical care Since I was assistant on-scene leader, this meant I was in charge. It's all yours now, Turney.

He said as he made his way down the passage. I responded back, hey, thanks a lot, Chief, although I was not that thrilled about this ad hoc promotion. So just for people that haven't been in the Navy, tell us about General Quarters, what's going on? Right. General Quarters is something we did aboard that ship constantly. Even I got a board delivery when it was just commissioned and it made one cruise and I stayed on it for the rest of until the last one. But every captain I served under, and there was only two, McGonigal was very strict about damage control, cleanliness. He evaluated everything you did.

and I think that really, really set us up to be, at least to try to be able to save our ship and save our shipmates. But the training we received with the good graces of God, we were able to keep the ship afloat, and it just wasn't us. You know, it was a higher power that saved us. Nobody else came to help us, but the good Lord. And I believe that now, and I always will. I believed it then.

You know, interesting, Jocko, you know, I thought when the attack started and we didn't get any help, I thought, well, okay, this is World War III, and these guys got better things to do than screw with us, the American government, you know, because they're doing their own thing. That's what I really thought, because they wouldn't leave us out there alone that we were promised help. And I'll be darned, yeah. no help came. We were out there alone by ourselves. No armament.

Our ship was burning up. People all over the deck on sleeping, trying to get into racks or whatever they could just to stay alive. It was, I can't say it was real chaos. It was an organized chaos. Just do your job. And don't do anything else, but do your job. What was your job during general quarters?

Damage control. So did you take over for, you were the damage control senior guy at this point? At that report part, yes. Was it for that specific part of the ship? Yes. Okay. For that part of the ship. The other damage control one was James Smith.

And he was fighting fires and doing all I could. In fact, that's when Spicer got killed. He was the postal clerk. He was manning a hose. That was his general quarters, drills, and his station. to fight fires and Smitty had just got through the hatch and then Spicer was hit. I might also add that Smitty and I made third class together, E-4s and he stayed in for 27 years and he came out of lieutenant commander. Yeah, he was on a lot of different shifts.

Smitty's a great guy, he's a great hero. All these guys are heroes. They're my my alter ego. I respect these guys because they help save every save everybody's lives, including mine. Without these people, I wouldn't be alive today. Joe, what did you have to do during general quarters? General quarters, as a signalman, my job was look out, and look for ships to communicate with, ha-ha. And so when the attack started,

Mom didn't raise no fools, and that signal bridge was totally, totally open. So I stayed down in the pilot house where that was my, my workstation basically is in the pilot house. And occasionally I would look out on the port wing of the bridge and look up and make sure the flag was flying. Did that a couple times. And then I noticed it wasn't flying. So Frank Brown and I, Frank was killed while he was on the helm, Frank Brown and I took Holiday Colors and ran it up on number four Port Highland.

And I was up flying during the complete torpedo attack. And holiday colors is an even bigger flag than normal. Biggest flag we have. Seven by 13. Is that correct? You all that? That's something like that. Yeah, seven by 13 feet.

What about you, Larry? Where'd you go once General Quarters kicked off? The, like I said, I had a day watch that day. So I was down on Radio Research 1. When they sounded General Quarters, I move up one deck to another position doing the same job with a cadre of other CTs. One of, like I was an R brancher, there was a T-brancher in there.

We had an O-brancher. What's the R-Branch, T-Branch, O-Branch? Okay. Our-brancher was a radioman. Okay. T-brancher were the technical electronic guys. We had a maintenance guy in there. We also had an I-brancher, which is a linguist.

and so we took positions one deck above where the torpedo hit. And when the torpedo entered, we all got blown to the overhead, got concussions. That's probably when I got my shrapnel wounds. And, you know, it wasn't until right after that that we were able to go out and start opening up the hatch and getting people out from the flooded compartment below. But when Phil mentioned that we had this, you know, 29 by 39 foot a hole in the starboard side, that killed 25 of our crew members that were down into research spaces.

And, you know, one of our primary concerns was getting anyone who is still alive, getting them out of there and getting them up to safety. So as soon as we got the hatch open and people started coming out of the flooded compartment, I had a secondary job of going to the front door to our compartmented spaces and handing out life jackets to everybody so that if we had to abandon ship, at least everybody would have a life preserver. And that was before we ended up at the end, after everybody got out of their, We thought everybody had gotten out of there.

We dogged down the hatch and had to close up the area, secure it. Going back to this account from Phil once again, I started my new duties by determining whether all damage control personnel were accounted for but found that several were still missing, which was not surprising considering the circumstances. The torrent of explosions I was hearing above and all around me had something to do with that and the holes that begin appearing every. Everywhere around us from the rocket and cannon fire were further evidence of the intensity of the attack In the middle of the this onslaught I caught a piece of shrapnel four inches long in my right arm just above the elbow

I pulled it out through it on the deck and moved everyone in my department to the main deck Once there I went to the same gun tub that I had visited earlier But only saw a pile of human remains blood hunks of human flesh body parts and fragments of bone Rick Ameddy, am I saying that right? Rick Ametti was there with me and we knew there was no life to be saved so we moved on. Throughout this time, machine gun bullets

and rocket fire were raining down on us as we crouched down behind various structures leaping from one position to another. So this is, I mean, there's just, this entire ship is just getting raked with machine gun fire, with rockets, with bullets. These bullets you're talking about, they're penetrating the skin of the ship

and just going through creating holes immediately. Armor piercing bullets, you're exactly right, Jocko, and it was an attack that there was no mercy. There was no explanation in our mind because we didn't know really who was doing it. They were doing it with unmarked jet aircraft until we saw the torpedo boats. And they had the star David.

I said, oh, God, they're here to help. us. It had a little bit of the deal. They fired five torpedoes at us. Five torpedoes, and only one of them hit, and it happened to hit an eye beam where we didn't take the full explosion. It was more of an outward deal. But as Larry was saying, 25 of America's most intelligent, secret personnel in the world, all of them top secret, were instantly blown to bits. And it's just something you can. can't describe to see your own shipmates like that. And you know they're down there. The ones that got killed on deck, we already

put them in body bags. And the ones that were clinging to life, Doc Kiefer took care of them. I helped in operations. All these other guys did what they could to help people. It was a unified ship. And it was two different cruise aboard that ship, the Spooks and us.

So we were the, idiots and these were the smart guys. It's too bad. I mean that with all due respect. Believe me, all due respect. But these guys here took the brunt of the damage. And you know what? Joccoe, they didn't leave the duty stations. They could have run out of there. But they stayed there doing their duty and gave their lives for it.

And it was inspirational. It just you think about that. And then when the torpedo hit, the torpedo hit, the torpedo old gunboats, we come up alongside of us and fire at our firefighters, treasure-bearers, anybody on deck, they're that close shooting us, you know what I mean, out of us. And it never occurred to me, as I've said many times, how another contrary or human being could do that to their own supposedly friends and get by with it, and then come

back and say, have you casualties? Have you had any casualties? Flood all over the decks. Commander Castle was in one of the Israeli helicopters. He was at his shade there in Israel. He dropped a card with his name on it. And on the back of it says, have you casualties. And I thought to myself, my God, how could this? I mean, the guy's got to be able to see. And it just, everybody was astounded by that. The captain told the Get the helicopter, the hell away from my ship. Get it out of here now. And they did.

And we were all alone. Our country promises help. We expected help. The jet aircraft were called back by Washington, McNamara, and LBGA and all his cronies, including Admiral McCain. He was a commanding officer of European forces. Europe and he was a huge part of the cover-up. The Board of Inquirer only went seven days.

Seven days. It was wrapped up. It was all predetermined what the outcome is going to be. Mistaken identity. They say they paid $6 million or $10 million or whatever, and the crew was compensated. They compensated most of the crew $200 for their clothes or maybe their whatever. But the average was $200.

bucks. The most seriously guys that got wounded, they deserved every penny they got, but it wasn't nothing like they said it was, and it was our money they were given right back to us. So Israel never put out a dime. The United States paid for it all, and they sold our ship for a measly a couple hundred thousand dollars. They cut up a razor blades to make sure the evidence was gone. But they didn't count on us for 55 years telling you guys, hey, you're lying to the American public and you're not going to get by with it. That's why we're here now. America's too great. Too great of a country that served his nation. As you well know, you've been there. You know what it's all about. And you didn't get, nobody turned their back on you because you had backup, your own men.

And you know, to the last man, it's not over till it's over. But it was like that way with us. It's not over until it's over. We're still alive. The ship didn't roll over. And the next day they got there. And like I say, Massey and the Davis, these guys forward the ship just in tears. It was, they hated to see their own shipmates get torn apart like that.

It was no help. Coming to find out. You know, I think the Navy did try to help us, but the government, the higher-ups, wouldn't come to our aid. And it's pretty sad. This one pilot, he's in this film. By the way, I wanted to give you this, Jaco. I think you've seen this, haven't you?

I have not seen that, no. Okay, this is Sacrificing Liberty. Go to Sacrificingliberty.com. Sacrificeinliverty.com. This is a four-part series. It's one of the best series that's ever. been done and truthful it's all about many survivors in this film telling you the truth and it's my great honor and pleasure to give this to you and I hope you you watch it and spread the word jocko

thank you one one thing that should be noted about the 25 men killed by the torpedo is that they probably would have survived the attack if LBJ hadn't recalled the aircraft that aircraft were already in flight, probably halfway to the liberty, and would have driven off the torpedo attack if they had been allowed to continue. Just to give people some more context as to what was actually happening for you guys, your account, Phil, as this has taken place, you say this, dead bodies were littered everywhere, but there were also wounded bodies that we knew had to be found and saved if possible. Between volleys of bullets and rockets, we darted out from safe cover,

grabbed the wounded men one at a time, dragged them across the deck, and assisted them down the hatch. Others from down below took them from there and moved them to the mess halls where they could be treated. It took us at least 15 minutes to clear the decks of those who were still alive and could be saved, about 25 men altogether. One of the worst cases I saw was Tom Riley, a bosun's mate, who was on his back and bleeding from multiple wounds and was covered with gray paint, which might have saved his life since it became a giant bandage. So that's kind of the situation that took place where that's what you received the Bronze Star for was that action going out into the fire to try and recover wounded guys. You continue here.

After all the wounded had been recovered, I went to the log room. The location of damage control central. I saw Ensign John D. Scott there, my superior officer, who is burning documents, the standard procedure in U.S. military. After briefing him and discussing the situation for a few minutes, he ordered me to return to the deck to further assess the damages and put out any fires that were still burning. On the way back, I saw many wounded men, bloody and moaning, begging me for help. But as I had no medical training, there was not much I could do to help relieve their pain. I got to the bridge and saw Commander McNoggle was badly wounded in the leg, but still in command.

