Posts
Chapter 6: Reporting Back in The World
Part 2: Marine Race Riots
Marine Barracks, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
December, 1969
by Bo McCarver
Back to Camp Lejeune Barracks from the peculiar odyssey to the D.C. anti-war protests, we immediately found out from the press (but not our chain of command) that gangs of black and white marines had attacked each other at the base, with screw drivers and hammers. They had roamed the base at night and initiated attacks; one white marine had been killed and dozens of marines, black and white, had been injured.
Capt. Lewis called me into his office and told me that all units of the 10th Marine artillery Regiment would be conducting “race training” every Saturday morning and that I would be doing it for Kilo Battery. There were no instructions or guidance on how to conduct the meetings.
Many thoughts went through my head: Lewis was black but he had assigned the duty to me; perhaps because I had confided with him during the D.C. bus trip that I was mixed-race – and it became obvious that neither of us really believed in the war. I also recalled my experience in Vietnam in Mike Battery’s racial encounters where black NCOs were called in to counsel black marines -- and there was not a similar session for white marines. Maybe Lewis was trying to keep this from becoming another “black problem.” Then there was the “institutional” assignment of black marines to 8-inch batteries I’d witnessed in Vietnam. Was it going on here in the States?
Something was different here because the issue had not been segregated or hidden under some unwritten procedure: perhaps pressured by the bad press, we were commanded from divisional level or maybe above to get Black, White, Latino, Asian and Neapolitan marines together and “talk race. “
Saturday morning meetings in the barracks were always held before weekend passes were given out. The ritual was sometimes highlighted when some enlisted man who had gotten a DWI ticket was ordered to give testimony about the dangers of driving while drunk. The awkward, “confession” speech was enough to alert every marine in Kilo to be extra cautious or they would have to deliver a similar, embarrassing diatribe. After the per functionary spiel, they were then dismissed and most enjoyed weekend passes.
But on this morning, Kilo’s men, made up of mostly seasoned Vietnam vets and a few raw recruits, were faced with a different ritual when a new officer pulled them into a tight circle in the middle of their racks.
“There may, or there may not be any passes this weekend,” I announced. “That depends on how honest you men are, and if we can get down to the bottom of your race problems.”
There were a few low groans and then a long, nervous silence as I let them and the battery’s senior NCOs dwell on the situation and mull over what new was coming down. “We’ve had some stupid fights on this base lately: marines attacking marines. You have embarrassed yourselves and the Marine Corps. I want to know why? And until I know, and until this shit stops, you men can forget any weekend passes.”
A white E-4 with a deep southern draw spoke up defiantly, almost proud;” “You can say whatever you say, sir, but you can’t make us like each another.”
“You’re right,” I replied. “You can keep on harboring your hate and fear of people you think aren’t like you -- but while you’re marines, you better set that crap aside. When you’re in combat and depending on everyone around you to do their damned best so you all survive, you’re not white or black, you’re marines. If you can’t handle that, you’ll be dead marines.”
The place got very, very quiet. I then played my hole card: “How many of you think I’m white?” Every hand went up. Then I told them one of my great grandfathers was a black slave owned by Cherokees; that after the Civil War he’d married a Cherokee woman and that line came down to me though my mother; who married my father who was “hopelessly Irish.”
A few of them laughed and then the laughs built and carried: the whole bunch was suddenly grinning and relaxed. I told them that probably half of us were mixed-race. “Which side of yourself are you going to side with?” They needed to mull this over and I would be back next Saturday; we would talk more about why some of them just couldn’t get along with each other. Meanwhile, if anyone thought they couldn’t serve with a marine who wasn’t
‘their race,“ I’d be glad to talk with them privately in my office. [No one later asked for a session.]
And to underscore the unresolved issue, no passes issued that weekend.
Similar sessions were held in all the 10th Regiment’s batteries. Some were observed by senior officers who reported to division. Apparently most meetings did not go well. I was later singled-out and interviewed by two majors who nervously took notes about what I did. The division organized multi-racial squads to patrol the base at night and deter any gangs; and began a major effort to resolve segregation issues that had just come to a boil at the base but had been simmering and were seeded in Vietnam.
With a bird-cornel from division silently observing, I conducted another session the following Saturday at which the men opened up and I barely had to say anything to keep them on track. No racial incidents had recurred on the base so we issued passes and ceased the Saturday meetings.
Subsequently, Lewis was reassigned and a new battery CO, a lieutenant just back from Vietnam who had recently declared lifer intentions, was placed in command of Kilo Battery.
Epilogue:
Racism was embedded in the culture of the Marine Corps since the first black recruits in 1942. In Vietnam, it was initiated at the division level where blacks and whites were segregated by assignment to certain units: I saw no black MPs (Military Police) but the 8-inch batteries were all black. There were a few black officers, mostly like Lewis who had been promoted from a senior NCO rank to captain to staff new units that were formed after Tet, 1968.
When the 1969 race riots broke out on various marine bases, to include, Camp Lejeune, the 2nd Division commander had a survey conducted to determine how many black officers and NCOs were in the 10th Marine Regiment. A number of officers with very light skin acknowledged they were of black race, admissions that surprised senior officers. Their survey did not ask about mixed-race. The violence calmed-down after the barracks sessions that became more focused and better led. The work to reconcile the racial issues went on for several years and regulations prohibiting racial discrimination were written into SOPs and often enforced. Every marine was required to attend 20 hours of race training. Certainly discrimination did not end, but it became harder to systematically practice. [“Race training” in government agencies has just been suspended by Trump.]1
Many marines left the military after the Vietnam War and took jobs as civilian police officers. It would be interesting to know how many did; what the racial breakdown was -- and how they fared. But the racial prejudices that men experienced in the Marine Corps surely continued after their discharges and inform the cultures of American police forces and other work environments to the present day.
Until recently, the brutality of white police officers toward black people had been largely ignored by the press and elected officials -- but had long been a simmering cultural norm for black Americans. The present Black Lives Matter movement, suddenly discovered as inflamed by almost daily instances of white police brutality against blacks, is long, long overdue. What appears different in these protests, is the press is finally connecting the dots of police homicides and the protests have expanded beyond black people into a general liberal population. The far-right has reacted and the lines are tersely drawn as the presidential race heightens the schism. A this point, in the challenges presented to conduct civil discourse in the circumstances created by Covid-19, it is doubtful that a popular election can be conducted that will render uncontested decisions.
As the violence increases each day, and without formal, nation-wide declarations, has America just entered its 2nd Civil War?
1 Trump Tells Agencies To End Trainings On 'White Privilege' And 'Critical Race Theory' By Matthew Schwartz NPR July 6, 2020
“In a letter to federal agencies Friday, the director of the Office of Management and Budget said the president recently became aware of the racial sensitivity programs, which encourage frank conversations about race in the workplace and discuss potential actions to combat systemic racism.
The memo, issued by OMB Director Russell Vought, reads in part:
"All agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on 'critical race theory,' 'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil."
The memo said agencies "should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these un-American propaganda training sessions."
Bo McCarver
From Greater Wapanucka
For Radio-Free Oklahoma
No comments:
Post a Comment