“Yeah, I hit him in the head with the brick! I hit him twice!”
I tried not to look too dumbfounded; I tried to look like I was in command of the situation. But I could not resist asking, “What did you do next?”
The sailor replied, “He kept on coming, I dropped the brick and ran like hell!” “Smart move,” I said to myself.
The servicemen that surrounded me looked like they might start fighting again. I had to maintain order and stall for time until the security guards came. I wanted to keep them talking.
“Okay, okay! How did this all start? We better start at the beginning,” I said to keep the peace.
I guess I better start at the beginning also. “The Brick Incident,” which I call this saga, took place on a small Navy base in the Philippines in late 1968. If you remember the times, you will remember the tensions: the assassinations of King and RFK, the riots, the antiwar demonstrations, and the deaths of 300 American men a week in Vietnam. We had the same tensions here in this little piece of hometown America in the Philippines. The tensions, however, were magnified, because in this hometown most of the residents were young sailors and marines trained in the art of combat – killing.
Many of these sailors and marines were Vietnam veterans who were sent to the Philippines to complete their one-year combat tour. To give you a feel, one of our short-toured marines had three purple hearts. He was wounded in Vietnam and sent to the Philippines to recover. He recovered and was sent back to Vietnam to complete his tour. He was wounded again. While he was being medi-vaced out, his helicopter was shot down and he was wounded again. Three purple hearts in less than a year, and he was completing his tour in the Philippines. There were many others on base with similar war stories.
Race is also an important part of this story. The hitter in the “Brick Incident” was black; the hittee was not.
I had the base security duty watch that night. It was almost midnight and I was bored. I had an hour to kill before curfew, when things usually picked up. I decided to take a tour of the base in my car; it had air-conditioning and I could listen to some music. I did not have a two-way radio, but the base was small and I would be returning in less than ten minutes. I could patrol the base almost unnoticed. My car was a tan Toyota and looked the same as the base taxies.
I drove up the main drag and, in a few minutes, I was passing the Navy barracks where the single sailors lived. On the corner, I noticed three young men in civvies facing off a lone sailor in work denim blues. The sailor was black, but I was not sure of the race of the three in civvies. By the body language of all four I knew this was trouble. I wanted to keep driving, but I had the “duty.” It was my watch and I could not just drive on by.
By the time I sized up the situation I was just past the barracks. In my rear-view mirror, I noticed the three men still closing in on the lone sailor. I pulled a U-turn and parked in front of the barracks. By the time I got out of my car, there were two fights taking place on the lawn in front of the barracks. I went to the closest fight where one of the men in civvies, who I now recognized as a marine, was fighting a half-dressed sailor, a white guy. Where did he come from? He wasn’t part of the original group of four.
I was in my whites, my “Good Humor” uniform, with plenty of gold showing. If they hit me, they would knowingly be hitting an officer. Then they would really be in big trouble. With this reasoning I approached the two men, who were now rolling on the ground punching each other. With all the command voice I could muster I ordered, “Break it up!” Nothing happened; they kept on fighting. I moved closer and ordered, “Break it up!” again. Nothing. For a second I thought that I might get punched. I grabbed the closest shoulder, and ordered in rapid succession “Break it up! Break it up! Break it up!”
I finally got their attention; they stopped swinging at each other, but they were still on the ground and not moving apart. I shifted closer and looked them both in the face. “You know who I am,” I said loudly. Both stood up, but looked ready to start all over. There was still the other fight going on. Since I did not have any security patrolmen with me, I decided to order the two (the marine and the white sailor) to break up the second fight. I believe that this was pretty smart thinking on my part. They hesitated. I ordered again, “Break them up before they hurt each other.” This seemed to work.
We went over to the second fight, where another marine was sitting on top of the black sailor, punching him. The two pulled the marine off. But before the sailor could get completely up, the third marine jumped him and down both went. I then ordered the three others to break this fight up. They did. Ordering others to break up fights was getting easier.
Now no one was fighting. There was yelling, cursing, but no fighting. The only blood I noticed was on the black sailor. His forehead was bloodied, so was his shirt. I also noticed his name, Wilson, which was stenciled on his denim shirt. After all the punches that were thrown, no one looked too badly damaged.
We were by the front door of the barracks and we somehow just drifted into the barracks. To this day I do not know exactly how we ended up inside the Navy barracks. I believe that the two sailors may have wanted to make their way to safer grounds and the marines just followed. I drifted in also; inside the barracks seemed safer to me too.
Once inside I wasn’t so sure. We were in the recreation room. By now sailors, most half naked, were out of their bunks and standing in the room or on the stairways. The original combatants were still cursing and venting their sides of the story. I still needed to take complete command of the situation.
The barracks’ duty watch, a young sailor, came up to me and asked if he should call the security guard. I said yes, and the young sailor seemed relieved as he retreated to the watch office to make his phone call.
Looking around again, the room seemed more crowded with sailors than a minute before. With my command voice I ordered, “There is nothing going on anymore. Get back to your bunks!”
From the stairway came, “Were not moving until we’re sure that Wilson is okay.”
Looking around again I noticed that the crowd was really separate clusters of black sailors and white sailors. Why me? Why on my watch?
I looked at the black sailor on the stairway who was defying my orders. I did not know him, but I recognized the black sailor standing next to him. He was a young Seaman who worked for me in one of my many day jobs. One of these jobs was as Pass Control Officer. The Seaman would bring me 30 to 50 passes to sign each morning. While I signed, we talked guy talk: sports, girls, and going Stateside. He was young, but smart and levelheaded. At least he knew about sports, girls, and going Stateside.
The situation was getting worst. I knew the original fighting was not racial; I knew it was just a sailor-marine squabble. I had the sailor-marine spat under control, now all I had to worry about was a possible race riot. I did not want a race riot. Not on my watch anyway.
