Did you know that the only actively commissioned US naval vessel in captivity is docked in Pyongyang, North Korea? On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a former WW2 US Army cargo ship converted into a Navy intelligence-gathering vessel, was captured by the Korean People’s Army. Her crew of 82 men spent 11 months as prisoners during one of the most volatile periods of the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Don’t forget, the Korean War ended with an armistice and is technically still active to this day.
For this special three part series, we took our recording equipment on the road to explore the story of the USS Pueblo through the eyes of Navy veteran and Pueblo crewman John Mitchell, who turned 21 years old while in captivity. Throughout the series, John reflects with us on what has become known as the “Pueblo Incident.”
In this final episode in the Pueblo series, our story takes us back to the homefront, the United States. The Incident has ended and the crew is free. But what new trials await them upon their return? And what will it be like to reintegrate into civilian life after 11 months in captivity? We close our Pueblo series by following John from the moment he arrives back in the United States in December of 1968 to the present day. We discuss topics like reactions from the public, the January 1969 Pueblo Affair Naval Court of Inquiry, navigating the Veterans Affairs system, and how his emotions toward his captivity have changed over time.
Today’s episode is guest narrated and edited by SNAFUBAR Writer/Researcher Roman Sotomayor. John Mitchell is a member of the Arcata Veterans Hall, American Legion Post 274. Also present during the interviews with John are SNAFUBAR co-host Sara Hart, Writer/Researcher Liam Salcuni, and Producer Abigail Smithson.
SNAFUBAR is regularly hosted by Sara Hart, who is the Chair of the Applied Humanities Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Jeff Crane, who is an Environmental Historian and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni and Roman Sotomayor.
SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Sources and Resources
Welna, Remembering North Korea’s Audacious Capture of the USS Pueblo
Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A spy ship and the failure of American foreign policy, 2002
The American Legion, Arcata Post 274, Manual for Veterans Dependents
The American Legion, Main Page
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Main Page
Disabled American Veterans, Main Page
Amvets National Service Foundation, Main Page
Paralyzed Veterans of America, Main Page
Vietnam Veterans of America, Main Page
VA Benefits for Family and Caregivers
>> Abigail Smithson: Hey everyone. This is Abigail Smithson, the regular producer of SNAFUBAR. Today's episode is the last in our series of interviews with local veteran John Mitchell, who was held as a prisoner of war in North Korea when he was captured while on the USS Pueblo, during the Vietnam War. Roman Sotmayor, who is a researcher for SNAFUBAR, conducted the interviews, hosted these three episodes and also did almost all of the audio editing. I was grateful to work with Roman on these episodes and also, immensely grateful to John for sitting down with us and sharing his story, which sometimes can make you laugh, wince and shudder and is a sobering tale of what war looks like, from a personal perspective. Our goal at snafubar is face the consequences of being citizens of a nation that is always at war, looking at local and global issues. And hearing about John's experience does just that. So thank you for listening. The other two episodes in this series are archived on the KHSU site and as a podcast on Spotify and Apple among others.
>> John Mitchell: I'd never seen a microwave. I think they were so -- I don't think people had them in their homes yet. And they'd go in there and show us how to take a TV dinner out in aluminum. I mean, not aluminum, but in something. And we're going like, "What the hell is that?" You know?
>> Roman Sotomayor: You're hearing the voice of John Mitchell. For those who don't know him from our previous two episodes, John is a U.S. Navy veteran who lived through the capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korea in 1968 during the Vietnam War. This episode is the final in a three-part series interviewing John about his experience during and after the Pueblo incident. For years, John has been involved in supporting his fellow veterans as they navigate the VA system. He's also participated in veteran-led organizations like the MIA POW Search Committee and is currently a member of Arcata Post 274 of the American Legion. My name is Roman Sotomayor, and along with Liam Salcuni, I'm a writer, researcher for "SNAFUBAR". And in today's episode, you'll also hear the voices and laughter of myself, Liam, and "SNAFUBAR" producer, Abigail Smithson. In our previous two episodes, we discussed the Pueblo before she entered into the fighting, her capture, and the time her crew spent as captives. If you haven't listened to those episodes, we highly recommend you check them out first. But if you're joining us from the radio, buckle up because today we're diving into John's memories of those early days following his return and his reflections on the life he's lived since. We hope you enjoy your time in "The SNAFUBAR" for "Pueblo, Part 3: The Return."
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>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade.
>> John F. Kennedy: The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.
>> Douglas MacArthur: Only the dead have seen the end of war.
>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: We will accept nothing less than full victory.
