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A U.S. Marine survivor of a controversial 1967 Israeli attack on his ship will speak in North Platte and Stapleton next month in connection with this year’s centennial of the American Legion.

Bryce Lockwood, then a 27-year-old staff sergeant aboard the USS Liberty, will speak at 3 and 7 p.m. April 14 at the Neville Center for the Performing Arts and at 10 a.m. April 15 in the Bronco Room at Stapleton High School.

Stapleton Legion Post No. 324 is the chief sponsor of Lockwood’s talks, which are free to the public. Freewill offerings will be taken to help offset expenses, said post member David Olson of North Platte.

His cousin Roger Gordon of Northwood, Iowa, put him in touch with Lockwood, said Olson, a retired Vietnam-era Navy petty officer who served in the Pacific.

“It started out as a family affair,” he said.

The Liberty, a signal communications ship with a crew of 294, was monitoring Soviet activity north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula when it was attacked by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967.