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CMDR. LLOYD BUCHER
The Southern Cross, January 16,1969 — PAGE 5
FAMILY CLINIC
Schoolmate At Boystown
Recalls Pueblo Skipper
By John J. Kane, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
University of Notre Dame
I am lonely most of the
time even though I have a
husband and three children.
We moved from a large city
to a smaller town and the
neighbors seem aloof. I
desperately need company
during the day. I would like
neighbors, especially an older
woman, to come in and chat.
Perhaps this problem appears
trivial but to me it is not.
* * *
Your problem, Sarah, does
not seem trivial to me and I
don’t believe it will appear
trivial to most readers.
Loneliness in American
society is only too real for to
many people. Our society
does tend to be an impersonal
one in which this feeling of
being solitary, cut off from
others is not unique.
We have large numbers of
people who suffer alienation.
As Robert Merton, a
sociologist, has pointed out
we have a certain discrepency
between the goals which are
highly valued in our society
and the means by which to
reach them. To be wealthy,
to be beautiful or handsome,
to be popular are all goals
which are highly valued in
American life. Unfortunately
for some, there is little,
perhaps absolutely no
opportunity of becoming
wealthy, beautiful, handsome
or popular. Yet these persons
deserve the goals as much as
any of the others who may be
able to achieve them.
The basic problem in this
kind of loneliness is that one
despairs of being able to
attain a goal because society
wittingly or unwittingly has
placed certain blocs in the
path toward the goal for
some people.
To return to your own
particular problem, your
loneliness does seem to stem
from a rather usual source.
Since you do have a husband
and children your loneliness
would apparently occur only
during the daytime hours
when I assume the family is
at work or school. It is also
prompted by the fact that
you have moved from a large
city where apparently you
had many friends and
relatives to a comparatively
small town where you know
almost no one. Your desire
for the companionship of an
older woman is quite readily
understood although I could
not produce all of your
comments in the introduction
to this column. You are
looking for a mother
surrogate because at least in
your opinion you never really
had a mother.
Your situation is unusual
because generally it is much
easier to become acquainted
with people in a smaller town
than in a large city. You will
recall the stoney indifference
of onlookers to the plight of
Miss Genovese who was killed
before 37 witnesses in New
York City. Not a single
person called the police. As a
stunt, a New York reporter
laid on the subway steps
during a busy part of the day
to see if anyone would offer
to help him. He was there
four hours before anyone
bothered with him.
Another unusual aspect is
that so far as friendship to a
stranger is concerned, or
perhaps I should say to
newcomers, it seems to be
much stronger in the
middlewest than it would be
in the northeastern part of
the United States. So I am
more or less forced to
conclude that perhaps the
fault rests more with you
than with your neighbors.
If one wishes to have
neighbors, then she must first
prove herself to be a good
neighbor. If the neighbors did
not call on you when you
moved in, and I presume that
this custom is becoming
almost extinct except in
certain areas of the country, I
would see no harm in your
inviting the people on either
side of you at the same time
or at different times to drop in
for a cup of coffee. I would
not do this on the spur of the
moment. But when you meet
them as you must meet them
occasionally in the yard or in a
store, suggest that one or the
other or both drop over some
morning for a cup of coffee or
that you will give them a call
if they are free. Don’t press it
too hard, but offer it as
courteously and as kindly as
possible.
There are many other
ways by which you can
acquire friends in a strange
city. One of the most obvious
is through the church. True
enough, Catholics do not
tend to mingle so much after
Mass as our Protestant
b ret hern do after their
services. But there are certain
events such as the c Parents
Association, Sodality, Altar
and Rosary Society and social
events held in the church.
You should make it a point
to join some of these societies
and to attend some of these
meetings. You certainly will
meet people.
There is also the
possibility of urging your
husband to invite some of his
business friends and their
wives to dinner. This is
certainly one of the best
approaches that I can think
of. He and his men friends
have something in common
already and to some extent
you and their wives will share
something in common
because your husbands work
together.
Finally, I should like to
add that perhaps you are an
extremly shy person. It may
be that you fall silent, you
cannot carry on conversations
easily and you may even feel
somewhat inferior especially
in the presence of strangers.
In other words, you may be
just too self-conscious. If this
is the case, I would
particularly urge you, if time
permits, to enter into some
volunteer organization work
such as the Grey Ladies at a
hospital. Here, because you
will be helping others, you
will think less of yourself,
and hopefully your
self-consciousness will
completely disappear.
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(The author of the
following article, executive
editor of The Priest magazine,
is a graduate of Boys Town
and a former U. S. Air Force
Chaplain.)