Rocket and cannon holes were everywhere, and burning napalm was dripping through the holes into the bridge compartment. There were CO2 canisters that were not effective in fighting that kind of fire, and I requested a team with water hoses, but that didn't work either since the fire hosers had been shot up just like everything else.

I told the captain that, I would return with some better equipment to fight the fires, and he calmly replied, do what you can, sailor. He was always very professional and stoic, even under these incredibly violent, surreal circumstances. So you have napalm dripping through the holes onto the bridge. I mean, that's just crazy to think about. It is crazy. Napalm is a war crime, dropping it on. dropping on us. They couldn't shoot us up, so they tried to burn us up. And the fire is just basically burned out

because we couldn't put them out. We didn't have the equipment. CO2 was all gone. Everything had been utilized. So it was, we could have gotten water from the engine room. They could have pumped us water, but there was nothing we could do with it.

Because the hose was really, 99% of them were all shot up. They're all gone. And you have that interaction with the cap and Cap Mcgonical. He sounds like a stoic guy. One thing I remember about Captain McGonigal, and I remember it distinctly, is when I was in the pilot house, that's where I stayed during 99% of the attack. And bullets were flying and napalm and smoke and all that stuff.

He was very calmly walking back and forth asking for a cup of coffee. He says, can I have a cup of coffee, please? Sheesh. This is just chaos. It's chaos. But on our part, it's organized chaos because we were so well trained. We knew what we were supposed to do, and we did it without thinking. That's what all the training was for.

You say this, on my way to the bridge, I looked at my good friend Francis Brown, a third class quartermaster who was helping steer the ship. He was one of my best friends on the ship, and we hung out together in better times, playing cards, drinking a few beers, and joking together. We just locked eyes and communicated silently that we might not make it through this one. I went off to find more CO2 canisters,

and I ran back towards the bridge, falling in the process, which caused the CO2 canister to fly out of my hands and crash down the deck with a bang. As soon as I got up, I saw what had caused me to slip and fall. It was blood on the deck that hadn't been there moments before when I left the bridge. It was my friend Francis Brown's blood who had caught a machine gun bullet or a piece of shrapnel in the back of his head and his blood was everywhere. His eyes were closed but his face was swelled up like a balloon.

It was something that no human being should ever have to see, especially when it's a good friend of yours. In a little while after going below deck and seeing more scenes like that, that looked like a slaughterhouse with a cacophony of a carcophony of, of wailing and desperation in the background, the wounded men kept begging me to help them. And it was frustrating for me not to be able to do that because I had to move them from the passageways into the mess hall so they could get the medical attention they needed. Finally, the jet attack was over,

and I went back to the top deck and then saw torpedo boats coming at us at a high rate of speed. And now I saw who it was. The star of David Flags flying above these boats was quite a surprise, and at first I assumed they were. coming to our rescue. The delusion only lasted a minute

because I then saw the splash of several torpedoes that they dropped into the water as they headed towards us. Did you know they were torpedoes? I mean, did you identify? It seems like that's such a, if I would have seen Israeli boats, I thought, oh, they're friendly, oh, something

just went in the water, what could that be? Did you actually know they were torpedoes at that point? I did, Jacko, because I could see the trail in the water. I saw the two go aft. I don't know where the other, they're fire, they're, say anywhere from five to six torpedoes, the general rule is five, but I mean five or six, what differences make now? But the two that went after, I saw those. I didn't, I don't know where the other ones,

they could have been aft or forward, but I do know that one, that one did hit. And that's, That's when the ship started listening badly to the starboard side, and it just went like this. Well, first, the ship was picked up. This is when... So before the torpedo hit, you say the four torpedoes launched almost simultaneously. They had to hit us, the Liberty would have sunk immediately, and the rest of the world history would have been written quite differently.

Those four had miraculously all missed. The fifth one was fired, and it was immediately obvious that it could not be out-maneuvered. The countdown began. We were warned to prepare. prepare for a torpedo hit and we hunkered down in torpedo attack mode. This meant bending your knees and elbows, putting your hands against the bulkhead and relaxing your neck. And all of that is made nearly impossible as your thoughts of imminent death take over your mind.

So there was a time period where the fourth torpedo launch, or sorry, the fourth or fifth or whatever it was, there's one that you could tell that it was going to hit you. Could you see it in the water coming your way? No, I couldn't see it. I was below decks, one deck below the main. deck. Would they count it off on the one MC or something? Yes, the captain said prepare for torpedo hits starboard's side and then we knew it's just a matter of time and it hit and I was thinking to myself, if this ship goes down, I'm going to go down with it because I'm not going to get in the

water and try to stay alive and let them guys shoot me in the water. I'd better go down to ship and that was my intention. I was going down. But the ship just miraculously stopped listing. What are you thinking, Larry, as you're hearing the countdown comes, starboard side. That's got to be absolutely horrifying. It was, and we were internal to the ship. So, I mean, we had no place to run.

We had been sitting in our general quarters positions doing our general quarters positions, doing our job when you said prepare for torpedo attack. And we got off our position, got ourselves up against the bulkhead, and squatted down and just braced yourself. But, you know, you're never really prepared for something like that. You just don't know whether or not it's going to hit right where you're at or somewhere else. we were above the water line, but we were right against the bulkhead that separated our comm spaces and our PNR spaces, which is the area that the torpedo came into.

So the explosion itself was deafening for us. And like I said, we got blown to the overhead, got concussions, and probably the shrapnel wounds that, that we received after that. But you immediately scramble to your feet to try and help your fellow shipmates that are down below. We didn't know how badly the torpedo damaged that area.

But when we opened up the hatch, we could tell, you know, I mean the water was rising and people were scrambling to try and get up the ladder so that they could get out. but yeah it was nerve-wracking absolutely nerve-wracking to say that we weren't scared to death I think would be an understatement Joe when you heard brace for torpedo impact where were you what were you thinking I was on the port wing of the bridge looking up to make sure the flag was flying

and when I heard that brace for torpedo attack I just just hit the deck. And not knowing what a torpedo would do, I just felt it hit, and I was lifted off the deck just an instant. Phil, you say in the account, when the explosion came, it was literally deafening. I'd been directly above the point where it hit only about eight feet away, and the explosive percussion blew out my ear drums, an injury that never completely heals. We were all instantly airborne because the ship itself was picked up out of the water, and then

it came back down and bounced back up and down a few more times, nearly capsizing in the process. The new moaning and groaning was not coming from the wounded men, but was now coming from the wounded ship as the rush of seawater flooded into the ship. Since the ship itself did not blow up, that meant the torpedo did not hit the engine room because that cold seawater hitting the boilers would have caused the ship to be cut in half, and both halves would have gone to the bottom within minutes. and since Scott instructed me to determine where the torpedo had hit so with Rick Ametti at my side we went down to the communication spaces where the spooks worked

I banged on the steel door with my fire axe since I did not have a code to open it and a voice told me that I was not authorized to enter the spaces Rick and I told whoever was on the other side to go to hell saying that we were authorized to go wherever we had to to keep the ship afloat I told the person on the other side that if they did not open the door I would beat it off its hinges with my axe. That's a crazy story. So these guys, freaking the ship got hit with a torpedo.

And you go open up this damn door and they go, hey, you're not authorized. Yeah. It was crazy. It was really crazy. And when we got down there, we went through the hatch that he closed to make sure everything was watertight and everything. And I grabbed the hatch. It had two different hatches, a big one and then a small scuttle hatch. I opened it up very slowly and I could hear air coming out, so I knew it wasn't water.

And I'll be darned for two or three other guys were out there banging and trying to get out. And they came out and what a beautiful sight to see them alive. Yeah, you say suddenly the door opened. I went to scuttle the hatch and turned it, then opened it very slowly. I heard air escaping in our direction, which meant that the compartment was not completely filled already, but was filling. Just as I opened it, I heard frantic banging on the other side, so I turned the wheel as fast as I could,

and Sergeant Bruce Lockwood, United States Marine Corps, came scrambling out while pulling another sailor of safety as well. Amedi and I grabbed the two and yanked them out of the hole. Ensign Scott came up carrying a battle lantern and ordered me to give him my belt. I did as he asked, and then he used it to lower the lantern into the water to look and check for any more signs of life.

after a few moments we looked at each other and he asked what I thought sir I said I think we had better seal her up so that's one of those moments where you know as a leader you got to make the hardest decision that a person could have to make which is

we don't know who else is down below we know that this this is filling up with water and when we seal this hatch we're sealing their fate but in order to save the ship, that's the decision that you have to make. Absolutely. It was a very difficult decision, but it was pretty instantaneous. As soon as that decision was made, I mean, it was done. But we would periodically go back and check, listen, but it was all over. Those guys didn't have a chance.

It was, well, lucky enough, he got out and many more, but it was just I mean to think about 25 years shipmates down there and I didn't know how many got killed at that time down there but to think that they

went through that and what we went through above deck they didn't know what was going on below deck they didn't have a clue but like I said earlier these guys

they didn't abandon their duty stations and what kind of courage is that take to stay the low decks in the CT spaces on the starboard side and take what they're going to get and they did brave brave wonderful men that's why we're here they're our dead shipmates they can't speak but we can speak for them and we've been doing that forever trying to get the truth out but our government wants it sealed to stay sealed and so does Israel. Now again it's not it's not against the Jews, it's not against Americans, they just got fed lies and we're here to say hey we're eyewitnesses.

Are you going to believe the Israeli version, the Board of Inquirer version which is a total BS, are you going to believe eyewitness was like us? Now I think the American public is smart enough especially with what's going on in the world now to see that how powerful a government can be if they want to silence you. It's gotten so bad that the U.S. Navy curator and a U.S. Navy historian wrote the official government version of the attack, and he based it entirely on the Israeli version. Wow. Well, more people are going to hear this version than that version.

How do you like that? Yes, God's question. Amen. Going back to the account, now the torpedo boats began firing at us with machine guns, shooting anything that moved, including firefighters and stretcher bearers. One of the guys I was pulling to safety got hit right above the knee with a 50 caliber slug, causing an explosion of blood and bone. I took off my shirt and tied the sleeves around the top of his leg as tight as I could to stop the bleeding.

We got him down to the mess decks and untied the tourniquet for just a few seconds so that they wouldn't be forced to amputate the leg later. than we retied it before leaving the area. Ametti and I went back up to the main deck and saw that the gunners on the torpedo boats were now shooting at the ship on the water line, aiming in the direction of the boilers and from merely 35 yards away.