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>> Sara Hart: You're listening to "SNAFUBAR" at Cal Poly Humboldt.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Our last episode ended with John and the other 81 members of the crew, accompanied by the casket of fireman Duane Hodges, who'd been killed by North Korean fire during the ship's capture, crossing the Bridge of No Return, located in what's known as the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The date was December 23rd, 1968. John had just turned 21 two months before. After 335 days in captivity, the crew of the USS Pueblo was finally free. They'd endured malnutrition, physical beatings, and other human rights abuses at the hands of their captors. By Christmas Eve of 1968, following medical checkups and debriefings in South Korea, the crew was flown to Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego. As the minutes leading up to their arrival ticked by, John and the crew didn't know what would be awaiting them.
>> John Mitchell: I think to a man, we all had this fear that everybody's going to hate us. You know, this ship got lost. Everybody's going to hate us. And so we get off the plane. And, of course, like, I don't know, the governor of California was there and a bunch of others. I never really saw much because there was so many people on the tarmac and kind of had to look to find my parents and my sister. And so that was really, really cool. You know, you're back on the soil. Then we got on just standard gray military buses everywhere. And we come out of, I guess, Miramar at the outside edge of San Diego. And they were going to take us to the hospital, Naval Hospital there. And so we get on the highway. And then we go and there's just -- they had closed the freeway into San Diego. It turns out it was just, like, people, I don't know, it was hundreds of thousands, whatever. It was just lined with people, flags and signs and all this "Welcome Home" stuff, you know. And it was like, I know I was going like -- that was not what you're expecting, you know, like, "Wow, you know, that's crazy."
>> Roman Sotomayor: At the hospital, the crew was received with a welcome bounty.
>> John Mitchell: So we just went in, and it was just all these people, and they took us in and gave us a few minutes. We didn't own anything. I didn't even have a change of socks or anything. I don't even remember how I got stuff. They just took us to PX or something. I don't know. Don't remember having any really military stuff. And so they took us over there, and we go in this big room at the hospital. It's like they got a big buffet laid out on tables, and we walk in there, and it's like going to the old, what do we call it, smorgasbord or something, all-you-can-eat place. It's like ham and then turkey, and they just had tables and tables of food. And I'm going, like, I mean, like, I like seeing it, but, like, who the hell's going to eat all this stuff, you know? And the first couple days, I don't know. You know, I didn't really pay attention to whether it was good or bad. Everything was good then. I mean, I do have a picture of me sitting at a table, and I have little cartons of milk, like five or six of them in front of me. I didn't want to go back all the way back there, so I just brought all this milk, you know, because that was, like, probably the main thing that I really missed was milk. And so, you know, our parents were there and our families and stuff, and we saw trucks coming and going, and it turns out they hired caterers, a company to come in. So it wasn't military food, although San Diego, the base itself had good food, but we were at the hospital. So they brought in all this food, and our parents were staying at El Cortez. And one thing that was cool, I had just turned 21, like a month and a half, two months before. And so my dad took me up the top and bought me my first legal drink. So that was kind of cool. Him and I going in a bar and sitting down and chit-chatting over cocktails, and I thought that was kind of a trip. It seemed like the whole relationship with my dad had really changed while I was gone. It's like he treated me more like an adult then. Like, you just get out of high school, and they're still treating you like you're 13 or something. And so that was kind of strange.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Once the initial celebrations settled down, the crew adjusted to their new lives under observation at Balboa Naval Hospital and later to life on base. With nothing to do, John described how he and many of the other younger and single crew members began to spend their days partying throughout San Diego. On top of this, public attention surrounding the crew's release meant that they had quickly become local celebrities. This recognition came in the form of people requesting to shake his hand, getting free food, and even receiving tickets to Disneyland.
>> John Mitchell: So they wanted us to stay there, and it was like they gave us like an indefinite date. So we were there for a few days, and we found ways out. They had us locked in. We realized that the area they had us, they had us locked in. And we found places to get out, you know, out of the fence and stuff. And so we'd go downtown and hit all the bars and come back. And, you know, it's just things got more stupid as time went on because you never got in trouble. I don't know, somehow nobody ever got caught for anything. And in a lot of ways, we were just as bad on the base. The barracks we were in, they took us out to North Island to move us from the hospital after a couple weeks or something. And so now we're on base, and, you know, we got the cars, and every time you go someplace, this *bleep* was on the news. They like to have it on news every night, it seemed like, in San Diego, and it got really old. So we started looking for places pretty far out to the edge of San Diego because the further you got from the base, the less of that you kind of encountered. We found a big bar and danced, always had, like, live bands, and they have 300 people on the dance floor. It was a big place. But we would go in there earlier, and the first time, we decided to get something to eat. So we don't know San Diego at all. So I went over to the bar and asked the bartender, I said, "Well, who's good and who delivers?" So he called, I said, "Order five or six pizzas and get them delivered so we get some different ones." He said, "Okay." So he