By Father Clifford Stevens
(NC News Service)
I was at Itazuke Air Base,
Japan, a chaplain in the Air
Force at the time, when I
heard of the capture of the
U.S.S. Pueblo. The name
jogged my memory, but it
took the picture of the
captain, LLoyd Bucher, on
the front page of the Stars
and Stripes to recall where I
had heard it. Several months
before, I had received my
regular copy of the Boys
Town Times, and there in a
lengthy article was an
account of Commander
Bucher being assigned as
captain of the U.S.S. Pueblo.
At the time, the name of the
ship did not interest me
particularly, but now the
whole Pueblo affair became a
matter of intense personal
interest.
I remembered “Pete”
Bucher as a good-looking,
always smiling, and rather shy
fellow, two or three years
behind me at Boys Town. We
used to meet occasionally
after I graduated from Boys
Town and was attending
Creighton University in
Omaha. He was very popular,
eventually became one of
Boys Town’s great football
stars, and was known for an
infectuous wit and an innate
kindness.
Hard-working, diligent and
deep-down tough, he was
friendly, bursting with
enthusiasm, and there was an
inherent compassion about
him that was rather unique
for a tough football player.
His thoughtfulness was a
legend at Boys Town.
After his graduation, he
joined the Navy and then
worked his Way up through
According to a front page
story in the Christian Family
Movement (CFM) monthly
publication, Act, Father
Edward Kohler, Assistant
National Chaplain of CFM is
planning an eighteen day trip
to visit CFM groups in several
southern cities.
Included in Father
Kohler’s itinerary is
Savannah. Father will arrive
here on Saturday evening
January twenty-fifth, having
first visited in Richmond,
Raleigh and Atlanta. Father
Kevin Boland, Director of
CFM for the Diocese of
Savannah, in a letter to all
leader couples in the area
revealed that Father Kohler
will speak in Savannah at two
meetings.
Group leader couples and
chaplains from the diocese
will get together with the
national chaplain on Saturday
night the twenty-fifth. All
CFMers and interested
individuals are invited to a
the ranks, studied hard and
received his commission as a
naval officer. A devoted
husband and father, and an
exemplary officer, no one at
Boys^ Town was surprised
when he was given command
of thePueblo.
As commander of the
Pueblo, he showed the same
toughness and yet the same
deep humanity that he had
shown at Boys Town. A
superb commander, he was as
much concerned for the
welfare of his men as he was
for the ship’s mission, and all
these traits blossomed after
the capture of the Pueblo by
the North Koreans and the
imprisonment of the crew
began.
Lloyd Bucher represents,
indeed, a new breed of
military commander, one that
is becoming increasingly more
common in today’s military
establishment.
Highly educated, resilient
and flexible and capable of
tough decisions under the
most demanding of
circumstances, he still is able
to lead in such a way that
every man in his command is
inspired to give his best to
his work. In contrast to the
old type of military leader
who dominated everything by
his personality and his will, a
commander like Bucher,
while he knows everything
that is going on in his
command, is able to direct
the talents and energies of his
men in an atmosphere of
mutual respect, mutual
responsibility and wholesome
freedom.
His concern for his men
was evident in every word
that he spoke after the crew’s
release. He led them in
courage and in opposition to
the enemy, even demanding
that his own life be taken,
when his men were
threatened.
Rather than risk the lives
of all of his crew, he was not
two o’clock session on
Sunday afternoon the
twenty-sixth at St. Benedict’s
Parish.
President Couple of
the Savannah Federation,
Lou and Marge Castillian are
in charge of arrangements.
Father Kohler, a native
FR. KOHLER
unwilling to verbally admit
that he had disobeyed orders,
even though both he and the
enemy knew this to be
untrue.
Aware that he was faced
with a rather unique situation
in his capture by North
Korea, he reacted uniquely
and preserved both the spirits
and the lives of his crew
through a long and trying
ordeal.
Undoubtedly, his training
at Boys Town had much to
do with Pete Bucher’s
character and personality.
The unique community,
founded by Father Edward
Flanagan in 1917, emphasizes
a maximum of freedom and a
maximum of responsibility in
the qitizens of Boys Town. It
tames the overtough and
toughens the soft by a
community life which
demands the best of its
members, and it provides for
a wide range of achievements
in civic, artistic, scholastic
and atheletic fields.
The somewhat shy Pete
Bucher, under the heavy
hammering of “Skip”
Palrang, Boys Town’s
hard-hitting football coach,
became a superb athlete and a
remarkable football player.
