Those who cannot remember the past . . .

                                Are condemned to repeat it

                                                                        George Santayana: The Life of Reason,1906

We are all used to seeing the pictures in the newspaper, on the cover of All Hands and in the rest of the media hype.  When you see a photo like this you instinctively think of the USS Cole and the weeks that followed, when the dangers of visiting a foreign land was driven to the top of our consciousness.  We saw the damage to the hull in the dry dock and the look of shock on Sailors as they tried to continue to do the job of saving

the ship while they dealt with the senseless loss of shipmates and friends.  Just like the shock is real for this Petty Officer as he escorts four dead shipmates to their final rest, what makes the tragedy of the Cole worse is the fact that the Petty Officer in this photo

faced his shock 34 years ago this week.  This is not the USS Cole in Aden Harbor; this is USS Liberty (AGTR-5) following the attack on June 8 1967.  An attack that took place less then 800 miles from where we are right now. Off the coast of a country that we called a friend and an ally.  Thirty four years ago if you had looked at the newspapers to see what was going on in the world you would have seen the same kind of problems in the Mid East. Tensions in and around Israel were heating to what would eventually erupt into the Six Day war.  While the USS Liberty was steaming in international waters off the coast of a friendly nation, the crew could hardly have expected to be dealing with 34 dead and 171 injured a mere 75 minutes later. In slightly over an hour this state of the art warship was attacked repeatedly by Israeli jets and torpedo boats.  In the end after three torpedo hits, numerous rockets and thousands of automatic weapons hits the crew of the Liberty was left to fight to keep this broken and battered ship alive.

As we steam through the Mediterranean Sea and make our rounds through our daily routine, how many times do we hear our shipmates bemoaning the trials of having to deal with the scuttles of modified zebra?  When was the last time you heard the SSDF called away and watched a member of team pause to finish off a cup of coffee before heading to their assigned watch station.  How many of our people click the big X on the e-mail when they see one of the “DC pic of the day”. I for one have seen these things far too many times.  In 1967 the same attitude may have also been true.  The deck watch on the Liberty never expect the Phantoms that had passed overhead every day to let loose a volley of rockets.  Just the same as the crews on the Pueblo, Miagueze, Cole and the EP-3 Aries never expected their routine day to end as anything but routine. The problem we face is the unfortunate fact that average Sailor does not even understand the importance of their history.

The dangers of being at sea on a warship have never changed.  We are no different from the Sailors in any of these situations and the cold hard fact is that today does not have to end routine.  When you look at some young Sailor or Marine that thinks the material condition of the ship is just an inconvenience, or that the drill is just a drill you need to act.  We in the military are an age old example of Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.   And we have far too many times.

AVCM (AW/NAC) K. Reichert   AIMD