Clearly they were trying now to blow up the ship by hitting the boilers and causing a huge explosion that their last torpedo had failed to accomplish. Throughout the course of the torpedo boat attack, they circled the ship like vultures at as close as 100 feet. to suggest that they might have missed the huge lettering on both sides of the bow

in 10-foot-high letters as well as the USS Liberty lettering on the stern seems impossible. And you're sitting there seeing these guys just lay into you with 50-caliber machine guns from 100 yards away. Yes, sir. And nothing to fight back with. but our will and wits and the pleasure of taking another breath is what kept us all going and pretty fortunate to be here jaco i saw one of the torpedo boats a lot closer than 100 yards one of them i was on the port winglet bridge is i spent a lot of time out there making sure the flag was flying and i saw one of the torpedo boats sail very slowly up our port

support side. I didn't see them fire anything, but I did notice the crew on the torpedo boat motion up to the signal bridge up to that area so they can see the flag. And then they just sailed off and continue to attack.

How much time had passed between the initial strafing runs from the aircraft to the torpedo attack? And is this an hour's gone by? Two hours? approximately two hours. Some people save more, some people save less, but to do that

type of damage and in a few moments like the Israelis said it just took a little while. They only said they had only three aircraft that attacked us and there was probably 20 aircraft that attacked us to do that kind of damaging that short of time. It's just when you think back three airplanes can't carry the munitions that would take to put over 850 cannon rocket holes in the ship, dropped napalm on us. It just doesn't make sense. So as all this is going on, you say all of the sounds of these machine guns and the sheer hell taking place might have been the reason why there was some controversy of whether Commander McGonigal ordered all crew prepared to abandon ship. but I heard that order probably because he felt that there was no possibility at that point we could save the ship. He was probably not aware yet that nearly all the lifeboats were either destroyed by rockets, gunfire, napalm,

that there were only three left, and I personally put one of them into the water as I watched all three inflate, only to see them immediately shot up. Two sank, but one of them was taking aboard one of the boats as a trophy. That capped the series of horrors I witnessed that day and told me as clearly as anything else that the purpose of the attack, was not just to cripple the ship and take it out of commission so that it could not ease drop on communications, but to actually sink our ship. The act of destroying our lifeboats was an unmistakable sign that they wanted no survivors left to tell anyone what had happened. Lloyd Painter testified about that.

He witnessed the machine gunning of the life rafts, and he testified about that during the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry. But if you get a copy of the Court of Inquiry, his testimony has been removed, not redacted, removed. from the record. What are you thinking when you hear abandoned ship? What are you thinking about, Larry? Did you hear that call? I did. I was, had a secondary duty station at that point.

Our fan tail phone talker had taken a rocket hit, was seriously wounded, and he was down in the dispensary. I was back on the fantail as phone talker. I had a first-class petty officer, Jeff Carpenter, saw me getting some fresh air while huddled behind a winch. And he said, Bowen, go back and be the phone talker. And I saw the torpedo boats. And when I heard this skipper say, you know, prepare to abandon ship, I was thinking to myself, you know, I mean, this is it. I mean, they're right there.

They can shoot every one of us in the water. You're trying to decide whether or not you've got a chance of jumping overboard and swimming for it or going down with a ship like Phil talked about. And, of course, I stood my ground and waited. But that was about the same time that I saw an unidentified aircraft approaching from the starboard side. and it was a helicopter. And they were coming out at that point to find out whether or not we had any casualties,

whether or not they could provide any kind of assistance. And so obviously we didn't have to abandon ship, but you're scared to death again. You don't know, you've got nowhere to run. I mean, we were like ducks in a barrel, and they just opened fire. And, you know, we had no way to defend ourselves. And you guys mentioned this already, but just to reiterate, there was some heroic activity took place for people,

for some of your shipmates to get onto the deck of the ship and string up a long wire antenna and send out an SOS message. And that actually made it to Sixth Fleet, which was, you know, like I talked earlier about big groups of ships and you guys traveled solo, but normally the U.S. Navy travels in big groups of ships. So that was the Sixth Fleet is one of these big groups of ships, had an aircraft carrier and whatnot. And they actually received the SOS that you guys were in trouble under attack. And talk me through about what you know about how the response, the rescue response, got shut down? A very good question.

We didn't learn for quite a while exactly why and what for. But it just seemed like nobody really cared about us. You know, nobody, including the president. He's the one that got to sit here this mess, LVJ, steak, LVJ, and his minions. but I never thought that the greatest fighting force in the world

would leave us behind but they didn't. They wanted to come helpless. That's why Captain Tully got fired. They took his command away because he immediately launched aircraft out once but twice. So Captain Tully was someone on the USS Saratoga. On the USS Saratoga. They received the signal that you all

were in trouble and he said, okay, we got sailors in trouble, we got U.S. Navy ship in trouble, we're going to go help him. And he launches aircraft to go help. Yes. Before they even left the horizon of the ship, they were recalled back, thanks to LVJ and McNamara. And I believe that we were set up from the Gidgo. I don't know if it was a year before, six months before, or whatever. But the frontlet 615 was all about 6.5. 6.5. 6.5. 6. 6th of June 15th of I mean yeah 6th of June on the 15th day the war was supposed to start but they started early That's why they rushed us out of out of Abidjan to get to the area just as fast as we could I mean that old ship was

was doing as fast it was shaken we got they took the governors off the engines and we were on our way flying but everybody was apprehensive we we didn't even know from the radio signals I mean what was going on in the Middle East but there was a war gone on and here we go and we look out and here we are and sailing up and down the coast like we usually did in Africa that was our only position in Africa was just sail up and down the coast and collect intelligence like everybody else does but when we got on scene and you could see as Joe mentioned before the black smoke coming up from the attacking forces, Israel's, going into the Sinai.

It was, I felt, well, Jesus, man, I'd hate to be over there. I never knew it was coming to us. And we were the intended target to sink. And in my view, and I think a lot of other guys do, is sink it, blame it on Nassar, and World War III were broken out, because the Russian subs were they're ready to ready to nuke Israel and the our government sent bombers to bomb the Arab states and they were recalled

within seconds of a catastrophe of a nuclear war. Yeah so I read that as well that we had launched nuclear weapon armed aircraft as a response to what was happening, and then those got recalled as well. Yes, sir. Exactly right. If you look at the tactics used by the Israelis during the attack, they started with unmarked aircraft, or they jammed our radios on both U.S. Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies, they used unmarked aircraft, they used napalm to drive the

ship's crew down below decks, brought in torpedo boats with six torpedoes. those total, luckily only one hit. And then Heloborne assault troops. It was obvious to me and most people that their intention was to sink the ship and kill all any survivors. Speaking of that, the Helo-born assault troops, here we go. Shortly after the boats left the scene from far off in the distance, but closing in fast came the unmistakable, wamp, womp, womp, sound of a very large troop-carrying helicopter

approaching the ship on the starboard side. Now the one-MC system blared. All ships personnel prepare to repel borders. So now, after all other weapons were brought to bear on our ship and failed a sinker, we were about to be bordered by Marines armed with submachine guns after the only machine guns on the ship had been destroyed in the wave of first attacks. Even if we could get to them in time, the only other guns we had on the ship were small arms, pistols and a couple shotguns that we might use to set up a last line of defense.

Ametti and I tried to open the locker with our fire axes since our master at arms, who is the only one with a key, was not to be found. Even after beating that lock nearly pieces, we could not break it. The commandos on board the helicopter above appeared to be ready to repel onto our ship, ready for close quarters combat with a bunch of defenseless, bedraggled sailors worn out from two hours of sustained attacks. it would have been a turkey shoot but we were not about to go down

without a fight for our lives had they proceeded they could have murdered the entire crew and then proceeded to use whatever explosives they had to guarantee the ship's destruction. As the helicopter hovered overhead no more than 75 feet away I locked eyes with one of the Marines, these

Israeli Marines who was sitting on the floor of the helicopter his legs were hanging out he had one foot on the skid below as he waited for an order to repel down to the ship's deck and finish us off. As I stood on the deck of my bloody and battered ship, I thought about everything that had happened over the course of that afternoon, about my good friends, Francis Brown and David Scolac, and all the other men whose remains were strewn all over the ship.

The only tool I had left was my middle finger, and I used it to let him know what I thought of him and the rest of his team. He simply gave me a smile and returned the gesture. and then they backed off, right? They didn't land. They flew away. They just took off, Jaco, and it was a victory for us. Our first victory of the whole mess was them not coming aboard, because they could have easily.

In fact, they could come back that night and got us, and for some reason they didn't do it, because they could have gotten by with it very easily. Oh, okay, the ship broke apart. The Israelis said that the Arabs did it, and I think we better go get their Arabs. I think we better just go get them. That was a whole, it was a land grab for Israel

and a power grab for LBGA to keep his war machine going in Vietnam. It's not like you guys got help quickly. You say this, it's 18 hours of hell. To call it a long night is a big understatement. None of us slept for two reasons. afraid of the dark, not like little kids, but rather because we knew that criminals prefer the cover of darkness when doing their dirty work. Those responsible for the previous day's attack might return to the scene of the crime to finish what they had failed to do earlier.

Second, we didn't know if the ship would even stay together. Although we were not sure of the exact size of the hole in the starboard side, we knew that it was big, very big. There was a lot of work that would be needed just to keep the ship afloat and moving away from the danger zone. and with all the men killed or wounded, only a skeleton crew remained to do this. Those of us who did survive were glad of that, of course, but we all felt an enormous amount of survivors' guilt. Why me? Why us? We asked ourselves silently. Why had we been spared while others had not? The dead included two of my good friends, Francis Brown, who was shot in the head with a 50-calibre machine gun round, and his brain splattered all over the bridge, and David

Skolok, who had been with just minutes before the attack. He was also caught the machine gun fire and had been blown to pieces. Too many to count. I went to the mess deck to see if I could help with the severely wounded men. As soon as I entered the sheer mass of human suffering moved me so much to emotion that my knees got weak, but I dared not let it show as I went from broken man to broken man asking what I could do to help him feel more comfortable. What was the total ship's crew?

294. Two-thirds of crew was either wounded or dead. What were you doing throughout the night, Larry? A little bit of the same that Phil was just talking about, went to the Mestex to help relieve the corpsmen. We only had one ship's officer, you know, a skip, or the doctor and the ship's doctor? Dr. Kiefer.

and then two corpsmen, a second class and a third class petty officer. So I'm an Eagle Scout. I had some first aid background, not that it was going to do much for some of the maimed bodies that were laying there in a MESTex. But like Phil said, you're there

to try and comfort them and, you know, just talk to them. I was actually, you know, providing some kind of an ointment to their wounds. You know, the corpsman would give me something and say, go, you know, wipe this wound here or whatever. And so I was doing that. Didn't get any sleep that night.

