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Join Kim Munson as she dives into a poignant conversation with Marine veteran Bob Chica, a crew member of the infamous USS Pueblo. Bob’s journey from his humble beginnings in Washington D.C. to being captured by the North Koreans during the Vietnam War is not only captivating but deeply inspiring. Experience the untold tales of courage and resilience as Bob recounts the harrowing days aboard a ship that was caught in a geopolitical nightmare.
SPEAKER 02 :
World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for Liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II. and returned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories and record them and broadcast them and archive them. And so, hence, America’s Veterans Stories was born. And really pleased to have on the line with me Bob Chica. He is a Marine veteran, and he was a crew member on the USS Pueblo that during the Vietnam War was destroyed. captured by the North Koreans, and the crew was held captive for 11 months. So, Bob Chica, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. I appreciate you having me. I was in shock a little bit this morning. The National POW Organization, former POW, is disbanding. They just sent out their last thing. Apparently, there’s less than 650 former POWs left in the country now. Goodness.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, we must never forget. Wow. Well, let’s get into it. But let’s start at the beginning, Bob. Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., I’m the oldest of seven kids. The first six were boys, the seventh was a girl. And I want to say I was under a lot of pressure as the oldest to provide a good example for the rest of the crew. And when I turned 18, I kind of ran away and joined the Marine Corps. Time to go fight and kill, I guess. Okay. I want to say I was very repressed at that time. Went to Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island. And three months later, when I went in, I was about 110, just a skinny little kid. And then three months later, I was 165 pounds of solid muscle and in great shape. I kind of blossomed Parris Island. And then they… picked me for intelligence work. I had no inkling what they were doing at the time, but they sent me off to a school after our infantry training at Camp Lejeune and ended up working in intelligence in the beginning. It takes a while to get into it because they have to run all the security clearances and things like that. And then in my first down at. Corey Field in Pensacola, FL. We had the opportunity to extend their enlistment and learn a language. So it sounded like a good idea to me. So I put in for it. Unfortunately, couldn’t pick my language and was given Korean. So then I went off to Defense Language Institute up in Monterey, California, after I finished up at Pensacola.
SPEAKER 09 :
And this was all during the Vietnam War. So when did you, what year did you join the Marines, Bob?
SPEAKER 03 :
61, I believe.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. So that was before the Vietnam War.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, it was going on, but it wasn’t as full-fledged as it would get.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
As the years ticked on.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. So after you had gone and learned this language, what happened after that for you, Bob Chica?
SPEAKER 03 :
This is part of where things go awry. And there have been millions of changes literally since the capture of the Pueblo. We were really an experiment that failed. But after I learned the language, they sent me to an artillery battery at Camp Pendleton. They had no idea what to do with me as a Korean linguist and an intelligence. And then as they were getting ready to deploy to Vietnam, They found that there were eight of us that were lost at Camp Pendleton. So they got us all together and the slow march back into the intelligence fields began. But they didn’t want to take us to Vietnam with them. We weren’t supposed to be captured alive. So they wanted to get rid of us. And then when we finally got back into the security business, I was sent off to Japan and got to work with Russian over there rather than anything to do with Korea. And while it was… Oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, question, why did they want to get rid of you, and who’s the they in that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the division itself. We were a… I want to say a liability. Like I said, we weren’t supposed to be captured alive, and these people are going into war, and it would be quite a responsibility to look after us. So once they rounded us all up, like I said, and slowly we got back into the security business, the intelligence groups that we had been with before and should have been with. That’s one of the things that has changed. I went back and spoke at the Defense Language Institute a couple years ago. And they had changed their approach to linguistics. And once you learn a language, by God, you’re going to stay working in that language rather than get shipped off to an artillery battery or some other thing, which would have made sense. But, you know, back when I went through, they weren’t doing it that way.
SPEAKER 09 :
So is Korean a difficult language to learn?
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s totally different, but if you have a chance to work with it, it’s not too difficult to learn, just like Koreans learn English. And you just need to stay with it. Like once I learned it, until I was captured in North Korea, I never had a chance to use it. So that’s the difference.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. So you joined the Marines in 1961, and did you retire from the Marines? What did your career look like with the Marines?