calls, and 45 minutes or so, here, somebody comes, and he says, "You want to come over here and pay for this, guy?" And I said, "Yeah." So I get over there, and the guy hands me the bill, and I went to go for my wallet. He says, "No, no, the boss wants you just to autograph it." And I'm going, what kind of place wants my signature for, like, $40, $50 worth of pizza? You know, what's going on here? It's kind of crazy, you know? I said, "Well, these guys are all with me, you know." And he said, "Well, all of you sign it." So I think there was more signatures on the tab than there was the writing for the pizza. So anyway, we just thought, "Wow, there's something weird about that." So that happens. We go back to base, and a couple days later, in the morning, they always had muster in the morning. Make sure you're still alive so you're not in jail or in a ditch. And so they said, "Yeah, we've got cards here for everybody," and they handed them out. And they said, Caruso's, which was like a super Italian place, I mean, everything in there was from Italy. They didn't make it with any American products. So they said we could have all the food the whole time we were there for free, anything we wanted, until we left. And then we're all going, "Wow, this is good." And all of a sudden, it was just like every day, people, restaurants were just giving us cards and told us we could come eat anywhere. And these were not McDonald's, I'm telling you. These were all top-of-the-line restaurants in San Diego. And I didn't know them, but there were a couple of guys from San Diego there. They're going like, "Yeah, these guys are top-notch restaurants here." And about three and a half months with nothing to do but party, go out to eat and party.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: That, you know, sounds great when you're 21, but three months of every day, you know, sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night because you're drinking and you'd wake up and you're going like, "How can I do this?" You know, it's getting a little crazy. Yeah, it was just getting worse. I mean, forever -- the guys who had wives and they lived near there or something, hardly ever saw them. They just went home, you know, and they would just come back and forth, back and forth, whatever. But the ones that we lived in the barracks, I don't know how, either in jail or dead.
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>> Roman Sotomayor: After the joyful homecoming and amidst the time the crew spent on base, they soon became targets of a long investigation into the reasons and circumstances of the Pueblo's capture. A formal court of inquiry was formed, which horrified the American public. Hearings began on January 20th, 1969. During these hearings, it became clear that the Navy wanted to lay full blame for the incident upon the ship's captain, Commander Bucher. Members of the crew, who now referred to themselves as Bucher's Bastards, showed their support for Bucher when testifying. Hearings dragged on for two months and included 104 witnesses. The end result was a recommendation for a court-martial of Bucher and officer in charge of communications intelligence, Lieutenant Harris. The report even noted that, "With few exceptions, the performance of the men was unimpressive." In April, John Chafee, Secretary of the Navy, released his final decision that no disciplinary actions would be taken against any of the personnel involved in the Pueblo incident.
>> John Mitchell: That was a sorry state, too. You know, it was like, I get up, I have to swear, I'm in a court, it's a military court, all these admirals there asking questions and stuff. And I'm sitting there, and I was probably a little lit up right in there, too. But it just was so stupid, the things that they're saying. So finally, a guy goes, "Why'd you do this?" And I said, "Blee, seemed like a good idea at the time." Right away, they know they're going south with you. You can leave, you know, right now. And I don't know what other people were doing. I never sat in the court. I didn't care. But public opinion got so big over it in Bucher's favor.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right, people were *bleep*.
>> John Mitchell: Oh, yeah. There was a lot of anger across, not just San Diego, across the United States. These admirals realized this is not going -- they wanted to turn left, and the court turned right. So they finally just said, "No, we're going to stop." Right in the middle of it, they just go, "That's it. We're done. You guys can go." It's like, Bucher's like, "No problem." I think whoever was Secretary of the Navy at the time made a statement about, "Oh, this is not fair." He basically repeated what the public was saying and used that as an excuse to get out from under it. Because after a while, you could see that the court of inquiry was the ones who were -- the questions were backfiring on them.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: And the public could see that, too. Everybody could see that.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: It's their fault.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: And you could tell in the questions, they're trying to shuffle that on Bucher's plate, you know. And he wasn't the kind of guy to take too much. I mean, he's pretty polite when he answers. But he wasn't the kind of person who took a lot of *bleep*, even off the Navy, you know. And so if they were going to screw him, he was going to just go after them back, which worked out pretty well for him. And, you know, if we didn't have the public behind us, that would have never happened, you know. But the public was behind us. There was bumper stickers on every car that said, you know, something about the Pueblo, "Save the Pueblo", whatever. And so all that stuff was everywhere. Billboards, you know, that had been done before we got back of, you know, "Save the Pueblo". And it they got talk show time in San Diego. So I didn't know a lot of this until much later when I started looking back in newspapers and stuff. I never watched television down there. I'm not sure we ever had one.
>> Roman Sotomayor: The Court of Inquiry ended on March of 1968. It had now been nearly three months since the crew's release from captivity. As the days passed by, John and other members of the crew began to wonder when the Navy would finally set them loose from the base in Coronado where they'd been staying in San Diego.
