Colorblind Sword: A Delicate Balance

In Fight Against Bias Victory Is Never Secure

July 28, 1998|By WILLIAM H. MCMICHAEL Daily Press

Despite the vastly improved race relations that have marked the five decades since President Harry S. Truman banned discrimination in the military, today's troops say they see an unavoidable truth: The armed forces will always have racists.

"People are going to be prejudiced," said Master Sgt. Andrew Davis, a black Marine who serves with the Marine Corps Forces Atlantic in Norfolk. "But the only thing that's against the law is discrimination."

That distinction is important, said James Burk, a Texas A&M University professor who studies the sociology of the military. Prejudice, or the suspicion or hatred of other races, may be too ingrained to uproot. But discrimination, the practice of prejudice, can be controlled.

"It's important that the military seems to be a force which does not discriminate," said Burk. "As long as it does, prejudice becomes less of an issue."

Today's troops say that's what really counts - no matter how racist a service member might be.

"When he goes home, I don't care if he says `nigger' 35,000 times, as long as when he's at work, he's professional," said Sgt. 1st Class Yvette Smalls, a black Army drill sergeant at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

African-Americans and other minorities were second-class citizens in every respect 50 years ago when Truman ordered the armed forces to create an equal opportunity environment "without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."

A decade later, military units were racially integrated, but racism still was openly expressed in the ranks. Choice jobs and promotions were out of reach for most minorities. In the early years of the Vietnam War, black troops suffered disproportionate numbers of combat deaths. As the fighting dragged on, racial conflict erupted on ships and bases, a reflection of widespread civil strife across America.

By 1973, when the war ground to a halt and the military began stocking itself with volunteers, race relations in the armed forces were very possibly the worst ever.

"We were in such a period of racial turmoil," said Bob Walker of Virginia Beach, who retired in 1979 as the Navy's master chief petty officer. The military "was probably the least popular group in the U.S. So recruiting was very difficult. Retention was terrible."

"It was a very difficult time," recalled Army Col. Bob Hoppes, now assistant commandant of the Aviation Logistics School at Fort Eustis. "The quality of the soldier was not very high - of either race. Drugs were too frequently used. All of that would crop up in barracks activity."

Although it wasn't yet apparent, a number of factors began to combine to counter these problems.

"There was a confluence of events - some of which were planned for, and some of which were accidental," Burk said.

By the early 1970s, each branch of the military had launched its own equal opportunity program. Each was holding mandatory race relations classes, organized by equal opportunity advisers on bases and ships. And, most importantly, the military also began grading the racial fairness of its leaders on their annual evaluations.

The Army even created an Institute for Research and Behavioral Sciences. The institute allowed the service to study the management of race relations and practice "rational human resource management for the first time since World War II," said David Segal, a sociology professor and director of The Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

At the same time, more black officers were joining the ranks, thanks largely to the Vietnam-era expansion of ROTC programs at historically black universities such as Hampton University and Norfolk State University. But the expansion took place "by necessity," Burk pointed out, in the wake of an anti-war backlash when many liberal white schools dropped their ROTC programs.

Minorities received another "accidental" boost with the launch of the all-volunteer force in 1973. "They tried to become more civilianlike," Burk said. "A lot of NCOs didn't like that, and left. That enabled a lot of black enlisted men to be promoted into positions of leadership."

The Navy, the slowest of the services to integrate fully, launched its race relations program in 1970 when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, the new chief of naval operations, made equal opportunity a top priority. Zumwalt, who was white, appointed a black officer to advise him on race relations. He sent Navy commanders a steady stream of directives, known as "Z-grams," on improving race relations.

White sailors said Zumwalt was "gonna destroy the Navy," recalled Ron Carter, a retired master chief petty officer of Atlantic Fleet, who is black. "In my opinion, Admiral Zumwalt was the greatest individual, one of the bravest men I ever met in my life. To stand for what he felt and implement it ... he's a hero in my book."