SPEAKER 03 :
Once it was all over with, I got out. It turned out that I kind of thought I’d have a career in intelligence and after the Court of Inquiry here in San Diego, they sent me back to Fort Meade, MD and the reality of our situation began to become apparent to me and they wouldn’t let me in the building. We were a highly politicized group by that point and Like I said, there have been millions of changes. We were the experiment that didn’t work and got the repercussions from that. Eventually someone took a hammer to my car and so I decided I’m bailing out of here and called a friend in Oceanside, California here and said, find me a house. I’m moving west. Wow. It’s so silly now and think back on it. You know, he went out, found three houses, sent me some pictures. I picked one, bought it sight unseen and moved west.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Well, so what was the experiment that they were doing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, back during the Cold War, the Russians had an extensive trawler fleet. that was actually intelligence collection vessels, small ones disguised as fishing vessels that cruise our coastline and all over the world. And so someone in the government decided that if they find it so neat, maybe we should give it a try and see what will work out. And we were the experiment. There were three ships, the Pueblo, the Palm Beach, and the Banner. They were old ships. They were World War II cargo transport ships, AKL-44s. And if you’ve ever seen the movie Mr. Roberts, that was the ship that it started with. They’re riverboat transport ships. And rather than sink huge funds into it, they pulled out these three mothballed ships and then refit them as intelligence collection vessels. and sent us out. Usually a ship that size might have a crew of maybe 35, 40 men, and we had 83 on board. So to get the room for the extra people, they converted the holds on the ship where they would carry cargo into berthing areas for the extra men on board, and then built what we called a sod hut, the area kind of in the center of the ship where we worked. About half the 83 people that were on board were ship’s crew, sort of taken care of and running the ship, and the other half were the intelligence group that worked in what we called the sod hut.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, and did you all sail together, these three ships, or were you actually more out by yourself?
SPEAKER 03 :
We were out by ourselves. Commander Booker’s theme song for the ship was A Lonely Bull. Most people, when they think of American Navy ships, think of the big aircraft carriers and destroyers and battleships. We’ve seen pictures of them heading out to the Mideast there. There’ll be six or eight ships going together, supporting each other. We went out alone. My first thought when I saw the ship was, my God, they really take that out on the ocean. You see some aircraft carriers. We have Midway here in San Diego, and you could put 32 Pueblos on the deck of the Midway. It gives you some rough idea of the ship. We had a flank speed of 12 and a half knots, and our normal cruising speed was six knots. So when you leave your radio station and head out to your car, you’re probably walking six knots. So it gives you a rough idea of what the speed of the ship was like. Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, we’re going to continue the discussion here with Bob Chica regarding the USS Pueblo, which was taken captive by the North Koreans, and the crew was held for 11 months. But we did want to mention, as you know, there’s a couple of charities that I really, or nonprofits, that I really support on the show. One of those is the Center for American Values, and it is located in Pueblo, Colorado, on the beautiful Riverwalk. In fact, Bob just recently had done an On Values presentation there, which you can find on their website that website is americanvaluecenter.org americanvaluecenter.org but be sure and check that out because there’s a lot of great information they focus on our middle of honor recipients these great on values presentations in education of our children and focus on these foundational principles of honor integrity and patriotism so we will be right back with bob chica
SPEAKER 07 :
Remax Realtor Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of Realtors Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home. Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.
SPEAKER 04 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And we’re talking with Bob Chica. He was a crew member on the USS Pueblo, which was taken captive during the Vietnam War. And you were a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps. Tell us a little bit more about the crew, Bob, of the USS Pueblo.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well… There were 83 men on board. About half of them were the ship’s company that drove and took care of the ship, and the other half were intelligence people. The ship had been converted from an old riverboat transport ship from the Second World War. And it wasn’t very fast or very big. I was kind of surprised they actually took it out on the ocean. Whenever you see pictures of the ship, it’s always in nice, calm seas. But in actuality, it was never that way. It was always rough. And the ship would just roll around. There were times during storms, walking down the hallway inside the ship where you’d tilt over and know if you’re actually walking on the walls. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh my gosh. So was seasickness a problem on the ship or was everybody pretty acclimated by that time?