>> John Mitchell: After the Court of Inquiry was closed, everything was kind of up in the air. We were all kind of wondering, like, when will we get out of here? And one of the guys comes in, he says, "I'm going home tomorrow." We all go, "What?" He goes, "Oh, I'm out of here tomorrow. I just got to sign some papers." And we were going like, "Well, what makes you special, you know?" And he said, "Well, my mom called my congressman, and the congressman called somebody, and they said, let him go home." And we're going like, "Well, what's that leave the rest of us?" So we all run for the pay phone, you know, called our parents. And by the end of that day, we were all told to go get the -- it's amazing. I've got the papers, and it's like your final, like, medical -- never saw anybody. They just said, "Sign the sheet." Sign for a couple things that were going to pay you off, give you travel pay to get home, and then you're out of here. So, yeah, but that non-disclosure -- I want to call it a non-disclosure, but it's not. It's like, "I'm 100% well, and I'll never come back, and you'll never see me again." And even later, when I realized after I'd been home quite a while, I realized things weren't right. So I tried to get them, and at every turn, they go, "You're who? You're who?" You know? And in reality, we were supposed to be at the top of the food chain with the VA.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: Of course, nobody's going to tell you that. And at that time, there was no internet, so you couldn't go in there and search all this stuff. We were just starting to get into stuff like that. The more we looked, the more you found that the letter couldn't possibly be legal.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right.
>> John Mitchell: But later, and I'm talking like 10 years ago, I get all my documentation and this huge box of stuff. Well, that doesn't exist, that letter we signed. And I've called other guys, and they're going like, "No, I never saw that again." I think there's a reason you never saw it again. They just shredded those right up real quick, you know. But I went down to a veteran I knew who was an attorney here in Eureka, and he says, at that time, you couldn't have an attorney. Now you can have an attorney represent you. And lots of guys go that way for disability stuff because usually you have a better chance. The judge can do whatever he wants to do, and they don't have to worry about whatever. But everything was kind of like that. It was like this attorney, he says, "I'll write you a letter. It's not going to have a lot, but it might shake them up a bit."
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: You know, just having it on my stationary, it's not from you, it's from me, and he's a veteran and stuff. And I get a call, he says, "Oh, I've got a letter back for you from the Navy." I said, "Okay". And I went in there, and I go, "Well, what did it say?" I didn't read it at first. I just go, "Well, what did they say?" He says, "They don't know you, and they don't want to know you." So he says, "I don't know what you can do in the meantime."
>> Roman Sotomayor: On top of the difficulties reintegrating into civilian life, the crew also continued to face troubles with having their status as prisoners of war acknowledged. Upon their return, most of the men would receive no medals after the Pueblo, not even Purple Hearts, save for those who were most seriously wounded. For two decades, Bucher would lobby for his crew to receive proper recognition from the government. The Pentagon would rule the Pueblo crew ineligible for the Prisoner of War medal enacted in 1985, claiming the crew was merely "illegally detained" and weren't held during a period of war. Keep in mind, however, the Korean War ended with a military armistice and not a formal peace treaty. Then, in 1989, the Investigation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services held hearings about the decision to exclude the men from the POW medal. California Republican Congressman Robert Lagomarsino, who served as the chairman of the POW-MIA Task Force and was the House author of the measure that created the POW medal, was a major advocate for the crew during this time. The POW medal itself has an interesting and complicated history, and proposals for its creation by other representatives had been shot down over the years prior to Lagomarsino's authorship. Regardless, facing pressure now from Congress and the public, the Navy agreed in 1990 to award the men their medals and formally recognize them as prisoners of war, now 22 years after their imprisonment. The absurdity of this process was not lost on John, who recalls the contradicting information given to him by the Navy. Were they in combat, or weren't they? Were they prisoners, or were they detainees?
>> John Mitchell: Well, it's still funny, like, the Korean War is still on.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right, even though --
>> John Mitchell: Even today, you know, there's --
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right.
>> John Mitchell: So, I got, from Korea, a Korean War medal.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: I didn't get one from the U.S.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: And, you know, people have talked about it, but it's like, to me, it's not really a big deal. Some guys get really into this stuff, and I just don't want to fight about it. You know, they want to give it to me, fine. If they don't, fine. That's like a lot of guys right away got a Purple Heart, and then the rest of us got them six months later in the mail, you know. And a handful of guys got called and, "Oh, go to San Diego. We're going to have a big ceremony." I went to the ceremony, but I kept going, like, "Well, what'd they do that I didn't do?" You know?
>> Roman Sotomayor: Why didn't you all get Purple Hearts?
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, I mean, it's like, excuse me.
>> Roman Sotomayor: What you said, yeah.
