James Kell remembers the cramped North Korean prison barracks, the watery soup and bits of hairy pork, the fist coming toward his face.
And 25 years later, the USS Pueblo crewman also remembers coming home to the suspicions surrounding the spy ship's capture, still as mysterious today as the nation that seized it."North Korea's so unpredictable, anything can happen," Kell said as today's 25th anniversary of the Pueblo crew's release approached. "We saw that then, and we're seeing it's still true today," he said, referring to the U.S.-North Korean standoff over North Korea's nuclear program.
The Pueblo's capture Jan. 23, 1968, by a communist nation was a shock to the United States, then deeply involved in the Vietnam War. North Korea said the spy ship, disguised as an environmental research ship, was inside its waters. The U.S. government said the Pueblo was in international waters.
North Korean ships surrounded the Pueblo and opened fire, killing one sailor and wounding 10. North Korean forces boarded the ship and brought it ashore. Its 82 crew members were held 11 months.
After their release, Cmdr. Lloyd "Pete" Bucher was blamed for letting the Pueblo fall into enemy hands without firing a shot and for failing to destroy the ship's classified material, including dozens of spy books and encryption machines.
A Navy panel recommended Bucher be court-martialed, but he was never brought to trial. He has defended himself staunchly for years.
"It was a terribly embarrassing thing for the Navy," said Bucher, now 66, retired and painting seascapes in the San Diego suburb of Poway.
But he said that the Pueblo was basically unarmed and that nearby aircraft carriers ignored calls for help. He acknowledged the crew could have done a better job of destroying classified material. But he said the Navy had ignored his requests, before the capture, for a new incinerator.
"The Court of Inquiry never went far enough in looking into why no one helped us," Bucher said. "I guess they never wanted to wash that particular laundry in public."
But Pueblo second-in-command Edward R. Murphy Jr., now a camper salesman in the suburb of El Cajon, said the Pueblo's orders were to avoid detection or contact with North Korean ships. He put the blame on Bucher.
"We were well-versed in the fact that because of the nature of the mission, there was no way for help to respond quickly," Murphy said.
In a 1988 book, Robert Liston theorized that the National Security Agency had intended for the Pueblo to be seized in a plot to place rigged intelligence gear into communist hands. Bucher called that nonsense, and Murphy agreed.
For years, Murphy, Bucher and other crewmen fought to wipe out the slight they believe they suffered.
In 1990, 64 crewmen gathered in San Diego to receive the Prisoner of War medal, won after a fight against the Pentagon, which had excluded them from getting the decoration by ruling they were detainees and not POWs.