I think the main reason was I wanted to stay awake in case something happened, and that bulkhead gave way, because we would have had to abandon ship as quickly as we could. I still have my life vests on. I wasn't going to give that up. But I was not alone. I mean, there were a lot of us walking wounded. I was wounded, but I didn't realize that I had the shrapnel wounds in my thigh

because your adrenaline is pumping so fast. and you're taking care of others. So I had blood from trying to take care of John Spicer and working with some of the other wounded that my dungeries were just kind of blood-soaked. And I didn't find out until, I don't know, I guess a day or two later when one of the doctors from one of the other ships

was up in a dispensary and they were, you know, evaluating us to determine whether or not we had sustained any injuries. And, of course, I had a drop trial, and he said, how'd you get those scars on your leg there? I had shrapnel wounds. I said, I don't know. I must have been during the torpedo attack.

But as far as working through the night, we did whatever we could to try and, you know, keep everyone calm. It wasn't chaotic. I mean, they weren't, there might have been some moaning here and there, but it wasn't a lot of screaming and yelling or anything like that. Everybody realized that, hey, they're still alive, and we're going to get out of this. We kept thinking that we're going to get some support, but nothing ever came. What about you, Joe? What were you doing throughout that night? Throughout that night, there's a signal when I was up on the signal bridge, looking for

ships. Thinking someone might be coming to help you? Either way. And if I saw a light moving along in the sky, I don't care how high it was, I always had my little oldest flashing lamp and I tried to

signal it. I know it was futile but I had to try it because all the other signal lights are destroyed. Going back to the account here from you, Phil, as I was doing this, Commander Philip Armstrong, the executive officer called my name. I thought that his condition was critical, but he was active and alert and seemingly in little pain.

He asked me for a cigarette, so I lit one and put one in his mouth for him. He asked me many questions about the number of dead and wounded and the captain's condition, while I heard the agony of the men all around us. I left him for a few minutes to try and find anything to help comfort the men, and by the time I returned to check on Commander Armstrong,

to my great shock and sadness, I found that he had just died. Then I went to the wardroom, the mess hall for the officers. There I saw another one of my friends, Gary Blanchard, enlisted seaman whose front showed no signs of wound, but he was lying in a puddle of his own blood that seemed to be getting bigger by the second. He asked me to remove his socks because his feet were on fire.

I did as he asked. Then he asked if he was going to make it. I could do no more than shake my head, no. I always hated myself for not lying to him or at least ignoring the question and changing the subject. But I did hope that my response allowed him the chance to make peace with his maker before the final curtain. These four men were among the nearly three dozen killed that day,

many of whom I had never gotten a chance to know. I had met the ship's doctor, I'd met the ship's only doctor. doctor there in the wardroom, Dr. Richard Kiefer, am I saying that right? Kiefer. He came over and began to operate on Gary, however, it quickly became clear that it was too late. As soon as he opened him up, he then had to put stitches in

him to hold him together before Doc moved on to his other numerous patients, all of whom desperately needed his attention. If anyone aboard the ship deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor, it was Doc Kiefer. as time went on we went about our regular duties now modified because of the precarious condition of the ship we were still unsure why we

had been attacked and by whom Israeli flags had been seen on that least one boat and the helicopters but the thought that our friend and ally would do something so treacherous was unthinkable but nothing was normal anymore and that thought was the only possible explanation

the brutality, intensity and long duration of the attack and the obvious fact that they wanted to kill us all and sink the ship had become quite clear to all of us. Why else would they destroy our only means of escape by shooting up our lifeboats? As I began to resume my regular duty sounding security and damage control, I realized that my heroic shipmates had saved the ship that day by remaining at their posts while under the attack.

I started making my usual rounds, which now included both bulkheads encompassing the C.T. space is where the torpedo had hit. The walls made from plate steel no more than an inch thick, if that, were sweaty from the cool ocean water on the other side. I could even hear the water sloshing around, knowing that if the

bulkheads ever gave way, we would all be goners. There were cracks in the steel walls caused by the enormous pressure being exerted against them by the Mediterranean Sea. They were ballooning outward from that pressure, and I feared that the cracks would get larger and larger until they finally would give way.

They looked like they were alive and breathing as they heaved in and out with the movement of the ship and the pressure of the water. I got shivers standing in such close proximity to them, knowing that the only thing standing between me and my own death was a plate of steel that was ready to come crashing into the boiler room at any second. That thin steel wall was the only thing keeping the sea water from flooding into the interior of the ship. And if that happened, the ship would have immediately sunk from a huge explosion when the cold water hit the hot boilers.

So you're looking at the wall of the ship. You know on the other side of this wall, and these are like interior walls that aren't meant for the pressure of the external sea. Yes, sir. And you can see them bowing from the pressure. They're like balloons, just bowed out with little cracks in the bottom on the sides. and water was coming through, not a lot. I mean, just sweating, more or less sweating. But we got help finally from the U.S. Davis and Massey,

and the Davis crew coming aboard and gave us great assistance and great help in securing the bulkheads with wood and plywood. It was a knee wall pressed up against the bulkhead, and you had to check. check it out to every half hour, 45 minutes. If I wasn't on watch my other shipmates, would go through there and get under there like I did,

and with a battle lantern and look, I mean, I thought to myself, boy, this is pretty stupid. What am I going to do if it bust open now, and I'm here looking for little cracks? It didn't make sense to me, but I had to do it. And your boilers are still running this whole time. Yes, sir. The boilers were never taken offline.

One was taken offline, but we always had steam to the boilers, always, at least one boiler. What direction were you sailing in? Do you even know? Where were you trying to go? North, I think. Pardon me? Were you trying to get to the fleet? What were you trying to do?

Yeah, I think once the attack started, I think we took a northerly course trying to get out of there. Might have even been a northwesterly course trying to get away from those. Just get away from that whole area. Exactly. but obviously we couldn't move fast enough to get away from, you know, screaming jets and motor torpedo boats. I mean, flank speed for us was, what, 17 knots or 18 knots? I think we did 21 knots during the speed trial during, yeah, from Abidjan to Rota.

Oh, okay. And so it was the USS Davis and the USS Massey that eventually showed up? Were you there on this looking for him when they showed up? Oh, yeah, I saw him come out of the. the morning mist 16 hours later how'd that feel pissed

like where were you and what was the look on the faces the guys when they would they just pull alongside you guys yeah one of them well initially they sent boats but I think the Davis actually tied up alongside us for a while yeah and what were those what were those sailors

they were they were in damage control and they had more equipment than we did and to be quite honestly had more expertise and they were in shock but they knew what they were doing

and God bless them for that they helped us out a lot but they believe these guys were so good to us and it wasn't the Navy's fault it was the higher ops like I said before because these guys, I mean, they felt bad. They could have been there. They could have helped us.

The captain asked for an escort, a DE or a destroyer, anything. But you're not a warship. You're an auxiliary ship. Nobody's going to mess with you. And so they denied us even that just to have an escort going into a war zone with an unarmed ship. I mean, it's pretty incredible. Well, that's why I know that in my heart, and I think my shipmates probably agree to,

that we were set up to have this exact thing happen. The only thing is they couldn't sink us. They sure tried, but they couldn't do it. And by the grace of God, we're here right now to be on your great show and to have your listeners take a look at this because we're not a cabal, we're not a conspiracy, we're not anything.

We're just American citizens that served our country, honorably to tell the truth. And we'll go down that way to the last man's standing. We're not going to take this. We haven't taken it for so many years. Joe was the first president of the LVA. He was in Saudi Arabia. He worked for Ramco. And he was the president long distance. Remember that, Joe? And it was pretty amazing. But I just give all the all the credit to the great crew, these wonderful men here. I love them all, and I'm proud to be an American. But I've got to say one thing.

At this point in my life, Jock O. I've always been proud of my country. I'm not right now because I'm ashamed of what's going on, the leadership. And it reminds me of back in 67, the same type of leadership. Council culture just didn't start with these people. It started a long time ago in 67. They tried to cancel us out, but they couldn't do it.

And I've had threats to my life, you know. I've had a lot of things happen. Me and my wife were in San Diego visiting. And I was in the lounge having a drink from my wife, getting ready to go get something to eat. And this guy sat beside me, and he says, oh, you're aboard the liberty, and I said, hmm, how'd you know that?

And he began to tell me the whole story. And the best thing for me to do is just shut up. I said, what? He says, listen, I work for the Mossad. I'm a facade agent. And you better shut up. My wife was there, too. And boy, does she give him hell.

They had to get security to get us up to our room. But I asked the bartender, I said, who is the guy? Well, he's been coming here the last couple days. And he said he was a doctor. That's what he told me, too. He had a great big watch on. I told him, get the watch out of my face. Are you taking pictures of me or whatever you're doing?

And he says, probably. But I gave you another warning, and that's when my wife chimed in. And I think she gave me more heck than I did, because she's a fighter too. But it was amazing. And how did they find out who we were in San Diego, either by my credit cards or phone or something? I don't know, but they found us. It gave me a stern warning, and that was 13 years ago when that happened.

One thing should be said about the 6th Fleet personnel, their radio men didn't come out of this unscathed, because they listened to our calls for help after the aircraft were recalled knowing that those aircraft were recalled, and it had to affect them because we were still calling for help. I mean, just in case anyone is, anyone doesn't have the impression of what happened on this ship. Let me go back to the account here as this sort of wraps up one of your final duties, Phil. You say Rick Ametti and I found some undamaged fire hoses and began hosing off the deck with a suicide nozzle that sprayed water in very concentrated high pressure stream.

It took both of us to handle this hose because it was like a giant python and one man could not do it alone. It was the most gruesome, heartbreaking task either of us had ever done because every piece of flesh was the remains of our fellow sailors, many of whom were friends. As Ametti and I went about this ungodly task, tears streamed down our faces, and I prayed to God for forgiveness for how we were forced to treat the remains of these men. In the gun tubs, we found a shoe with a foot still in it, which we put aside for collection. of the bloodstains would not come off even with that special hose because the previous days intense heat not just baking under the sun's heat but from the rockets and napalm

that had been dropped on the ship by the attacking aircraft we found out the hard way how hot this brutal weapon can burn as hot as 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit the Davis they also start taking some of your wounded off right Is that correct? I'm not very clear on that, Joachau, for sure, but I do know that the most seriously wounded were airlifted off the ship from the USS America. And the Davis and the Massey were, I guess, more or less there to help us out.

But I don't think there's any evacuees that went to the Davis. She's all, it's a lot. I went to the Little Rock. Yeah, motor elbow. That's what I thought. So, but they did start pulling the wounded guys off. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, and then you guys end up sailing to Malta. That's the next thing that you do. I mean, you get you to the ship, stays underway. And again, you've got some good stuff in your account. I mean, just that trip is no easy trip because the walls could collapse at any moment. And it's not the closest. Oh, it's not the closest spot? No.

Where would have been the closest spot? What would? Crete. Crete. Crete. Why'd they pick Malta? Hoping we'd sink? It's further away, doing about four, four knots, five knots, tops.