>> John Mitchell: Well, it was like, I think I told you before, I finally decided to kind of get into the ballgame on this thing. And so, I don't know why, I called Navy Records and stuff. There's a big place in St. Louis, and I called them. And I get some JAG officer, attorney, naval attorney, on the phone. Good thing he was in the Navy, he never made it on the outside, this guy. You know? He's going, "Well, you guys never saw -- why would you get this, because you never saw combat." I'm saying, "There's a ship with a lot of holes in it, I don't know." Just because I didn't get shot meant I was good at ducking, you know. And, God, you know, and I said, "Well, I'll send you the rest of them. I'll send you my medals back." And he's going, "Well, why would you do that?" And I said, "Well, they were all awarded with a V, which means they were awarded under combat conditions." So you're either right here, or you're wrong, or flip it around, it's all or nothing, and you can't --yeah, so I'll just send them back, I don't give a *bleep*. And, you know, he just keeps yapping on. And finally I go, "You know what? I'm figuring out you're too *bleep* dumb to be in a conversation with me. I'm wasting my time. I'm hanging up." Click. And it was less than a week from there, I don't know, Bucher made a bunch of stink. Oh, the guy who wrote this whole thing on POWs and stuff updated it and put that POW medal out.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: This congressman stated that he never thought of this until it was us. So he says, "I wrote the bill and I figured you all would be smart enough to figure it out, but obviously not. So now I'm telling you, they were the ones, the inspiration why I wrote it to start with. So just because you're too dumb to figure it out" -- he kind of went at them pretty good, you know. And that showed up pretty fast after that, you know. So, all my stuff -- well, I was up there at that shop in the Sierras and I get this letter in a mail and it says, "You have been awarded some stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, and we want to hold a ceremony for you in San Francisco at the Navy base," which meant there were like three guys there with a cupcake, you know. It was not much of a big deal. I wasn't even going to go, but I happened to mention it to my dad. And my dad went, "Oh, my God, you got awarded these things." You know, and I'm going -- I can see where this is headed, you know. So I had to like, please my family, otherwise I wouldn't have gone. They could have just put them in the mail. But my dad wanted to go down and go through the whole thing.
>> Roman Sotomayor: For John, this push and pull with the government would continue in the background throughout his life, especially with the Veterans Administration or VA. It's important to understand that the VA has a disability rating system, which determines how much disability compensation a Veteran receives each month along with their eligibility for other benefits. The system works in percentages, which are meant to reflect how much a service-connected disability impairs a Veteran's overall functioning and earning capacity. The rating itself can be based on medical reports provided by the veterans of the VA, results of VA exams, and other information the VA receives from sources like federal agencies. If a Veteran has more than one disability, those disabilities are then calculated separately and turned into a combined rating. For example, if a Veteran's highest rated disability is at 44% and their lowest rated disability is 20%, then their combined rating is 55%. That number is then rounded up or down. So in this case, the final rating is 60%. Okay, so that was a little sidebar done by us as non-experts. Perhaps one day we'll have an expert on who can explain this much better. Veterans should always consult with the VA, an accredited Veterans Service Organization representative, or another qualified benefits professional to better understand the rating system. That being said, we asked John if he could explain this system to us to see what he thought about it.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, I can't explain it. You know, that's like trying to explain -- it's like I could probably do better on quantum physics, and I don't know anything about that. Yeah, it's just they got this bizarre like 30% isn't 30%. It could be 10%. 70% could be 40% or it could be 30%. I've seen guys online try to tell you how it works, and when you get done, you just go like, "What did he say?"
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> John Mitchell: You know, it's like he's got it all written down. He's just reading it off, and you go like, "It doesn't make any sense." So I don't know why when they -- you could be 100% and not 100%.
>> Roman Sotomayor: And not getting 100%.
>> John Mitchell: Not getting 100%, yeah. So it's a mix and mash bag, and some things work better than others. I went off with post-traumatic stress disorder, and this is what I was told at the time. They said, "Well, we're going to give you 70%. That's as high as we can go because if we go to 100%, we'll take your money and lock you up." You know, and so nobody wants to have that happen, so that's how we do it. But you still get paid at 100%. "Okay. Okay, I get that." No, I don't. Yeah, I don't know who wrote this system or came up with it. Somebody maybe wasn't real good at math at grammar school. I have no idea. But it is what it is. I mean, the thing you really want if you get to 100% is you need to be -- we call it P&T. It's permanent and total. It means once you get that -- and I got it right out, first shot. A lot of people don't. They have to keep coming back and working for it. And what I mean working for it, it's like you have to fight with the VA. Permanent and total means that they can never call you back to talk about what they just gave you. They can't use it against you. It's yours forever and ever and ever. And total means you're at 100% and that will never change. Okay, that's fine. Getting there sometimes can be hard. Sometimes can be fairly easy. I don't remember mine being too hard, getting to 100%. So we're a dying breed. I still have a lot of disability stuff in the works because I live part-time in Laos. And I don't have medical insurance there. VA won't cover anything except things that are related to your disabilities. So right now, the things that I have that I just ignored that I can get -- even if I just get 10% on each one, once I have them say, "Yes, it's our fault." And I've already just got one that said, "We're not going to give you any rating on the number, but we're owning up to it was caused by, you know, your military service." That's kind of weird. "There's something wrong with you and it's our fault, but we're not going to give you anything." So I'm just trying to get as many things as I can think of, because there's a whole list that are what they call presumptives. Like a POW, they got a whole list and any of those things, they're not really supposed to -- they question them and they go through all the BS. But it's almost impossible then to argue against you.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right. Those ones are set in stone, presumptives.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. You've got to kind of show you have it.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right.