SPEAKER 03 :
Nope. Nope. I was seasick several times. And, you know, the small ship like that and huge waves, you’d be come up over the crest of a wave. And when the ship got halfway over, the front end would drop into the trough on the other side. So, you know, a 50, 60 foot drop and then hit the water. And it was really kind of rough. But I can’t say you get used to it, but you do get your sea legs eventually.
SPEAKER 09 :
That I can’t not even imagine what that was like. So tell me about intelligence gathering. What does that look like exactly?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you can’t really talk about specifics, but what we were doing was listening and recording anything we could hear or capture on the equipment. And then that’s sent back for analysis later. back at headquarters, probably Fort Meade, Maryland, eventually. And before I went on the ship, I was in Japan, like I said, for a couple of years. And all the other Marines there had been sent to Vietnam for six-month TAD trips. And they all went except me. And I was trying to figure out why I’d like to go and get it over with. So I asked around, and eventually the word came that this mission with the Pueblo was coming up and that I was going on it. And eventually they did send me to South Korea for a couple of months, and I worked with Army intelligence over there, and in the process learned that there was no way I could do what they expected me to do, that the Army over there actually used South Korean nationals that they were able to grant clearances with up to a certain level to do the stuff that they wanted me to do. And I passed that word on when I got back. They said you’re going anyway. So I was assigned to the ship on January 3rd and then it was January 23rd that we were captured. It was supposed to be a 30 day temporary mission for me that got turned in a little longer.
SPEAKER 09 :
So as I was doing some research on this, first of all, I guess the disguise was that this was a ship that was doing environmental research. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, oceanographic research. And that’s what the two civilian oceanographers were doing on board, and they did their work. They had their work to do and did their work. um i can’t call it very much of a disguise but that was it also they didn’t want marines they didn’t want anyone to know that marines were on the ship because that usually indicates that there’s something special on the ship so they wanted us to wear navy uniforms which of course doesn’t go over very well with marines Eventually, we reached a compromise and we wore Navy dungarees and Marine Corps shirt. And if we went topside or outside, we put a Navy peacoat on to cover our Marine Corps stuff. And if we must, maybe even wear a Navy hat.
SPEAKER 09 :
So you—and tell me what you can, and if you can’t, that’s fine. So were you really collecting intelligence on the North Koreans, the Russians, both? Or what was that mission like?
SPEAKER 03 :
All of the above, anything that we would pick up. And, you know, the North Koreans would use Russian or Chinese equipment, so you can learn about Russian and Chinese equipment just by— watching what the North Koreans were doing. And I want to say this is pretty normal, and most of the work is now taken over by planes and satellites and small contingents on other larger ships. But like I said, we were experimental at the time. We were supposed to be unarmed and worked on the freedom of the high seas principle. The North Koreans claimed a 12-mile limit. Although the United States only recognized a three-mile limit, we were under orders not to intrude into North Korean waters. And that’s always been the biggest point of contention, especially with the North Koreans, because they said we did intrude, but we didn’t. If you just look at it from a common-sense point of view, if you’re going to intrude into the Nations are into the waters of a hostile country. You want to be on a ship that’s fast enough to get the hell out of there if you get caught or have enough firepower on board to shoot your way out if you get caught. And in no way, shape or form did the Pueblo look like that. And there also should have been some contingency plans to come to our aid if things went sideways. Until the North Koreans actually opened fire on us, the stuff that went on was just considered to be harassment. And harassment of American ships goes on even up to today all over the world. People just want to hassle us and see what they can get away with. But once they open fire, then you know they’ve got something more than harassment in mind.
SPEAKER 09 :
So that’s what happened with you. So you’ve set this up. So you really were not an armed ship at all. So tell me about the day, the 23rd. What happened on that day regarding the attack, the capture? What did all that look like?