How many days did it take you to get there? Seven, I think. Six or seven days, yeah. Seven days. Yeah, it was, and then I was probably, you're probably, you probably already know this, but that Admiral Kidd, I think that's another reason they sent us to Malta, because he wanted to brief us all and get our account of what went on.

Yeah, I've got your account of how that goes down. That's very interesting. And actually, I got another account from Ron Kukal. Am I saying that right? Yes, Ron Kukal. And he's one of the survivors. He's actually the guy that helped put this interview together. He did.

He's got a book that's called Remember the Liberty that he wrote. And he had this to say about the events once you guys arrived in Malta. He said, on arrival in Malta, we were headed straight to Dry Dock, and once we were in, it was up to the great crew at Malta

to get us set up for repairs and whatever else needed to be done. What never occurred to me was the grizzly duties that were about to be laid squarely on our shoulders. In my case, as a senior enlisted man on the crew, I was put in charge of recovery and identification.

I will admit I try, to talk my way out of this one but I was told those were my orders and I followed them. That hour arrived sooner than I wanted as we made our way down to the dark hole below. No one knew it to expect and I was extremely apprehensive about what we could see. For 48 years I've said little about what I saw because I wanted to spare the loved ones of these men that cruelty if I could. With the writing of this book and in the distance in years, I think I can at least. say that the scene could compare to a wrecking yard of autos. But these were human body parts strewn everywhere.

Carnage that escapes description with mere words. And there were more bodies that were down below, which were brought to me to try and identify. Those bodies were wedged between steam pipes and in places that a body wouldn't fit. If it's any consolation to the loved ones of those men, know that they never knew what it hit them. couldn't have. It had to have been instantaneous. And then as you mentioned, Phil, once you're in Malta, it's time for this investigation. This investigation is being run by Admiral Isaac Kid. Actually, Admiral Isaac Kid Jr. The, the senior Isaac Kid, Admiral Isaac Kid, was killed in Pearl Harbor. Yes, sir. And his son, Jr., was commissioned 12 days after his father was killed.

and he served in Europe and the Pacific theaters in World War II and he was the guy in charge of this Liberty incident inquiry and as you already mentioned I mean you'd think

an incident like this just to gather the proper information would take months and then to go through it all would take months if not years to get through it all

they get this whole thing done in seven days yes sir and you know Dr. Kiefer very eloquently they said why would the United States government

take on faith what the Israelis said when they muzzled us, eyewitnesses, never to say a word about it or consequences could be very, very, very severe. Prison or worse, we all know what worse meant. I was told that directly by Admiral Kidd.

That's the strange thing. So Admiral Kidd shows up, tanks off his rank. Yes, sir. And what's he a two-star at this point? Yeah, he was a rear. Rear Admiral? Yeah. So he's a two-star Admiral.

He takes off his rank and sits you guys down, ask you all a bunch of questions, hey, did you see any markings on the recon aircraft? Did you see any markings on the other aircraft? Did you see the torpedo boats? Were there any markings on the torpedo boats? Did you see the torpedo boats machine gunning the life rafts? Are you sure the U.S. flag was flying over the ship? So he's asking you all these questions.

And at the end of asking all these questions, he puts his stars back on and he says, okay, fellas, now I'm an admiral again. And I want each and every one of you to understand something. We are talking about national security here, not your personal feelings, not what you did or did not do. I could really give a shit about any of that. You listened to me once because this is the only time you're ever going to hear it. You are never to repeat what you just told me to anyone. Not your mother, your father, your wife, anyone, including your shipmates.

You are not to discuss this with anyone and especially, especially not with the media or you will end up in prison or worse. You know, I took that to heart. When I first met Lisa, it would be 39 years we got married ago, got married in June. and I never told her I was in the military at all until I read an article by Stan White. He was a master chief aboard the ship. And it was like an ocean of relief came after me. I said, wow, somebody else was saying something.

Now I can start talking. Little bit I know, these guys here have just set up the USS Liberty Veterans Association, which I became a part of as soon as I found out. you guys were, you know, getting together. And it's been a constant battle ever since. We were in the Rose Garden. W.H. Bush was the president.

And we were out there for hours and scorching heat. You know how it is in D.C. What were you doing there? Were you invited to be there as vets of the Liberty? To meet the president of the United States. And he stiffed us. He wouldn't talk to us. So he sent out Brest Goldcroft and,

Sununa Yeah, Sununu What year was it that That article came out that you said What year did you guys start Talking about what did actually happen? When Jim Annes's book came out Salt on the Liberty

And what year was that? 79. Yeah Yeah So you guys just kept it to yourself For whatever 12 or 13 years Not saying anything

Yeah, who would we talk to? I mean Everybody was spread out all over the country. We didn't know where any of the survivors were. Did you make any sense of it in your own minds? Did you think yourself, well, I could see why they're trying to do this. They don't want to have bad relations with Israel. They're trying to cover up the

fact that the American government was somehow involved with this. I mean, what were you thinking in your own minds? I was thinking that they'd already held an investigation and everything was copacetic. But come to find out, they have never investigated. As a matter of fact, the court of inquiry was ordered by LBJ to have a finding of fact the very first one that the attack was a case of mistaken identity. That's what LBJ said. Yes, that's what Ward Boston said.

Okay. He was ordered. He was a legal advisor. Yeah, I got a quote here from Ward Boston, who's the chief legal counsel for the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry. And he says, quote, I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd, president of the court of inquiry, that President, Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, end quote. And that's the chief legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry, to the Liberty Incident. This isn't somebody that's jumping in from some other realm to try and give his opinion.

Well, you know, Ward Boston was a good man, a very brave man for coming out and sent in the record straight. But there were people before him trying to help us, you know, all around. But when A.J. Crystal wrote a book called The Liberty Incident, that set him on fire because it was a book of lies. and he couldn't take it anymore. He says, I'm going to stick up for these guys and tell the truth. What did the book, What did the book, The Liberty Incidents say? It said that it was an Israeli talking point and American talking point. It was a mistaken identity.

We're nothing but a bunch of disheartened fools that have got an ax to grind. Our only ax to grind is to tell the truth. That's why we're here. We're not here to lie or fabricate or anything like that. We live through it, and we don't want anybody else to go through that. again and has our government abandoned them. You know, same thing in Afghanistan. They left everybody there.

And there's 13 people that got, 13 American heroes that got slaughtered for what? Forgotten. And that was us. We were forgotten. It's done. It's too late. Larry, when did you start hearing that people were starting to tell the truth about the situation? Again, it was a Jim Ennis book, Assault on the Liberty.

I read the book, but I was still on active duty, and I still had my top secret clearance. And so I wasn't saying anything to anybody. And as it turns out, after I retired from the Navy in 1986, I went to work as a defense contractor, still supporting the National Security Agency. So I still needed my clearances. So I never said anything. I never really started talking about the liberty to my family or anyone else until I started going through PTSD psychiatric treatments. So I knew that there were other books out.

I know that Phil had two or three books that he wrote, the one that you referenced earlier about. Ron Kuchel. Phil's also a contributor to that book. And Ernie Gallo is another member of the crew that helped, you know, with that. How long were you in the Navy for? 21 years. Did you get a Purple Heart for being wounded on the?

I did. And what would you tell people when some other, you know, you're out, you're near just whites for whatever reason. And, you know, 1975, there's guys were in Vietnam, I'm sure some, you know, guys, there's some corpsmen, some medic, some pilots, some aviators might have got Purple Hearts, some guys from the Sea Wolves or something, but there's not a lot of Navy guys running around in 1975, 1980, 1985 that had Purple Hearts. What did you say to somebody when they said, hey, where did you get that Purple Heart from? I was on the USS Liberty in

1967 when we were attacked, and, you know, I got it for Shrepna wounds, and that was about it. And no one would ever pry and say, you know, what the hell happened or what was going on? How'd that occur? Oh, I think a couple of times, you know, people would try and pry more out of me. And I just wouldn't say anything. I said, I just can't talk about it. And again, it was because of the threat of fines and imprisonment if we ever spoke about it. Being a communications technician, all of my work that I did was secret.

So trying to keep a secret wasn't something that was new to me. I just suppressed it to the point that it was building up inside me. And finally, I had to go to counseling. Do you still have your clearance? No. when I retired in 2008, I relinquished my clearance. They didn't take it away? You relinquished?

I just decided I was 62 years old. It's time to pull the plug. As you were serving in the Navy, now it's 1975, now it's 1979, now it's 1982. and you know that, you know you got ordered to not say anything, which, look, I mean, there's things that I've done which I'm not allowed to talk about. And you realize, okay, I might not know everything about the situation, but I know I'm not allowed to talk about it, but I'm sure that there's a reason for that, that makes sense, and I get it.

You know, was part of you thinking, you know, this is not, this, this, this didn't happen the way they say it happened, this seems like they're covering it up, not for any reasons of national security, but for other reasons. Yes. I mean, I, because I work for the National Security Agency, they actually did a report in 1980 that was classified top secret, and it was their recap of what happened to the USS Liberty. I had a copy of that report on my desk until I were used. retired from the Navy in 1986. And then I had to turn it back in because it was, you know. Was that report accurate?

No. No. And I mean, there was information that I knew should have been in there that had to deal with communications that didn't reflect those communications. And the thing that they were trying to report more than anything else was a of communications that occurred resulting from this 100-mile free zone, I guess, that Israel had declared no ship should enter into that 100-mile zone off the coast of cyanide. and apparently our naval attache in Israel had told them that we don't have any Navy ships there. Sixth Fleet confirmed that they didn't have any naval ships there,

and that's a problem with us traveling by ourselves. They didn't recognize that we were over there, or they convened. conveniently forgot that we were there. But there was communications that were supposed to have been sent to us, telling us to move back off the coast, and we never received those communications. And so that's more about what this report from NSA said, and it didn't talk about the other intercepts that had, you know,

the aircraft talking to the ground control, or talking about the target, talking about seeing the American flag, And, you know, I don't know why that didn't come out until later, but we kept doing Freedom of Information Act requests, trying to get a lot of this documentation back out in public so the truth could be told. So, Joe, what did you do after the incident took place? How much longer were you in the Navy for? Did you stay in? What did you do? I got out.