He learned leadership in a
hard school and his healthy
competitive spirit was seen
later when he pounded the
college textbooks and worked
hard for his college degree
and his naval commission.
I watched the television
screen when the pictures of
the release of the Pueblo crew
were shown, and the thin,
firmly erect and even smiling
Pete Bucher watched as his
crew crossed the bridge
behind him.
I am sure, too, that the
citizens of Boys Town were
watching, remembering that
he had once been just another
citizen like themselves and
wondering perhaps what the
future might demand of
them.
of Minnesota and a priest for
twelve years, has been in
CFM since 1958. Father has
attended meetings and
conventions in Davenport,
Chicago, Cleveland and
Duluth and made an eleven
city trip through the
Northwest since he was
elected assistant national
chaplain in July 1968. After
visiting in Savannah he will
meet with groups in Florida,
Alabama, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Tennessee
before returning to CFM
headquarters in Chicago.
Six or eight married
couples make up the typical
CFM group which meets
every other week throughout
the year. The aim of the
movement is to deepen the
Christian commitment of its
members while seeking to
make the influence of this
commitment felt in the
community. CFM groups are
established in six cities of the
Savannah Diocese: Columbus,
Macon, Augusta, Albany,
Valdosta and Savannah.
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NAVY COMMANDER Lloyd Bucher,, captain of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo is shown here
soon after his release from a North Korean Prisoner of War camp, expressing sympathy to the
parents of Seaman Duane Daniel Hodges, killed during capture of the ship last January (RNS
Photo).
SAVANNAH TALK 1
CFM Official To Visit
RABBI Reuben R. Levine teaches a course at Seton Hall
University, South Orange, N.J., on “Jewish Ideology Through
Visual Arts,” using slides from his extensive collection to
illustrate his lectures. Rabbi Levine, who has a master’s degree
in Art History from the Catholic University of America, is the
spiritual leader of Temple Ahm, Springfield, N.J. (NC Photos)
MEN CHALLENGED
Prelate Cites
Social Crises
SAN ANTONIO
(NC)-Leaders of all Catholic
men’s organizations in the
San Antonio archdiocese
were challenged by
Archbishop Robert E. Lucey
to meet their “dreadful” and
“frightening” responsibilities
as Christian laymen in social
justice matters.
The archbishop, speaking
at a meeting of officials of 23
groups, urged them to go into
impoverished areas, se^ for
themselves the “unspeakable
conditions,” then “organize”
and “work hard” to apply the
gospel of justice and to
“stand up for the things that
are right” in the field of
human welfare.
The meeting was called by
President Francis Roser of
the Archdiocesan Council of
Catholic Men for the purpose
of explaining the structure,
aims and functions of the
archdiocesan federation of
men’s associations and to
encourage broader
participation and ACCM
activities.
here by God at our side are
either hungry or mighty close
to it.
He added: “You should
know that a lot of people in
Texas are hungry.” But the
archbishop noted that in the
November balloting “when
we had a chance to raise the
paltry allowance for all kinds
of welfare assistance-to the
blind, the aged and
dependent children--from $60
million a year to $75 million,
we the voters of
Texas-turned it down.”
Archbishop Lucey labeled
this act “one of the great
crimes of our times.”
Business?
Convention?
Vacation?
Prior to the address by
Archbishop Lucey, Roser
used a projector to show
charts outlining the ACCM’s
structure, explaining
how--through its five
committees, affiliated lay
groups, deanery officers and
moderators as well as parish
councils of men--the ACCM is
organized to “serve,
coordinate and represent the
men of the archdiocese.”
Roser outlined a plan to
group the 23 organizations in
a federation to provide “a
single, unifying voice for all
laymen in the archdiocese” in
formulating “programs of
true Catholic action” and
serve “as a two-way channel
of communication between
the archbishop and members
of every Catholic men’s
o r ganization in the
archdiocese” that is affiliated
with the ACCM.
THE
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Father Erwin Juraschek,
federation moderator, said
the ACCM is structured to
“enable laymen to come
forth with constructive ideas”
within the Church. He added:
“If ever there was a time and
a need for the ACCM
program, it is today.”
The archbishop, noting
that the structural or
mechanical part of the ACCM
had been explained, spoke on
the functions of the official
archdiocesan men’s council
and emphasized: “We are
going to be held responsible
by Almighty God for our
power.
Emphasizing that Vatican
Council II placed great stress
on human welfare and
dignity, the archbishop said:
“Those of you who read or
know anything about the
present welfare of your
brothers in San Antonio and
other parts of Texas know
that many of the men,
women and children placed
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