>> John Mitchell: But, yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things with the VA that --
>> Roman Sotomayor: It's like the math.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, it's like the math. And if you try to outthink this system, you will have a headache. You know, and I've had a lot of headaches.
>> Roman Sotomayor: We asked John about his attitude and thoughts during that time following his release from North Korea and how captivity affected his personality afterward. If you've ever met John, you know he's quick with a comment and stands his ground. Our team was curious if this came from surviving his imprisonment or if he'd always had this attitude toward life. Did he feel that he'd already lived through the worst of the worst and now he wasn't going to take anyone's *bleep*? John shared with us his reflections on how his experience affected his personality over the years.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, so I think it was a combination of two. Even when I was just starting in high school, it was kind of a warning from my dad. He says, "If something happens and you're right, I'll back you to the hilt. Well, if something happens and you're in the wrong, look out because it's going to backfire and come home with you." And that's just how he was. And I knew he wasn't -- he was a sweet guy, but he wasn't fooling when he said stuff. And then kind of growing up, I got into things at school which wasn't right on their part. And he did go down and back me up 100% and the school had to eat it all. So I'd always saw him like kind of a crusader, always taking the right side of something, then never backing down. He never backed down from anything. I mean, I'd never seen him hit anybody or get into that mode, but he just didn't back up. But that's just how he was. I was right, they were wrong and he was going to make it right. But I really wasn't that way. And I think it's almost like you come back and it's almost like being reborn. And I guess it can go both ways, you know, but I just felt like I'd already taken enough *bleep*. You know, I'm not backing up anymore. That's it. It kind of like empowers you. You grow up, for one. You don't realize, you're 19, 20 years old, and you think, *bleep*, you know stuff, you know. You don't, you know. Some people -- I probably do -- but I didn't know anybody like that. You know, I mean, I knew people would got their lives together really fast, but it wasn't like they were much smarter than school, but they kind of learned and made it through the whole thing okay. But yeah, I don't think about it much, but it does. It did. And I had to learn to control. I had a lot of anger issues and stuff I had to learn to get rid of. I never really, really get rid of it the way -- I mean, in the sense where we're starting to move towards something not good till I went to Laos to live. That was the biggest thing, you know, positive in my life that smoothed things out. So you didn't know me before. You know, it was like more to the max, you know? So yeah, it wasn't till I got back and -- I don't know. I don't know what causes that to happen. Maybe being there and not having any control, no control. You know, the only thing they ain't doing for you is breathing and they own the air that you're breathing. So I think it *bleep* you off that you have no power. Everybody needs a little power in their life. And it would just pop out at wrong times. I mean, if I was here, everything was pretty cool and PG&E for a long time made it easy for me. I never really wanted to be a truck driver, but in the department I was in, it was the highest paying job for some reason. I took that job because everybody went to work at eight o'clock but me. I was allowed to come in. I had a good excuse. I said, "Oh, I got to come in." You got to check your truck before you're driving. I'm always in the way of everybody. La, la, la. Let me come in at seven. I'll be out of the gate before people are even coming in. So it wasn't like I didn't like the guys at work. I just wanted to be alone. I mean, one of the guys, we didn't know we were all -- there's so many veterans in the yard. Nobody knew anybody was a veteran for years. And then I go into work one day and a guy goes, "Hey, I saw you on TV last night." And I said, "*bleep*, what are they, out looking for me or something?" You know, I think, "Oh, sheriff's looking for me." "No, no. It was like some documentary about the Pueblo." And I said, "Yeah." And he says, "Well, I didn't know you were on there. Why didn't you tell me?" And I'm going like, like, "What do I do? Just walk up to you and go, hi, I was on the Pueblo?" I said, "I don't know. It was just that"-- so it started to open. It was a crack that opened. And pretty soon guys are going, coming and talking. "Oh, I was a veteran, too. I'm a veteran, too." So just little by little, we started learning about each other. But it was so late into our careers. And my career stopped short. So I got out pretty early. I got out at 39.
[ Music ]
>> Roman Sotomayor: Moving through the decades, John described how his relationship with his second wife, Souk, provided him with steady ground upon which to properly consider his experience in North Korea, leading to moments that surprised even him.