I was transferred off the liberty onto the USS Sylvania. So it was AFS II fast combat storage ship and homeboarded in Naples, Italy. And it was a very active signal bridge, one of the most active in the 6th Fleet at the time. And so I go from signalman school to a ship that doesn't need signalman, to a ship that has a very, very intense signalman. But after that, I got out Halloween on 69. And same question to you. I mean, were you thinking to yourself was one of the reasons you got out because you're thinking,

hey, this crazy thing just happened to me. I lost so many of my friends. And now I'm told I can never talk about it again. Did that impact the way you thought about your career? Interesting thing about that. On the Slovenia, there was a, a. career counselor. And every time you were getting short, he would call you into his office and give you a long spiel about why you should ship over and stay in the Navy. So he didn't know,

he didn't know me personally, and didn't know my history. So he called me into his office and sat down and he says, well, Meadors, you're getting short. You're thinking about shipping over? And I said, no. And he said, why? Just because I was on the liberty. And he said, goodbye. Yeah, Roger that. Phil, what was the rest of your career like? Well, I joined February the 6th and got out December of the, 64, and I got out December the 12th, 1967. I stayed out for a couple of years, and I wasn't going to ship over either because I was done. But then, you know, here I'm 22 then or 23, and I say, man, my life's not going anywhere. I'm not doing anything.

So I really listened and went back in the Navy and I got stationed aboard the USS Maddox, DD-731, that was in the Tonkin. Gulf Tonkin. That's how the Vietnam War started. And some of the original crewmates were still on there. They said, hey, Ternie, that never happened.

That's all BS. It was a pretext for war that Johnson dreamed up. And it turned right back around to the USS Liberty. another pretext phony outcome to keep his war machine going in Vietnam, and it's a land grabs for Israel and a permanent foothold in the area for the United States. So when you got to the Maddox and they're talking about those attacks, those supposed attacks, and the guys would say, yeah, it didn't happen.

Yeah, no, that didn't happen. It didn't the way it worked. And I told a couple guys aboard there, you know, my situation, and my division officer, he read my file, and this is when I was getting out, and he says, hey, man, maybe you should get out. Because I wasn't really into it, but I thought, well, maybe I could tough it out.

You know, made a few bucks while I was in the service, but that's how I was feed my family. With your luck, you'd be transferred to the Stark and then the call. As this cover-up continues, I got another statement here. This is from Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter, Director of the NSA, under whose authority the Liberty was operating. He said, couldn't be anything else but deliberate. There's just no way you could have a series of circumstances that would justify this being an accident. You know, and as my friend Daryl Cooper pointed out, when this attack happened, once in international law, Geneva Convention, when a naval vessel gets disabled, you're then, as the attacker, responsible for trying to help lend aid to that ship and certainly the sailors that are. that are in the water if they're in the water.

You're not supposed to be gunning up their lifeboats and strafing the decks of their ship as they're already a disabled vessel. So this is just wrong in every circumstance. And I was talking before we started recording this, you know, I've been in friendly fire incidents before, in pretty bad ones where people died. And I totally understand that there is the fog of war,

that these things happen, that you make mistakes and someone see something that they didn't think they saw or someone saw something that they didn't think they see. There's all things that, there's a lot of chaos that happens. But to have that happen for hours upon hours when there's an American flag flying, you know, and, you know, Joe, that was, again, this is something else we were joking about when we were off air. You know, since you were a signalman with no other ships to signal to, you really have. had one job and that was to know what was flying, what the ship was flying. And you know 100% that the American flag was clearly visible and that you actually ended up raising an even

bigger American flag. That's right. You know, I might add to that, Jocko, the Israeli war room had his plotted on their map as American and friendly. They said they changed the watch and inadvertently forgot we were there and took us off their war table. I mean, come on, man. You know, when you change watches, you inform everybody of what's going on, and they just took it all the way, and that's still irritates me. I know it does these guys, too. Yeah, and by the way, there's no more important piece of information on the battlefield

than where your friendly forces are. Yes, sir. So this isn't like we, oh, well, whatever, you know, we're just going to pull some people off the board. No, that's a sense. in. And people focus on the flying of the flag. Was it flying? Was it not flying?

But that's really, that's not, that's just one of the ways of identifying a ship. You know, there's the color, the structure, how the deck is laid out, you know, the masks and all that stuff. And they claim that they approached within a thousand yards and misidentified it says a 40-year-old black hole, rusted out Egyptian tramp steamer half our side. I Q. Tony Hart, then a chief petty officer assigned to a U.S. Navy relay station in Morocco that handled communications between Washington and the 6th Fleet, remembered listening as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in Washington, ordered Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, commander of the America's carrier battle group, to bring the jets home. When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said Matt. McNamara retorted that President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors, end quote.

That's a violation of Article 99 of the UCMJ. It is indeed. It is indeed. Yes, Article 99 of the UCMJ, you have to go out and attack the enemy and you have to go out and support your other troops. That's Article 99. Yes. statement by CIA director at the time of the attack Richard Helms in a 1984 interview. He said everything possible was done to keep from the American public really the enormity of this attack on an American naval vessel.

Since this is, for the agency's record, I don't think there can be any doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing. Any statement to the effect that they didn't know it was an American ship is nonsense. I mean, that's pretty freaking clear. You guys got a bunch of awards for what took place, including the Medal of Honor. Captain McConnacle received the Medal of Honor for his actions, which is strange to take the story of someone receiving the Medal of Honor and not explain what happened.

That was covered up in a name. shipyard. That's where he received his Medal of Honor in his shipyard, not at the White House, where he can be recognized for being the skipper of our ship and getting the Medal of Honor because it brings too much heat on. And unfortunately, I think the captain was between a real rock and a hard place. On one hand, he can be treated like a hero. On the other hand, he can be treated like a zero. and he went with hero. I'm not saying he didn't deserve it. I'm just saying that he clamped up

and it was years and years later. I don't know any years later. He finally said, well, yeah, I think it was a planned attack. That was, I think there's a copy of his retirement speech. You can watch it online. I've watched it. And I think it was his retirement speech

where he says, hey, we need to find out the truth. We need to tell the truth about what actually happened. Yes, sir. He wouldn't even join the LBA. I tried for years to get. him to join, but he says it's too political for him to get involved. And finally, he did join the association after years and years, which we were glad to see. Dean Rusk, who was Secretary of the State at the time, said, I was never, quote, I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation.

Their sustained attack to disable and sink liberty precluded an assault by an accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels, we refused to. to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them now. The attack was outrageous. You know, some of the things that you already talked about, there's a BBC documentary called Dead in the Water.

It's, you know, one of the things that it said is what you said earlier, Phil, which is, hey, if the Israelis could get the Americans into this war in a big way, you know, that can really help us out against these Arabs is what Israeli was thinking. and these kind of things happen. What do you guys do with the LVA now? What's the purpose? How can people help? Well, one of the things that we're still trying to do

is get recognition for our 34 fallen shipmates. We've tried over the years to get Congress to conduct a fallen and impartial investigation and it's fallen on deaf ears. Right now, we've got a resolution going forward to ask for June 8th to be declared as USS Liberty Remembrance Day. It should be a fairly simple thing for Congress to do. I mean, we have National Hot Dog Day

a national ice cream day. Let's have a national USS Liberty Remembrance Day. And not just one year, but every year, June 8th. So we're working on that. I've got a resolution in the state of New York going through the American Legion up there to have that presented through their channels. I'm in a process of doing it in the state of Maryland.

I'm working with former Senator Pete McCluskey to get a petition out, to get signatures for people that will support the establishment of June 8th as USS Liberty Remembrance Day, and then present that to various legislators to show them that, hey, the American public wants to know. They need to know. And, you know, if nothing else, you're honoring the 34 men that gave the ultimate sacrifice back on June 8, 1967. When you talk about some of the awards that were

received, most every one of us that received any kind of an award, Purple Heart or Porn Star, you know, the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was all done in private. There were no big ceremonies like you would normally expect for, you know, someone that just came off the most decorated ship in the United States Navy since World War II. And, you know, 95% of the American public is not even aware of it. You know, Jaco, excuse me, but he said something very interesting about the American Legion, which fires me up because about four or five years ago, Glenn Ollifant and Ernie Gallo,

our former president, were at the Convention in the American Legion, and they wanted to get a booth and things like this, and they wouldn't allow it for us to get a booth. So Glenn Ollifant, he was so disappointed and upset. He tore up his own. He took up his own. American Legion card right there. And he didn't throw it in anybody. He just sprinkled it right there. And the girl said one of the organizers, he assaulted me.

And they threw his ass in jail. Why wouldn't they let you have a booth? Because they said the U.S. liberty is not essential. We don't recognize you guys. And don't ever come back because you're banned from the American Legion for life? This is from their national convention.

It's still in effect today that we can't have a booth. When he's talking about Ernie and Glenn going to that national convention, they went there with the understanding that we had already paid our $1,000 entry fee, and they got there and were told that they hadn't received the check. and they hadn't received the check. So Ernie pulled out his credit card and said, I'll pay for it right now. We're here.

We went a booth. And they said, no, you can't do that. And then I think it got to be somewhat confrontational. And that's when Glenn got upset, tore up his membership card. And we've tried in vain since. then to get senior management in the American Legion national organization to reinstate us so that we can have a booth there. That's how we tell our story.

That's how we get other patriots to, you know, go back to their home states and say, hey, let's try and do something in support of the USS Liberty. I wrote up a couple of years ago resolutions for every state in the union. This was done at the VFW National Convention, and I had a representative from each state take one of these resolutions back for their legislators to consider and introduce in their state legislature. And I don't know that anything ever came of it. And that's the problem with a lot of this, trying to get people to stand up and say, hey, if you want our support, we'll support you, just like your audience today. If there's people out there that are willing to, you know, pick up the torch and run with it, I'll be more than happy to write up a resolution for any organization that they have

and ask them to support the establishment of the June 8th USS Liberty Remembrance Day. Do you guys have a website? Yes. And what's that? USSlibertivetrans.org. Yeah. I think you take care of that, don't you, Joe? Well, actually, we have a webmaster for it.

Oh, okay. The one I take care of is USS Libertyveterans. Blog. Yeah. Oh, yeah. To donate anybody out there wants to help the Liberty veterans continue on doing what we're doing, we're a small organization now. A lot of the guys have already passed on, you know, one of those older guys.

We just lost Commander Lewis. He was 92, I think. Yeah. And he just died this year. And a good man, a brave man. He's also in sacrificing liberty. And I think you're really going to get a good insight to what went on, Jock. So, because it is, sacrificing liberty to me is probably the most interesting,

uh, truthful documentary that's ever been done in my view. I think you would probably agree. Yeah, I would. It's, um, you've got eyewitness accounts being taken into account through, uh, through the four different, you know, one hour disc. Um, so it's, it's not a quick read. you've got to devote some time to it. But it's certainly well worth going through it

and hearing from probably, what, a half a dozen or so of us survivors. And True News did an excellent job on that. I just can't say enough about how they did their research, not just with us, but with other authors and, I guess, senior politicians, so that that's the most factual account that I'm aware of. The U.S. disability survivors are in a unique position in American history and U.S. Navy history.

We're the only crew in U.S. Navy history that has the task of lobbying the DOD and Congress to investigate attack on our ship. And we don't have any experience at that. We don't know anybody who does, but we need help from people who do. We love to have a professional approach us and offer his services. We can't pay him. We don't have any money.