SPEAKER 03 :
Everyone nowadays is so tuned in to GPS and cell phones and everything. We’re talking back in the Stone Age here, of course. And back in the Stone Age, no one could tell where you were unless you were emitting a signal that they could use to triangulate and find out where you were. So we were traveling in radio silence until the actual day before our capture. And then it’s not like you’re hiding out on the ocean because like when you were out on the ocean sailing around yourself, you can see anything for 100 miles out there. And for the first 10, 12 days we were out there, no one knew we were there. And we were under orders not to break radio silence until we were officially detected. And back in the Stone Age, that meant that you were visually sighted by the enemy. And that happened the day before the capture. A couple of their fishing vessels happened to find us. And they spent the whole day out there. They would take pictures of us. pull off for a while and then come back and take more pictures and pull off for a while. They spent most of the day out there with us and then went back to port in the evening. So officially we had been detected. So we broke radio silence trying to establish communications with our home base in Kamiseya, Japan. However, the atmospheric conditions in that part of the Sea of Japan were terrible. And it took us, I don’t know, most of the day and part of the next day just to get in good, solid communications with our home base. And then on the 23rd, mid-morning or so, the first North Korean warships came out. Eventually, they had six ships and two MiGs out there. They all came out at full general quarters. Everyone manning all the weapons and all the weapons aimed at us so as they’re coming out we double and triple checked our position to make sure we were in international waters and we were we were about 16 miles from the nearest piece of korean land which was small island off of wansan and uh then they we were anchored at the time the oceanographers were doing their work and uh eventually the koreans were all out there you know just cruising around the ship and hoisted signal flags for us to halt or they’d open fire and uh it was silly because we were anchored but uh they’re kind of building their version of the story that they would pass on and then uh That kind of harassment went on for an hour or two. And on board the ship, we were kind of in a modified general quarters, weren’t doing anything specific, just continuing our work. The oceanographers were bringing their equipment back on board. And once the Koreans opened fire on us, The situation became different, and we went to general quarters, and it was time to try to destroy the stuff that we had on board. Now, even back in the olden days here when we were put together, the military had the equipment that could destroy everything we had on board and all the documents we had on board. However, the powers that be wouldn’t let us have that equipment on the ship. They felt either that they didn’t have the money to put it on or that it was a safety hazard for the crew. In retrospect, it was kind of silly. We should have had the equipment. But to destroy all this stuff, all we had were some fire axes and sledgehammers and trash cans and matches. So many things here. The Assad hut that we worked in, the working area was maybe three feet wide, had banks of equipment on both sides, and maybe 20 feet long. And then behind the equipment, there was space where you could get back and work on the equipment if it needed working. And the ship was so rough out there when moving around, To do your work, you’d put your chair sideways in that little center section, put your feet up on one wall and push your shelf back against the other wall so you’re kind of stationary and can do your work while the ship is tossing and turning around you. So when you’re in a situation like that, sometimes your grandest desire is to take a sledgehammer to the equipment and destroy it. However, most military equipment like that is made so you can throw it off a building and still expect it to work. So the other Marine, a wiry guy, Bob Hammond, grabbed a sledgehammer to go after the equipment he’d been working on, slings with all his might against the face of this equipment, and it just bounced off the glass. So I figured at that point I wasn’t going to try slinging sledgehammers, that I’d work on burning documents. But to burn documents, you can’t just throw a book in a fire. All it does is singe the outside, and everything that you wanted to get rid of is still good on the inside. So I took some trash cans out in the hallway outside the sod hut, And with some matches, started some fires in these trash camps. And you would tear pages out of a book, and you can’t just throw it in the fire. You have to sort of hold the pages in the fire until they catch on fire, and then you can let them go. And so that’s what we were doing, destroying stuff as much as we can. At the time, we had these raging fires going in the hallway, burning the paint off the walls. Oh, my gosh. It didn’t occur to us at the moment, but we were burning up the oxygen inside the ship. So we started passing out in the hallway there. So eventually, we moved the fires to the sand tail of the ship, which in civilian parlance would be the back porch. And it was an open area, and the hatch leading out there opened out toward the Korean, so we could move the fires out there and stay inside and be somewhat protected from the North Korean fire, which they were shooting at us all the time during this.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Bob, we’re going to continue this discussion. This is absolutely fascinating. I’m talking with Bob Chica. He was a crew member on the USS Pueblo that was taken captive in 1968. Absolutely fascinating. The show comes to you because of our sponsors. One of those sponsors is Hooters Restaurants. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. Great place to get together for lunch specials Monday through Friday and also happy hour specials. So be sure and check that out. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