>> John Mitchell: My wife had been -- for years, we flew through on Korean Airline through Seoul or, I guess, called Incheon. And she's pretty perceptive. She's the kind of person that if you're around her long enough, you're going to trust what she says because she's pretty grounded. She kept trying to get me off the plane to go in and go to the border. And I'm going, "I crossed the border. I don't want to go back to the border, you know." And I went on and on. And finally one year I said, "All right, maybe it'll be good. Okay, I'll do it." So we make the trip where we got a week off. And, you know, I mean, they treated us really good. They treated us like celebrities. They took us out to steak dinners and all this stuff they did for us. But it was very, very strange to see the bridge we came across. Everything around us was wrong. The buildings which were there for -- we came up over, we walked up over a hill, and all these Quonset huts, you know. And they took us in there and we had lunch. And, you know, things happen so fast coming across. You walk across, you get in a bus, you go have lunch, you fly in helicopters to the hospital. It's like, you know, it's not like you're on a tourist thing, which I was now on a tourist thing looking at it. And I'm going like, "Oh, no, I don't know." Yeah, I think in the long run it was good for me. As I know, I'm the only one of the crew members that have been -- Souk's been in North Korea where they have the meetings between North and South. Part of it's a tourist place. I went in and bought a patch that said I'd been to the DMZ. And, you know, they had all these little doodads.
>> Roman Sotomayor: You didn't get that when you first --
>> John Mitchell: No, I didn't get that. I didn't get -- well, I still got the clothes I came across in stashed somewhere.
>>3 By this point, our time with John was starting to come to a close. It was late in the afternoon, and we were all ready for lunch. And so Liam asked a question that had been on all of our minds.
>> Liam Salcuni: If you had a chance to go back and do it all over again and enlist, would you do it? Or I suppose, like, would you still feel confident in enlisting, you know, now that you know, you know -- I don't know. Not that you didn't know the risks or consequences of something happening like this. Would you still want to join up?
>> John Mitchell: I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. I'll answer and see if I get it, because I have thought about it a bunch. If everything in my life behind me right now, if I had it all to do over, I wouldn't change a minute. No. I think so much has come out of it in a positive direction. You know, it's not like it was easy, you know, but I'm in a spot that I like. I mean, I'm on my second marriage and we've been married 26 years in July. And it was a marriage nobody thought would work. Kind of interesting, but yeah, everybody's going, "Yeah, all right." But we're still here doing it. And I think we're still both happy. And, you know, I got physical things wrong with me, probably got mental things wrong with me too, but I'm through it, you know, far enough. I'm 77 and yeah, you know, I made friends out of it, you know, brothers in arms. You know, we've always kind of tried to take care of each other. Kind of hard scattered all over America in some way, you know. And I think I learned a lot out of the experience. I didn't realize how young and dumb I was till like, you know, I was in a room there with a bunch of older guys that had been in the Navy, you know, eight, 10 years. I don't know. And, you know, I had to kind of lean on them for what to do. Well, they were all pay grades above me, but, you know, the room, we got weird on that kind of thing. It wasn't quite as military, you know. If it came down to it, it would be. I had a first class petty officer who *bleep* me off. I came over the table and tried to smack him a few times. You know, him and I turned out to be, in spite of the fact he looked a bit older than me, we turned out to be good buds out of the whole thing. And yeah, it's funny, one person remembers one thing and other people remember something else at the same exact time. And the reunions are good for that because you remember more and more, not always good, but you remember more and more. And so you have the feedback back and forth and nobody remembers it quite the same. There's so many blanks I have. Maybe they're blanks for a reason. I don't know, but yeah, you know, doing something like this is strange because we're going through a lot in one day and I don't usually talk about it, I don't think. You know, I probably think about it more because I've joined the American Legion post and I come there. I think I remember it more just because I go in there, but that's not bad. You know, it gets a little harder all the time. I have a harder time from things over there. I have a harder time walking. It's just a bunch of little stuff, but it all adds up. And, you know, even today I have to work it. I get up some days and I just go like, "*Bleep*, I don't even want to go through today." You know, it's like, "Oh my God." Then I get up, come downstairs and she's here. We get a cup of coffee. All's usually well with the world at that point. You know, pain issues go up and down. You know, you learn to deal with it all. Laos is still a key for me. We've built a house over there, which it's nothing big or fancy, but it's mine and hers. And it's made the dynamics of being there a lot different. We've always before lived in the house with the rest of the family. That's a little strange for me and now strange for her. So that's where I go to chill out. The phone don't ring. I don't answer it here either. She answers it and filters out what I don't need to know. Like people at the American Legion have my phone number, at least most of them, I think. That's a different situation. They can text me or call me, everybody. See again, that's all veterans. I don't want a bunch of everybody else calling me, you know? So I don't know. It's a weird thing that you're in. Even if you're not in combat, what draws us all together? We've got common ground.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Today, John continues to go to Pueblo reunions with his wife, Souk. He shared with us a bit of insight into what these reunions mean for him and the other members of the crew.
