WASHINGTON -- Six men, including one who may deserve a hero's honors, are buried in a mass grave in Arlington National Cemetery with a headstone that doesn't even indicate how they died.
But according to a survivor of the attack that killed the men during the Six-Day War in the Middle East, that will be changed.
The victims include one Marine and five Navy crewmembers of the U.S. intelligence ship USS Liberty, attacked by Israeli warplanes and torpedoed in the Mediterranean June 8, 1967.
Although the attack on the Liberty is an issue of continuing controversy, Israel maintains the incident was a tragic mmistake.
The attack killed 34 men and wounded 171. Of the 34 men killed, 25 died when the torpedo struck the ship. Donald Blalock, of Savage, Md., was a civilian assigned to the Liberty and one of a handful of men in the compartment where the torpedo struck who survived.
There are nine sites where Liberty crewmembers are buried in Arlington, one of which is the mass grave. Blalock, 39, said the headstone for the six men has read 'Died in the Eastern Mediterranean' for the past 15 years.
But that was not good enough for retired Navy Cmdr. Xavier Bender Tansill, of Chevy Chase, Md., Blalock said, and the through is insistence officials have agreed to change the marker this fall.
Tansill, now in his 80s, was 'affronted' by the vague inscription, Blalock said, and 'through his perseverance and dedication, that headstone is going tobe changed to read, 'Killed on board the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967'.'
'They're going to get some recognition,' Blalock said. 'They're deserving of a great deal more. But it's starting.'
Blalock says there may also be special recognition coming for the Marine buried in that mass grave, Sgt. Jack L. Raper, one of two Marines killed in the attack.
'The first I learned of the attack was seeing (Raper) bandaging one of the sailors after a stray armor-piercing slug had gone through his leg,' Blalock said.
'After the torpedo attack ... I was told that Jack had been seen going back down into that flooded space a couple of times, looking for those who were trapped, still alive, bodies, whatever. And the last time, he didn't come back up.'
In preparing for a reunion next weekend of survivors of the attack on the Liberty, Blalock found another crew member who had seen Raper's actions and later found Raper's body in the compartment.
He has asked in a newsletter for Liberty crewmembers for any eyewitnesses to Raper's heroism.
Blalock contacted the Marine Corps and told them what he'd found.
'We need one more eyewitness to ascertain that Jack did, in fact, go down a couple of times and did, in fact, die trying to help others,' Blalock said.
'This reunion is the first time we're getting together in 15 years,' he said. 'Perhaps Jack Raper is going to get the recognition that he deserves.'
Blalock survived the attack on the Liberty with what he calls reatively minor cuts, burns and bruises. But the event had a lasting effect.
'There's got to be something ahead for me to do,' Blalock said. 'I came away not a religious nut, but just appreciating the fact that I was alive and sorrowing with those who aren't and whose survivors are left.'