God bless
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And I wanted to mention the USMC Memorial Foundation. They are raising the money for the remodel of the Marine Memorial right here in Golden, Colorado. and doing great work. Paula Sarles is the president of the USMC Memorial Foundation. She’s a Gold Star wife, as well as a Marine veteran. And Bob Chica is on the line. And Bob Chica, you are going to be coming out to Colorado again in May for the Memorial Day event that will be out at the Marine Memorial. That’s going to be very cool.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Yeah, I know I’m coming. And We’ll see how it goes. Okay. Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, looking forward to that as well. And that website is usmcmemorialfoundation.org. So, Bob Chica, you guys are frantically burning, trying to get rid of evidence. You’re being shot at. What happens next regarding this interaction with the North Koreans?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, like I mentioned, we were burning everything and using up all the oxygen. So we started passing out in the hallway and decided we had to move everything. And so we moved the fires outside the fantail of the ship down the hall and where we had some protection from the North Korean fire. And, you know, you do all these silly things at the time. Had all these burning trash cans out there. So I would grab one and move it. And I burned off all the tips of my fingers. I had let my hair grow since we were out on a little ship like this. So I burned off most of my hair and most of my beard. But anyway, we got the trash cans and fires outside and would continue with the work out there. Slowly, the oxygen level came back up, and we were able to continue with what we were doing. We needed help, so the engine man down there sent up two of his men, Dwayne Hodges and Steve Wolk, to come up and give us a hand with the burning. And these kids had no idea what they were doing. They were just up there to help us burn stuff. Later, Steve would joke about it. You know, they’ve got all this material in their hands with top secret stamped all over it. And they said, gee, do I look at this or do I close my eyes? How do I handle this stuff? But so he, Steve Wolk and Dwayne Hodges were there helping us. And I had just finished burning what I had in my hand and was turning around to pick up some more stuff off the floor behind us when the North Koreans started shooting bigger stuff at us. And the big shells just came through the side of the ship and blew up. Both Dwayne’s, Steve, me, and Crandall got hit by the same shell in there. Dwayne ended up dying before we hit shore. Steve and I were the most serious wounded after that. And things kind of stopped. Everyone wonders what happens when you get shot. But it happened so fast. Happened so fast. We were right on top of the exploding shells. And I… The only thing I felt at the time was burning because the powder and everything in the shot was still burning. And I got shot in the leg. So I wanted more steel between me and more shots from the North Koreans. So I moved down the hall and eventually into the chow hall in the center of the ship. and uh people were coming out to see what happened and what they could do to help and eventually i dove over someone and rolled out on the floor in the chow hall and someone asked are you okay and uh of course i say yes and uh as i’m saying it i think in my head who who are you kidding you know something’s wrong and then you know it reached down my leg and come back with a handful of blood and Then it’s just like in the movies, they tear your clothes and bandage you up. And so I was kind of out of the fight at that point. And treatment of the wounded is something else. They wouldn’t let our own corpsman work with us at all. There wasn’t anything they could really do with Duane. He was too badly injured to survive, actually. And eventually the Koreans came on board the ship and blindfolded and tied us all up and either down inside the ship or up on the deck. And here we were in the middle of winter and off in North Korea, it was really cold. And we destroyed, the last stuff we destroyed was the communications with our home base in Japan. And the last communication was that help was on the way. The only problem was it wasn’t on the way and that no one was coming to give us a hand. It probably took a good six months for me to get through my thick skull that no help was coming. I thought that for sure they would come and give us a hand here. And the incident would never have proved as embarrassing as it has and still is. The oldest ship in the United States is a Constitution back there in Baltimore. It’s hard to believe, but the second oldest ship in the United States is the Pueblo. And it’s the only American ship being held captive by a hostile nation. It’s still there in North Korea. So anyway, just when they started firing, we started to leave the area. And but at, you know, six and twelve and a half knots, you don’t