by Eileen Fleming

On that day in infamy-8 June 1967, Ron Kukal was a twenty-seven year old First Class Petty Officers and Communications Technician on board the USS LIBERTY AGTR-5 -technical research ship- meaning spy ship.

Ron was below the water line when the torpedoes attacked the unarmed ship while navigating in international waters on 8 June 1967, the third day of The Six Day War.

Ron became the man in charge of “the body recovery” of friends and shipmates and then suffered for years with undiagnosed PTSD which he self-medicated with alcohol.

Ron also became the first Chaplain for the USS LIBERTY Vets Association.

Ron and I have conversed via email and phone calls since 2007, and on the eve of The Fourth of July, Ron told me, “It was in 1991 that I came close to God and the Church simply to survive. I attended a Baptist Church in Sheridan, Wyoming and I was an absolute mess! I must have had quadrupled PTSD and a lot of it dribbled into that church. When I was being baptized I broke down and told the congregation, ‘I’m not suppose to be here, but God saved the LIBERTY and I witnessed many miracles during the two hours of attack.’”

On the day before America celebrated our Independence from a British Occupation with the promise that held “these truths to be self-evident: That all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among [people] deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to ALTER or to ABOLISH it” Ron concluded our phone interview by stating, “It will take an Act of God” before The Churches Wake Up to Israel’s brutal attack on the USS LIBERTY.

In an email from 22 October 2007, Ron wrote:

“It may be possible that the only reason God saved the LIBERTY was so that we could tell our story.

“The ship was sailing 15 miles off the coast in international waters when the Israeli Defense Force attacked her. She was subjected to torpedoes, 50 caliber machine gun fire, napalm, and rocket fire. There was over 800 holes in the LIBERTY after the attack, she was listing about 10 degrees to the starboard, and was on fire in many places. Thirty-four men were killed and close to 70% of the crew were wounded, of which I was one.

“For what seemed like an eternity… many miracles occurred during, and after the attack. The only armament we had were 50 caliber machine guns, and they were like peashooters against the French built Mirage jets that attacked the LIBERTY…we were not ready for any kind of attack whatsoever. The element of surprise was theirs.

“I survived the attack by the planes, but the worst was yet to come, as five torpedo boats were bearing down on us, with one thing in mind, and that was to put us to the bottom! Only one found its mark. This was the second miracle that I was exposed to that day, the first being the surviving of the onslaught by the jet aircraft.

“The torpedo hit the Liberty almost amidships on the starboard side, and I was approximately thirty feet from the explosion. There were a couple of bulkheads between the explosion, and myself but they were like paper to the several tons of TNT that tore up the bowels of the Liberty.

What had been several compartments were turned into one big room in a very short time. I was immediately immersed in sea water, and it was rising fast to the point where it would be above my head in a short time, and even though I could swim, the compartment would soon become completely full, and there would be no place to go.

“The hatch to the above deck was closed, and dogged down, and so my life again depended completely on what God would do.

“Just before the compartment became fully flooded the hatch above me was opened to let as many of us as possible out of there before we became a part of a watery grave. This was the third miracle that I saw that day, but there was even more to come.

“I ran to get to the main deck; I was slipping and sliding because of the water, and blood was awash within each passageway.

“The fourth miracle occurred when I was exposed to the machine gun fire on the main deck, and still remained alive, and still there was more to come. Every antenna we had was shot to pieces except one, and it had never worked very well. One of the radiomen told me that he tried several times to call for help, and finally when he realized that all the antenna were shot, he switched to the one that had always given him trouble, and when it was needed, it worked!

“We were able to call the Sixth Fleet, and notify them of our predicament through an antenna that had hardly ever worked. The fifth miracle had just occurred.

“The attack had gone on for two hours, or more, but it seemed like only a few minutes. The captain told us that we had lost our steering control, and that we would have to go aft, and steer the ship manually. We were able to make headway, and in time were headed for the island of Malta, and to dry dock. This was almost one thousand miles away, and here we were with a ship that had a forty by forty-foot hole in her side, on fire, and riddled with holes.

“The Liberty could go down at any minute, but we did sail the thousand miles without incident, and this had to be the sixth miracle of the day.

“I was one of the crew that went down below to identify the deceased and I know that God gave me the strength to go and do what was expected of me. Let it suffice to say that, under the conditions, only men that were strengthened, and held up by God himself would be able to enter the dark area down below.”

More here:  http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/07/06/exclusive-to-vt-message-to-...