But we need professional help in lobbying in the legal arena. I don't know if there's any legal steps we can take. We were in military, and it was our job to go where we're supposed to go and do what we're supposed to do, but there were civilians on the ship, too. Do you guys feel like there's been progress towards getting the truth out there? Because to me, I mean, when I hear about the USS Liberty Now, I immediately kind of, of most people know sort of the underlying story that it was an attack, it was from Israel,

that, you know, the U.S. Navy lost a bunch of sailors. They don't necessarily know how many. But do you guys feel like there's progress been made in this story getting out there and the truth getting out there? There's progress being made, but not to the extent that people who can do something about it, do something about it. So what is it that, what would be the, the win? What would be victory for you all?

I'm sitting in the winner circle right now with you doing this. I feel like a winner, and I think these two gentlemen felt the same way. I want to mention my shipmates. They all know about this, and I'm sure they're going to download this and watch it. A special thanks to Mo Schaefer and his wife, Donna. He's the money, man. He takes care of the money. Little we have, and they have a ship store. You can buy things from. And it's just our way of trying to give back the real story. And in the last three or four years, Jocko, we've made more progress than we have in the last 55 because of sacrificing liberty.

And now here we are with you. And possibly Joe Rogan is going to get a call from you and say, hey, you better get these boys on. I can try. I know you can. That's a long list of people try to go on Mr. Rogan's podcast. I can guarantee you that. Well, the win for me is a congressional investigation. Okay.

Complete and comprehensive, redundant to be sure, but it needs to be said, congressional investigation. But that's a two-edged sword because members of Congress have refused to investigate the attack on our ship. War crimes is the U.S. statute. accessory after the fact is a U.S. statute. Oh. So members of Congress who are in a position to conduct an investigation, refused to, despite being lobbied by victims of those war crimes,

might stand accused of being accessories after the fact. And I don't think accessories after the fact is covered under congressional immunity. So there's some scared Congress people out there? There's some statute of limitations on murder. None. And that's what happened. They murdered these men and tried to murder us. I mean, you know, I call the FBI and CIA, and I tell them, hey, I'm an eyewitness to murder, and they get all excited.

Until I tell them what it's all about. And they said, well, that's, no, it's never mind. That's what he's been investigated. We've never had an investigation, except the phony Board of Inquiry. And we got letters back from Congress somewhere in there that I brought to. show you there's been multiple investigations there's never been none they're lying to us were eyewitnesses to what happened and they're telling us we've been a it's been a congressional investigation at least three or four times there's never been a congressional investigation they lie to us what do you

think they're telling the american people um probably a good place to wrap it up i mean that that sounds like we know what we want to do to to move this thing forward with the congressional investigation get the word out there. Let's make June 8th, you know, National Day of Remembrance for the USS Liberty. Larry, just any closing thoughts from you? No, I just encourage your listeners to, you know, take what we've said today. And if they have any interest at all in trying to support the Liberty, go to our website, contact us. Our contact information is on the website.

And like I said, I'm willing to draft resolutions or petitions, whatever they want, for their organization to get signatures to take before their legislators and try and get support for this recognition for our fallen shipmates that should have happened 55 years ago. On our blog, there's a USS Liberty Veterans.org, there's a tab that says, I think it's help us out. And in that tab, or a series, I think, four letters that you can write to, you can just fill in the blank and submit.

One is calling for a, have a member of Congress, send you a copy of the congressional investigations, and they can't do it. One is asking them to contact the Congressional Research Service and ask them to, has the U.S. government investigated the attack, and we got a response from one. I've been trying for years, and one finally actually asked the Congressional Research Service, and he said no. Another one asks for Congress to allow their boilerplate responses to members, to constituents who write asking about the attack. stop using Israeli talking points, use U.S.S. liberty survivors talking points.

And this easy way for them to get involved. And then when they get the responses, send them to us, and we can draft a response for them to send. That's the old letter writing campaign. Yeah. Let's get them that way. Anything else, Joe?

I think that's it. Phil, any closing thoughts? Yes. In closing, I encourage your listeners and watchers that all download this, share it with everybody, pass the word around. Write your senators and congressman and let them know that the real deal is that you've been lying about this all the time, and we know it. But they don't want to come back and tell everybody that they're liars anyway. I mean, it's going to be hard.

I mean, the Congress and everything, it's going to take the people. people, your listeners to help us out, people that watch Sacrifice and Liberty, go to Sacrifice onliberty.com, and God bless you for having us on. You're a good man and all of you. I appreciate it so much. God bless you. And one thing I forgot to mention, since your blog is posted on your YouTube site, there's a comment section. And we'd be happy to enter into a dialogue with anybody on that comment section, whether they're pro-Israeli, think they're pro-Israeli or on the U.S. side. The comments will definitely be there. Okay.

Good. We look forward to it. Well, thanks for common. You know, the conjecture and the mystery around all these events, they've been around for a while. But I think there's one thing that there's absolutely no mystery about, and one thing that cannot be disputed. And that's the courage and the valor and the sacrifice of the brave sailors of the USS Liberty. So thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your story.

Thank you all personally for your service and your sacrifice. And we won't forget what you did for the country. And nor will we ever forget the memory of your 34 shipmates who gave their lives and who embodied the Navy ethos of honor, courage, and commitment, we commit to not forgetting their sacrifice. Thank you.

Thank you, yes, sir. Thanks for coming, guys. Thanks. And with that, Joe and Larry and Phil have left the building. Echo, did you know anything about the USS Liberty prior to today? I have heard things.

I'm not, at the end of the day, No. Let's say there's level five knowledge. I was at level 0.5. So you knew it existed, but you didn't know too much about it. Yeah, like when you said that they were coming on and you said the USS Liberty, I was like, I was like, okay. It wasn't like just in the dark.

It wasn't a shot in the dark for me. Yeah. It's too bad. More people don't know about it. And I'm glad that they were able to come on and share the story. I mean, it just really, it is kind of crazy. And I think we've done, I've done some, you know, obviously we've done some podcasts about,

well, about McNamara for sure. And I'm not a, I don't like McNamara. I don't like the way he led. I don't like the way he did things. And so this is just like another nail in the coffin for McNamara, from my perspective, to know that, you know, he was one of the people that allowed this stuff to happen.

And LBJ, the same thing. President Johnson, same thing. You know, President Johnson, it just shows you the level of kind of corruption and ineptitude that the leadership had. And what's, I don't really, what really bothers me about it is, you know, if someone's not capable and they end up in a position,

you're like, you know, if, if, echo, So if you're supposed to be doing something and you don't have the capability of doing it, I'm probably not going to be mad at you, you know. I'm not going to get mad at you. But if you're capable of what you're doing things a certain way for, because you think you're smarter than everybody else, or you think you can outsmart the American people or you think you can outsmart, you know, your boss or whatever and you're trying to maneuver,

I'm going to have a problem with that. So I'm going to have more of a problem with, I actually have a lot more of a problem with some. someone that's just, hey, Echo had this idea. This is what he thought was going to happen. It didn't go that way. Okay, you know, got it. He's not capable of doing it.

He didn't understand the situation. Like, he can't get mad at someone's lack of ability to do something. But if Echo was smart and you were in there and you made decisions that actually made things go a certain way, that's going to make me mad. And that's how I feel about McNamara and Johnson. and so there you go. So what? Okay, so government's claiming mistaken identity.

They're claiming what? Like what exactly? What's the explanation? There are several explanations. The main thing that what the government says, I shouldn't say it's all the government because not all the government says this. The cover up at the time was, hey, it was mistaken identity. It was a, you know, unfortunate incident.

The Israelis said, sorry, we're carrying on with our mission. There's two real explanations. One of them is that, hey, the Israelis didn't want Americans listening, so they attacked the ship. And there's one that is the Israelis wanted America to enter the war, and they knew that America would enter the war if one of the American ships was attacked by. these Arab forces. And so they tried to do it in such a way that, because you wouldn't think the Israelis would do that. I mean, that's like crazy, right?

Those are our actual allies. So how could this happen? It must have been the, you know, it was obviously the Arabs. There's no survivors. The ship is sunk and gone. Gotcha. We better go pay the Arab nations back for sinking our ship.

So is it out of the question that people do that kind of thing? Not at all. Not at all. False flag attacks. Like that's a literal false flag attack. So. And look, I don't really even know how debatable it even is. You know, like this is, the Israelis have admitted that they attacked the ship.

They've said, hey, it was a mistake. We're sorry. It wasn't that long. It wasn't that bad. We didn't shoot up. There's some where they directly conflict with. No, we didn't shoot up the lifeboats. The lifeboats.

They said they didn't do that. So they're, they kind of claim it. They kind of downplay it and claim it as a mistake. That's sort of the cover up. The cover up is downplay it. It was a mistake. The reality is at least, at least admit the full extent of what happened. And then on top of that, was it intentional?

Did you actually want to do this to drag Americans into this war? And then if you want to, to do that and the people that called off the support to the vessel are Americans, you knew about it. Right. So that's why these guys are calling for a full congressional investigation, a congressional inquiry to figure out exactly what happened. So people can be held accountable. And not only so people can be held accountable, but so you can look back and say, hey, here's the mistakes that we made. We put too much power in this position. We allowed our allies to do too much. We didn't run through the chain of command.

Like there's a bunch of things that you can learn from it and to not break it down with an inquiry like that and find out what actually happened. I mean, a seven-day inquiry, I mean, Phil brought in a stack of papers. You've got all kinds of information about this. You couldn't even cover that information in seven-day inquiry. So.

Yeah, that's it. you kind of in a way draw the line in the sand when you start like lying and then telling people to be like hey you're not allowed to talk about this or whatever then it's like okay now and even that I you know as I said on the podcast there are some things for national security where this is what happened and you can't talk about it anymore hey all the sog guys weren't allowed to talk about the secret war for 20 years yeah that's what actually happened they signed a paper and said they couldn't talk about it those are that's classified information you're not allowed to talk about it. What makes it disturbing in this one is it doesn't seem like the national security in a straightforward manner was in jeopardy. What was in jeopardy was the relationship with Israel, the political standing of, because if, let's face it, if the America would have found out that somehow our own government was involved in an attack on one of our own ships, like that's game over for the entire administration. So what are they going to do? Hey, don't say anything to anybody.

to protect their own ass. And this is not beyond a guy like Johnson and not beyond a guy like McNamara. Yeah. So these politicians that think they're smart, horrible stuff. So if you want to support them, you can go to USS Liberty Vets,

Liberty Veterans, USS LibertyVetrons.org or USS LibertyVeterns.org, or USS LibertyVeterns. blog. That's where you can go to support them. If you want to get a bunch of more information about it, there's a movie that Phil pointed out, sacrificing liberty. So check out that movie. Also, Phil's written a couple books. One of them called Holocaust on the High Seas by Phil Turney. The other one is called Erasing the Liberty, the Battle to Keep Alive, the memory of

Israel's massacre on the USS Liberty. So there's two books you can pick up. that were written by Phil Turney, who you heard talking today. As far as the podcast goes, as far as you go, really. If you want to support the podcast, you want to support yourself, check out some joccofuel.com.