get very far, very fast. Their slowest vessels could do about twice our top speed. So they just kind of cruised around us and kept firing at us. And eventually they had wounded about 11 men. Pretty well shot up the ship. And like I said, once they came on board, they kind of turned us around and started heading us back toward Wonsan, the harbor in North Korea there. And we got there, you know, maybe 7.30 that night. And they started to take us off the ship. I was one of the first off the ship. I only know that because they didn’t have a plank down for us to walk off yet, and they’d bring me blindfolded and tied up to the edge of the ship, and someone says, jump. So blindfolded and tied up, I jump, and I go down between the pier and the side of the ship, and they had hold of the ropes, so they dragged me back out and walked us down the gauntlet of… pretty angry North Koreans that were not being very friendly. One of the guards actually kicked me in my wound. At the time, I was just worrying about survival. It bothers me now more because where I was shot, it just missed the artery down there. Had it hit the artery, I’d have probably died because they weren’t going to give me any medical treatment. For the first… I don’t think they knew whether they were going to keep us alive or what they were going to do. I think they were surprised by the lack of a reaction as we were. And they put us in a room we just call a beating room, but they just kind of worked us over for a while. But what they were actually doing is waiting for a bus. Eventually the bus came. They piled us all on the bus and then took us to a train for an all-night journey to Pyongyang, which is the capital of North Korea. And then it was there in Pyongyang in two different detention camps that we spent almost a year as their prisoners. It was not a good time.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, not at all. So when you jumped, did you end up in the water?
SPEAKER 03 :
I didn’t hit the water. I was up short rope.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Okay. Well, so what happened then next, Bob Chica? And as you said, it took a while to realize that the cavalry wasn’t coming, was it? No.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, yep. Like I said, it probably took me six months. I was incurably optimistic. I had absolutely no thought that this would occur without some retaliation. And I was sitting there on the deck tied up and blindfolded. The guy next to me was also wounded. And we’re thinking, we’re watching the guards under our blindfolds and trying to figure what we were going to do as soon as the help got there. that we knew was coming. And, you know, which guard are you going to jump? What are we going to do? But then nothing happened, and we end up in North Korean in Pyongyang. The first place they took us, we nicknamed the barn. It does discredit to an American barn, but it was just a terrible place. It was really falling apart. The floors were just pine boards loosely kind of laying on the floor, warped, bent. Everything, nothing worked. Concrete walls, single light bulb hanging from the socket and ceiling. And then one man’s cells, they put eight or four men. And so there wasn’t any room or anything like that. There were four beds in there, which took up to four corners with a table in the center and then four chairs around the table. And this was going to be our home for a while. They put the three wounded in the cell and had one healthy guy in there to give us a hand. Eventually they gave us real heavy padded clothing to wear, almost like a quilt, pants, jacket, things like that. It was really cold.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. And it’s remarkable that with your wounds not being treated, that you didn’t die from infection.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s what we figured, too. Actually, it was so cold, we would probably die from the colds first. And eventually they searched around the cells and found some with a… radiator that somewhat worked and moved us into that so we would have a little warmth. But all that did really was kind of cause us to rot.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, my gosh, Bob Chica. Boy, as I think about those like you that have been captured because you were serving America, serving us, I’m just, this is a riveting story. So we’ll finish this up in the next segment. We’re talking with Bob Chica. I have so many questions, and I’m sure that all you listeners do as well. So we will be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
Call now.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
From the mountains to the prairies,
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. We are talking with Bob Chica. He is a Marine veteran, and he was a crew member on the USS Pueblo, which was taken captive by the North Koreans during the Vietnam War. We’re talking about his experiences. And during the break, we realized there is so much more to talk about. So this now will be part one of an interview with Bob, and we will then be recording another interview with him very, very soon. So Bob Chica, six months, you were optimistic that you were going to be rescued, right? Was there any communication with anybody? Did they know you were there? What was going on regarding the U.S. military and you guys? Did you have any communication?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, we had no communication whatsoever. They really had us pretty well shut off from everything. And the only thing that we found was whatever they might want us to know about. 