>> John Mitchell: And I have been blessed. You know, we have reunions. And at first you kind of click into the guys you were in the room with and guys you hung out with. Like when we first got aboard ship and all the young guys, we all hung out together and we'd go drink together and it was like this little pod. And so a lot of those guys -- some of those guys have died off. Some of those guys are not in good enough shape to make the reunions. But I have been blessed to -- especially one couple, they are in their 80s. And I wish I had their -- she says he fakes it a lot, that he's in worse shape than you see. You know, that's probably true. I mean, I can do that too. I can walk around like, go to something that's public and we can look really good, you know. But yeah, he was way up the ladder from me. You know, he was way older. So I had nothing in common with this guy. Well, everything got smaller and you got this group that makes the reunion. And we just started to hang out with this couple and now we just hang. We've just become really good friends the last two reunions. And she calls here, calls Souk once in a while and keeps tabs. You know, so there's still an invisible bond there that holds you all together.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Throughout our recording, John would tell us about his trips to Asia. His home is filled with souvenirs that surrounded us as we recorded in his beautiful dining room. It's on one such trip to Laos that he met his wife, Souk. Despite his captivity in North Korea, his love for that side of the world never went away. And it became clear to all of us how important those experiences were to him. So after spending what was probably close to six hours together, it feels right for us to close our series with John on this next note.
>> John Mitchell: I guess part of why I tell that is sometimes I think that's a little small goal just to get to Southeast Asia to see these people dance. But it gets you out the door. And if I can tell it to other young people, tell my story a bit, it's set yourself a goal. Go do it. Go out in the world. Take a chance. I've only made -- the only time I've ever moved really forward, I took a chance. Not the easy way, never, you know. Taking the easy way never gets you where you really want to go. So maybe we should eat. Anybody hungry? I mean, you're all staring at me.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Thank you to our listeners for taking the time to join us in this special three-part "SNAFUBAR" series with John Mitchell. In this series, we took you through the start of the USS Pueblo's journey as a ship bound up in turmoil over repairs and regulations. We went through a timeline of events surrounding the Pueblo incident. And finally, we spoke with John about his experiences after leaving the service.
>> Sara Hart: Right. And our thanks just, again, go out to John for recording with us, for sharing his story, for spending his time. We are unendingly grateful.
>> Roman Sotomayor: John has also participated in putting together a resource titled "Manual for Veterans' Dependents: What Every Veteran's Spouse Should Know Before Their Veteran Dies". This book contains guidance on preparing for the death of a veteran, along with resources and forms to assist in the process. And as in our previous episodes, you can find this book in PDF form on the Arcata Veterans Hall website. Link in the show notes.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. And really do check it out, Any Dependents of Veterans or Veterans Yourself. It's incredibly useful. This has been a labor of love. It's taken years. It's really thorough. So this episode, Roman, it really reminds us that behind all of the "SNAFUBAR" stories that we share on this podcast are veterans, you know. And many of them, especially for our recent episodes, many are still living. They have their own stories. And they don't always align with the strict historical narrative. They come at it from all kinds of angles. And, you know, I think it's our hope here that in listening to these stories, we can better engage in a nuanced understanding of war, an understanding that includes the experiences of veterans who have lived it.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah. And, you know, even as John said, the Pueblo story doesn't just start and end with him.
>> Sara Hart: Right.
>> Roman Sotomayor: You know, he talked to us about how there's other veterans of the Pueblo whose stories are different from his, who they're kind of plugging in the gaps in each other's memory here. So, you know, there's this sort of rebuilding of a narrative that you kind of have to dig into when listening to these stories.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah, and it's neat to hear it because you sort of realize how much in doing history this way is you've done it with like such a clear and thorough timeline layout with details and research. But then we talk to John and we hear John talk about his buddies and we hear John talk about his own past visions and awarenesses of how things happen, his own past recollections and how they differ from his recollections today. And we it kind of highlights the degree to which history is a living thing.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: There's no singularity to it.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Right. Yeah. And then and I mean, because it's living, it also can slip through our grasp. It can escape us if we're not willing to listen, if we're not willing to engage in hearing it. It's sort of like and there it goes. Right? So I think it's very important for us who haven't lived this life to, you know, really dig in and listen to this with our veterans. And it's surprising to me, I think, in just the years I've spent with the American Legion here in Arcata, how different everyone's perspective is from what you might think it will be and how much it can help better shape your own perceptions and understanding of the military, of war. You know, nobody is a monolith. And so I think, you know, it's really important to do this kind of thing. To better live into a world of engaged witness with our veterans, we really encourage you to look into your local organizations that support veterans. Get started with this today. You can do that by researching your local Offices of Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion Post, Veterans of Foreign War Post, AMVETS and other local veteran service offices, also known as VSOs. There's, of course, a litany of veteran support organizations that cater to specific needs with particular goals. And you can dig deeper into online research to find these. You know, whatever your niche is, there's one for veterans. And of course, you can check our show notes for additional information. We'll provide links to some of these organizations there as well. So we'll see you next time in "The SNAFUBAR". Stay frosty out there.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. Right.
[ Laughter ]