It's true. Finally, you have some healthy supplements, not with the negative side effects. The negative side effects, yep. Finally, oh, what was it? What's the contest? We got going,

we've got some contests. It'd probably be over by now. I don't know. It's like the battle of the flavor. Yeah, battle of the flavors. We're giving someone a year's worth a go. What is that? One go a day?

You think? Sure. It's a lot of go, man. Yes, that's a lot of go. That's a lot of go. Yes, sir. Also, yes, some good tasting protein. This is all stuff that's going to keep us really on the path, really.

I've been on the path. We had a birthday party this past weekend. Yeah, I know how I didn't make it. Slipped off the path a little bit. What did you do? Some cupcakes. Cupcakes. I don't like cupcakes.

Matter of fact, I don't really even like cake. No cake, huh? No, no. What's the jam? It's dry. It's dry to me. So what's your jammer? Actually, I already know this.

I know the pig's in a blanket situation. I know you like that. That's a good one. But what about dessert? Oh, uh, chocolate, uh, mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yes.

We did have that too, by the way. Yeah. Did you buy that case I showed up? Trying to tempt me, trying to bring me down. No, my kids like that. Trying to negatively impact my life. Amen. That's what you're doing.

You know? I would have just had a milk, a mint milk. Yeah. Which is equivalent. No, but you do a good slash bad job of eating these cakes and whatnot if the kids are around and they want to have something with you. What do you mean I do a good slash bad job? Because you do good job bonding with the kids. But meanwhile, you're sleeping on the path.

It's like, what do you call a tactical? A little catch-22. A little tactical sacrifice for a strategic win. Yep. Yeah. And then you're teaching your kids how to eat cake. I know. There's a, there's a saying in the, in the, in the.

I don't know, it might be the whole Navy, but it might be the whole military, but we'd say, like, let them eat cake, you know? So we call the officers cake eaters. Oh, damn. Okay. I heard that before. So I didn't eat cake. So I wouldn't eat cake. It was like a thing.

Like I wouldn't eat cake. Kind of like now I don't eat donuts. Right, right. Like out of the principle. Yeah, just out of principle. I'd probably never be able to have a donut again for the rest of my life. Because there's going to be someone with a 600 millimeter telephoto lens and I'll be on the cover of the freaking national inquieter. Jock was a liar.

Yep. It's true. Very possible. So no donuts over here, but we will have some milk. We will have some joint warfare, some super krill. Joccofuel.com. You can get the stuff at the vitamin shop. You can get the drinks at Wawa.

We got some, um, we got ready to drink protein shakes coming. Yeah. Which is a kind of a game changer, right? When you just roll into a store, you're hungry. Yeah. You need that year. You're starting to go catabolic. Oh, yeah.

And you need that little hitter. Yeah. Plus is a perfect mix, you know. Yeah. It's insured the perfect mix. It's just good to go. So we got those coming shortly. So yep, joccofuel.com.

Check it out if you want to check it out. Some good stuff on there. Also, American made stuff. American made denim. Some hunting stuff coming. Yeah. Yeah. Face it, the hype around that is significant.

Yes, sir. Well, it's a big deal to make stuff in America. I actually saw somebody commented on one of the YouTube videos and said, yeah, but what do you do and stuff's made in America, but the components are from overseas. Our components are not from overseas. No, sir. Our components are from America. The materials made in America, grown, the cotton.

Cotton. The components for the components is made in America. Yeah, that's what we're saying. So, yeah, when you go to Origin USA, you are supporting, not just Origin USA, you're supporting the entire supply chain that runs down to the fields in Texas, the fields in South Carolina, the factories in South Carolina, the mills in South Carolina. You're feeding the entire system by supporting Origin USA. So check out OriginUSA.com.

And you're not supporting uniquely affordable labor. Oh, slave labor. Wait, is that the new euphemism? Uniquely supportable? I think that's what they called it on the thing that I watched. Uniquely affordable labor. Yeah, we call that slave labor. Yes.

That's what that's called. And we don't do it. Yep. We have awesome workers, American workers that are doing a great job and have skill and bring it to the table every day and work their ass off to make these products. So there you go. OriginUSA.com. Check that out. Also, you want to represent?

You want to wear? We got some good shirts. We have new shirt. We have all new stuff coming. Oh, really? Discipline equals freedom. Shirts. Hoodies.

New designs? New designs. Oh, really? You went ham, huh? Well, you know, I figure that. we all kind of wanted a little bit of an update still consistent I would say but a good one anyway jocco store.com

that's where you can get your shirts and hats and hoodies and merch if you want to represent it's good spot oh look at that guy with the merch it's true what's the has the latest shirt locker shirt that I designed on the market yet is it out there yeah so people have had it delivered March yeah that's kind of

that's kind of cool that they have no idea what's coming and it just shows up. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it might be super dope. Yeah. In this case it is. Recently, apparently, according to the field.

So every once in a while, those who have my phone number or on Twitter or the gram, they'll send me a picture of them with the shirt on and they will say, you nailed it with this one or whatever. And I've been getting a lot of those recently for the past three months. Dang. Three months of consistent goodness from EC. Yep. So yeah, check out the Sherlocker there. Subscribe to this podcast.

Don't forget about Jocko Underground.com. We've been doing a lot of Q&A on there, only because we have a place where people that are members of jocco underground.com can email. So we've been going through all those questions. And yes, at some point we backed off doing Q&A on this podcast, probably because the questions were overwhelming in numbers. So now we kind of narrow that down. That's one of the things that we're doing on.

jocco underground.com. If you got a question, you can email it there. It costs $8.18 a month. That's how we keep it up and running. That's also our escape hatch if we get banned or censored or de-platform for whatever reason. And if you can't afford that, we still want you in the game. You can just email assistance at underground. Assistance at jocco underground.com.

So check that out. Also, YouTube. We do have a YouTube channel. Video version of the podcast. Yeah, check down. Also, origin, USA, origin HD. Yeah. That's a good YouTube channel as well.

That is a good YouTube channel. How an American company from top to bottom is run. Very interesting now. Yeah. Psychological warfare. You can check up. Flipside canvas. We got Dakota just out there getting after it in 74 different directions, which is awesome.

He's doing all kinds of stuff. He's got a gym. He's a firefighter. He's a pilot. a helicopter pilot. So Dakota Meyer, he's got another business, which is called Flipside Canvas.com, and you can get cool stuff to hang on your wall there.

And for books, look, the books I just mentioned, Erasing Liberty by Phil Turney, we got his other book, Holocaust on the High Seas. There's also a book called Remember the Liberty by Philip Nelson and Ron Kukal, which Ron put this podcast together today. I mentioned him, so you can check out his book. Also, speaking of doing a bunch of different things, we got Jocko Publishing, and Jocko publishing has published some books, published Mikey and the Dragons, publish Way of the Warrior Kid, three and four. Also, Holly McKay, she wrote a book called Only Cry for the Living. And right now, so she's been in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria. She's a war reporter. Right now she's on the ground in Ukraine. She was in Kiev today. So,

Check out Holly McKay. And if you want to support her, get her book. Only Cry for the Living. You can get that at jockelpublishing.com. Or you can get it on Amazon or whatever. So then you got all the books that I've written. I think there's some kind of a special coming out on Final Spin. Some kind of special on this is Amazon.

Leadership Strategy and Tax, you know, all my books. Check those out if you want to. Appreciate it. Eschlam Front. That's my leadership consulting company where we solve problems through leadership. Leadership is the solution. We just sold out the Texas muster. So if you want to come to a muster, if you want to go to any of our events, just go to

to Eschlamfront.com and check out the details of what we do, how you can utilize us to help your company. We also have Extreme Ownership Academy, Extreme Ownership.com. Speaking of asking me questions, come on there and literally ask me a question. I'll be on a Zoom call. on Monday. And you can ask me whatever you want. I'll be on there the next Monday.

I'll be there on Wednesday. I'll be there on Friday. Come and check it out. There's a bunch of courses you can take. It's a really powerful platform. Check out Extreme Ownership.com if you want to help in your life. Look, it's not like, oh, you're a leader

and you're in charge of 1,400 people or you're a leader, you're in charge of seven people. You don't have to be in charge of it. You're in charge of your own life. And if you want to learn about how to better lead your own life, go to Extreme Ownership.com. Yeah, I feel like, and this might be just me, could be everybody, but I feel like when you hear the word leader, it kind of comes from when you're a kid and it's like follow the leader, like me, the boss, everyone, follow me kind of a thing physically, like actually literally following me or whatever. But as it turns out, it's like essentially the ability to make the right calls and the right decision in every situation, even if you're by yourself, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's like, it's almost like leader might not even be the most active. Best word to say it that'll land on your brain the way the reality is almost like learn how to live your life in the best possible way. Yeah. Check. Results oriented. If you want to live your life in the best possible way, you want to learn how to make decisions, what decisions to make.

Because that's where your life is, a series of decisions. How are you doing that? How are you mitigating risk? How are you figuring out where to take chances? How are you figuring out where you need to reinforce certain parts of your life? How are you figuring out how you're going to interact with this person that has a huge part in your life, whether you want them to do or not? All kinds of things to learn. That's all Extreme Ownership.com.

If you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, gold star families, everybody that has served. If you want to help them, go to Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Also don't forget about horses and heroes No heroes and horses I always get that one backwards The horses come first in my mind

The heroes should come first Heroes and Horses.com Micah Fink doing awesome stuff With his charity organization Echo and I if you want to hear more from us Then you can go on the social media Of course Surgeon General Warning

Watch out for the algorithm Because he's getting ready to grab you by the trote And try and drag you in there That goes at Equitra Charles. I am at Jocco Willink. And thanks once again to Joe, Larry, and Phil for your service and sacrifice. And thanks to all the sailors of the USS Liberty, especially those 34 brave souls who sacrificed their lives for their shipmates. And thanks to all the rest of the sailors out there from the world's finest Navy that are on the high.

I seize 365 days a year protecting the cause of freedom around the world and thanks to the rest of our military that fights on the land and in the air to protect our way of life and also to our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all first responders who protect us here at home thank you for what you do and to everyone else You never know what you're going to run into. You never know what's going to happen. You never know who is going to attack you. And these guys talked about it today. They were prepared. They were ready.

They were vigilant. So when something unfolds, you are prepared like they were to behave like they did, the brave sailors of the USS Liberty and don't ever give up. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.