1968 was a bad year all around. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy, the different riots in LA and things like that. They would tell us anything bad that went on. But as far as any kind of real information about what was going on in the world, we were completely left out of it. They real quickly moved from trying to get military intelligence to the use of us for propaganda purposes. And I think, like I mentioned, for the first 40 days or so, I’m not sure they were even sure they were going to keep us alive or what they were going to do. It was a pretty bad time. They had been accused of a piracy off the high seas. And so they really wanted to get out the idea that they didn’t pirate us, that we were an intelligence collection ship violating their territorial waters. It was just not true. But it was a particular point of view that they were sending out to prove as best they could anyway. Again, back in the olden days here, in order to find your position, you had to emanate some form of a signal. And there was no GPS. The Loran system was just in its infantry and being tested. And we did have a Loran system on board the ship, which was similar to an early GPS. It was just with land-based stations. And so there, to find your position, you’d use three, four, or five different methods and plot them on a map. And then… In theory, all those dots would be pretty close to the same spot, and that’s where you were, unless you fired off the radar to get a specific position. And the Loran fixes, since it was experimental, or in its infantry anyway, some of the Loran fixes did put us in their territorial waters. So that’s what they used to try to prove that we did intrude. But like I mentioned before, if you’re going to intrude, you don’t intrude with a ship like the Pueblo. And to get to where the Lorraine had us, to get from one position to another, the speed of the ship had to approach over 100 knots for a couple of the locations. So it was just a fabricated thing that they had put together. And they were after propaganda. And eventually they did give us some treatment of the wounded. Usually it would consist of changing the bandages every three or four days or something like that. I had this big hole in my leg, but it didn’t occur to me that there was still something in there. So eventually they brought in their doctors with their pliers and tweezers and probing everything, trying to find what’s in there and pull it out. But that didn’t work. So eventually they hoisted an antique Russian x-ray machine up to where we were in the barn, laid us out on the floor, and x-rayed us to find where the shrapnel was. And then one night they pulled several tables out of the different cells, had me bring the sheets off my bed. And with six guys holding my legs, they decided to operate and get the shrapnel out. I can’t believe they did it. But I don’t know if you’ve seen anything. Holly North did a movie or a program on the Pueblo, and when they operated on me, they did take moving pictures of the whole thing and then spliced in pictures of an immaculate operating room. But it wasn’t like that.
SPEAKER 09 :
No.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I’m thinking to myself, this can’t be happening. But I didn’t know when my legs were OK, because all these guys were holding me down. But I didn’t know what to do with my hands. And in one of the pictures, there’s guards showing me to grab onto my pillow. And so that’s what I did. And I got this thing out, and then Then sewed me up with two stitches. They used like a rope, like you wrap around a rump roast before you cook it. Then gave me my bloody sheets and sent me back to my cell.
SPEAKER 09 :
Did you ever get your sheets washed? Was that ever anything that happened?
SPEAKER 03 :
Eventually. Goodness. You know, we were not in real good shape after the first 40 days. You think? There was no chance to wash or anything like that. And, of course, in the same clothes, and we really stunk. Oh, my gosh. We didn’t want to come in the cell where we were. There was a bathroom down the hall that we could go to, but… There might be urinals on the walls, but there were no pipes. It would just kind of go down the floor and into the floor drain.
SPEAKER 09 :
Goodness. Well, Bob Chica, we have just really about a minute and a half left. This is a riveting story. I know that you shared it down at the Center for American Values, and people can find that at that website, AmericanValuesCenter.org. And then you will be out in May for the Memorial Day event at the Center. USMC Memorial Foundation so look forward to getting to hopefully see you and meet you in person there but I so appreciate you sharing the story with us Bob and we will get that part two scheduled here so that we can broadcast that as well but thank you thank you thank you for all of this I really really do appreciate it Bob Chica and just your final thought you’d like to leave with our listeners on this show about 30 seconds
SPEAKER 03 :
About 30 seconds. Appreciate America. Many Americans think the rest of the world is just like us. All the signs are in a different language, but it ain’t that way. We’ve got something special here. So be patriotic.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, I love that, Bob Chica. Thank you so much. And again, this is part one. We will be recording part two here very soon. My friends, it is a parent that we stand on the shoulders of giants. So my friends, God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 10 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
