At 12:00 PM 9/17/01, you wrote:
>In a message dated 9/17/01 12:29:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
><< >Or another way of looking at it, for those who remember the 1968 incident
> >when the _U.S.S. Pueblo_ was captured by the North Koreans: it is the US
> >saying to every terrorist, "Good Luck from the Aloha State."
>
>Depending on the precise date of the capture, I was one or less than one
>year old at the time, so my memory of that event is non-existent. What
>exactly happened back then?
> >>
>
>Ask and ye shall receive... a URL.
>
>http://www.usspueblo.org/
>
> >From the site:
>The USS PUEBLO, which was captured by the North Koreans in 1968, was the
>first U.S. Navy ship to be hi-jacked on the high seas by a foreign military
>force in over 150 years. To date, the capture has resulted in no reprisals
>against the North Koreans; no military action was taken at the time, or at
>any later date. This lack of military response guarantees the Pueblo’s
>place
>in history as a watershed event in our national conscience.
>
>Jon
And here's the punch line . . .
When their captors forced the crew of the _Pueblo_ to pose for propaganda
photos to be sent back to the US to show that the prisoners were being
"well treated" and "cooperating" with their captors, the members of the
crew agreed among themselves that they would all make . . . uh . . . a
certain hand gesture just before the picture was snapped so that anyone
back home seeing the photo would know that they were posing under
duress. Naturally, their captors asked what the gesture indicated, and the
crew told them that it was a Hawaiian gesture of good luck. Later, though,
when the pictures obviously did not have the desired effect, the NK
soldiers beat some of the US seamen until they admitted it was "a gesture
of contempt."
-- Ronn! :)
God bless America,
Land that I love!
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam�
God bless America!
My home, sweet home.
-- Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
