“... All over the world, the US Military came to high alert. Carrier groups in the North and South Pacific steamed toward the Korean Peninsula. Air Force B-52s, stationed in Guam were airborne with refueling tankers. They were armed with conventional & nuclear weapons. …”
The USS Pueblo, an active, commissioned US Naval ship had been seized, in international waters, in the Sea of Japan, by the North Korean Navy.
It was late January, 1968, 15 days before my 18th birthday, I was a Private First Class (PFC) in the United States Marine Corps. At about 4 o’clock in the morning, I was walking “firewatch “in the US Marine Corps barracks San Diego California. My two hour duty shift was to walk around and make sure things were OK, rather like a security guard. It was a two hour watch and was drawn by low ranking enlisted men. At the time, I was preparing to go to Vietnam, I was in school, and I had been in the Marine Corps less than a year.
At just a little after four am, about an hour and a half early, the lights in the squad-bay, a large open barracks for E-3 ranks & below, housing a hundred or so Marines, clapped on. The barracks-wide loudspeaker system crackled: “attention on deck; attention on deck… reveille reveille reveille….”
“Attention on deck“: The Base Commander, Marine Corps Base, San Diego directs, immediately, “...all Marine separations from active duty are hereby canceled. All leave orders are canceled. All personnel on liberty or in leave status are recalled. All transfers to the Marine Corps Ready Reserve are cancelled. All liberty passes are canceled. At 0500 hours, all base personnel will fall into formation on the parade ground…”
I stood there and blinked at the lights. I looked down at the duty night stick and flashlight in my hand and I looked around at the Marines rolling out of their bunk bed racks. No one knew what had happened or or why this was all going on. Within 3 hours, we found out.
On that day in 1968, because of a single act of aggression, thousands of miles and scores of countries away, at every US Marine facility in the United States, and similarly, on every Naval ship at sea, every military installation the U S A had, essentially the same thing was going on. America got up, buttered its toast, poured it’s coffee and read the newspaper. The Marines prepared to sail. I remember joking that at least it was cooler in Korea than Vietnam. Since we had just gotten historical training on the Inchon Reservoir, the jokes fell a little flat. In Vietnam, the TET Offensive blasted on, Marines died by the hundreds. In Korea, the US Army fought, as North Korea attacked Seoul, clandestinely, to disrupt South Korean military defense.
The USS Pueblo, an active, commissioned US Naval ship had been seized, in international waters, in the Sea of Japan, by the North Korean Navy. The captain, officers and crew had been captured, the ship had been seized and it was expected that military action would be taken immediately.
We were at the height of the Vietnam conflict. Every Marine in the barracks was subject to, and preparing for, shipping out to Vietnam within the next year. Many people had rotated back onto the Marine Corps base from Vietnam service and were preparing to be discharged or transferred to the reserves. Many were planning leave. Everything was canceled. No one was to be processed for separation from active duty. Anyone and everyone who was outside the physical command was ordered to return.
At the same time this happened in San Diego, at the Marine Corps base, troopships began to load & fuel in San Diego, and Hawaii. Marines who thought they were headed straight to Vietnam were segregated into groups repurposed to fly out to Hawaii, Japan, Okinawa… destination: Korea, not Vietnam. Troopships fueled and provisioned in San Diego, Jacksonville, Norfolk and Pearl Harbor. All over the world, the US Military came to high alert. Carrier groups in the North and South Pacific steamed toward the Korean Peninsula. Air Force B-52s, stationed in Guam were airborne with refueling tankers. They were armed with conventional & nuclear weapons. The brink was again here.
Much the same scenario was playing out in the Soviet Union, China and the entire free world. Collectively, humankind held its breath
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