“Okay,” I said, “You two can stay. All the rest of you, get back to your bunks!” This seemed to work. The “two” knew who they were, and the all the rest of the sailors (black, white, and colors in between) left the room. Now the recreation room seemed almost deserted. There was Wilson with the blood on his head and shirt, the half-dressed white sailor, the three marines in civvies, and the two black sailors on the stairway. Oh yes, and me in my Good Humor uniform.
It started up again. From the stairway came: “He’s bleeding, you bastards beat him up!” Wilson did look pretty scuffed up.
Before I could respond, the first marine yelled back, “Don’t give me any of your race BS. This has nothing to do with race. First of all, I’m mestizo.” By this I knew he meant that his father was an American and his mother was a Filipino. The marine continued, “The Chief here is an Indian.” He nodded toward one of the marines, a short, stocky, well-built American Indian. The part Filipino was on a roll. He went on, “And Rocky here,” he waved to the remaining marine, “he’s a Wop.” Now that he established that none of the marines were WASPs, he continued “The only white guy here is this sailor here.” He pointed to the half-dressed sailor who came to Wilson’s defense. I also realized, since all my grandparents were from Italy that I didn’t fit into his vision of the white race. I guess everything is relative, including race relations.
The marine closed with, “And besides that, that’s not even his blood.” We all looked at Wilson. I walked over and wiped the blood off his forehead. The skin was not broken. I asked if he was bleeding. Wilson replied that he didn’t think so.
It seemed that all that talking was distilling some of the tension. If they were talking, they weren’t fighting. I hoped the security guards were on the way.
“Okay, okay!” I said, “How did this all start?” What followed was amazing. Not because of the story itself, but because all the participants seem to be telling the truth. They talked freely and did not try to cover-up or pretend that they were completely innocent.
The part Filipino marine took the lead. “We just got back from Manila and passing the Navy barracks when someone in the barracks called out some nasty things about marines. We yelled back nasty things about sailors.”
Okay, I must confess, “nasty things” are not actual quotes. The cursing used by both sailors and the marines described actions involving a combination of body parts, body functions, and close family relatives that most people could never envision happening at the same time. Racial and ethnic slurs were used, but only when appropriate. And since many were God fearing Christians, the name of their God and His Son were sprinkled throughout, used as punctuation marks.
“Well, what happened next?” I asked with interest.
The marine continued, “Wilson yelled some nasty things at us!”
I turned to Wilson and he said, “I was standing on the corner waiting for the bus. I had the midnight duty. Yeah, I said those things. I was defending the Navy.” A noble sailor defending the Navy. Noble, but not too smart since he was alone and outside the protection of the barracks.
It was at this point that I drove by; the one sailor was facing off the three marines.
The marine took his turn, “We challenged Wilson to fight one-on-one. We called for him to pick out which one of us he wanted to fight.” Three marines defending the honor of the U.S. Marine Corps. Also very noble.
“Well, what happened next,” I asked. I was now hoping to get the full story before the security guards came.
“Wilson picked up a brick.”
I turned to Wilson. I started to feel like I was at a tennis match watching a fast-moving volley. “Well there were three of them and only one of me,” Wilson replied. Seems logical to me.
“We told him to drop the brick and fight one-on-one.” An honorable challenge.
“I didn’t believe them.” I can see his point.
“The Chief went forward and that’s when Wilson hit him with the brick.”
This is when Wilson said, “Yeah, I hit him in the head with the brick! I hit him twice!”
I was really into it now. I needed to know how everything happened. I thought that we all wanted to know, including the two black sailors who were still on the stairs observing everything.
When Wilson “dropped the brick and ran like hell,” he was running toward the barracks and I was making my U-turn in my Toyota.
I then turned to the half-dressed white sailor because I figured it was his turn. This was when he came upon the scene.
The white sailor, apparently the only “pure” white among the main characters of this little incident, was surprised that the spotlight was now on him. Reluctantly, he told his part. He was in the barracks when he heard the yelling outside. He looked out and saw the three marines confronting the lone sailor. He immediately ran out of the barracks to aid Wilson in defending the honor of the Navy. Once outside he saw Wilson running toward the barracks, and then he tackled the closest marine. They started fighting. This was the first fight that I broke up.
Rocky chimed in for the first time. “I tackled Wilson before he got to the barracks,” he said with some pride. This was the second fight that we broke up. When we got Rocky off Wilson, the Chief, who was momentarily stunned by being hit in the head twice with a brick, jumped on top of Wilson. I then realized that it was the Chief’s blood that ended up on Wilson.
I looked at the Chief’s head, and sure enough, there were two big bruisers and some blood. I looked up at the two sailors on the stairs. I smiled and shook my head. They did the same and departed. The security guards arrived, and I had all the combatants placed on report. I return to my car and drove back in time for curfew.
Now I had the whole story. Well, almost the whole story: who was the sailor that first yelled obscenities at the marines from the barracks? He was the one who started the whole thing. Could it have been the half-dressed white sailor? It’s over 50 years later and I still wonder.
This story has an epilogue. A month later on another duty night, I was again driving down the main street. I stopped at a stop sign when “thump” there was a sailor on my hood. As I said before, my car looked like a base cab. It was a quaint base custom for servicemen to jump on cabs to stop them. It was obvious that this sailor thought he was stopping a cab. I looked at him through my windshield. The sailor was Wilson. I do not know who was more startled, him or me. He slithered off the hood and came to attention. I laughed and asked where he was going. He said to the main gate. I told him to get in, and that I would give him a lift. He said, “Thank you sir,” and got in.
While I drove to the main gate, we talked guy talk: sports, girls, and going Stateside.