REMEMBERING THE PUEBLO
Director's Notes
I was all of 12 years of age when The USS PUEBLO was seized, and her captain
and crew captured. I remember the day ... and recall how all those subsequent days turned into weeks,
and the weeks turned into months. Although theatre has been my life's calling since the age of 7, I had imagined a second
calling with an interest in government, political science, and American foreign policy due entirely at the time to the PUEBLO
crew's ordeal of being so brutally mistreated on one side of the globe and seemingly forgotten on the other.
Knowing very little at the time of how the world works, but knowing I had to do something (as doing something, I believed,
was a lot better than doing nothing), I had written a letter to the one man I believed was our last great hope, who -- if
there was a way of getting the crew released -- knew the way ... the man who I and millions of others felt would be our
next President: Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Several months later, Senator Kennedy was killed.
Eleven agonizing months to the day The PUEBLO's crew was captured,
they were finally released. I vividly recall as if it was yesterday Commander Bucher and his crew descending the plane's
steps to the Navy Band striking up Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull": the sweetest music all of us following their
ordeal and keeping them in our daily thoughts and prayers could ever hear. What a day! What a Christmas present!
But even though they were now on free ground, their hell was to continue.
For 40 years the desire to thank these men, to tell them how much they mean
to us, how much they're appreciated, and how proud we are of them has been immense. September 12, 2008 we will be presented
with that opportunity. "PUEBLO" is their story, and our duty to tell it. This
one comes from the heart.
We cannot forget THE PUEBLO. We cannot allow ourselves
to forget. And we cannot forget the men who proudly served aboard. They performed their jobs honorably, and
as a result, suffered a torturous engulfing hell. They were victims, and they are heroes -- each and every one of them.
This incident and their ordeal should be ingrained in the hearts, the memories, and the national conscience of Americans everywhere
and for all time. We must never forget.
In addition to our mainstage production this fall, we will be presenting
"PUEBLO" as a very special private "tribute" performance for the crew of The USS PUEBLO at their 40th anniversary reunion
in New England in September, 2008. It is the honor of a lifetime.
"REMEMBER THE PUEBLO" was the same cry in 1968 as it
should still be today. To that, however, we are adding our appeal for the still captive ship which continues
to suffer immeasureable injustice to this day; and it is time ... long overdue time ... to bring her
home:
"RETURN THE PUEBLO"
Karey Faulkner
Producing Artistic Director
and
Chair,
Committee to Return The PUEBLO
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