“I guess I could do the math, too, but then we’d be here until next week,” the gunny shrugged and smiled. “I trust that you’re telling the truth, sir.”
“Oh, they’re true, Gunny Glickman,” O’Connor said, folding his arms. “Why do the black Marines stand so much duty and the white Marines stand so little?”
“Sir, when a guy messes up, I put him on a detail,” the gunny began, now beading sweat. “I never thought about what color the man was who messed up.”
“ ‘Messed up’ meaning what?” O’Connor said, walking toward the gunny.
“We fix communications gear, and a guy doesn’t fix it right, it can cost a pilot or a Marine in the field his life,” the gunny answered and then swallowed hard. “I keep my best men on the job, the guys who fix radios right the first time and don’t mess them up. Men who can’t fix a radio right, I put on the duties, so the good workers keep on the job.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it, Gunny Glickman,” O’Connor said. “Troublemakers, you put them on duty, too. Right?”
“Absolutely, them more than anyone else,” the gunny said and pursed his lips while nodding. “They don’t just mess up a piece of equipment, but they mess up the shop, too.”
“Private Anderson a troublemaker?” O’Connor asked, walking to the jury.
“Worst in the shop,” Glickman said, shaking his head. “Any of his black brotherhood gets in the slightest difficulty with me, and I can count on Anderson to be right there to tell me all about why I am wrong. So, if for only my peace of mind, I keep him out of the shop as much as I can. He stands a hell of a lot of duty, Captain, and that’s why. Not because he’s black.”
“And these others that stand seventy-six percent of the watches, they troublemakers, too?” O’Connor asked, picking up the pages of statistics.
“No. Take Lance Corporal Carter, for example,” Glickman said, holding his head up proudly. “He’s a good man. He represents colored people well.”
“He stands a lot of duty,” O’Connor countered, holding up the statistics for the jury.
“Sir, he’s not exactly the sharpest tack in the box,” Glickman said and smiled. “Like I said, I keep the qualified technicians in the shop working while the less qualified stand the duties. It’s a matter of life and death, not necessarily what we find politically acceptable. However, I remind the captain that we are at war and do not enjoy the luxuries of some levels of kindness to the inferior races.”
Terry O’Connor blinked and looked at the jury, still blinking, showing his amazement at the gunny’s answer.
“ ‘Inferior races’? ‘Kindness to the inferior races’? Did I hear you correctly, Gunny Glickman?” O’Connor said, walking toward the witness stand and looking at the Marine eye to eye.
“Sir, I don’t mean it to sound like that,” Glickman said, choking on his words. “I’m from New York State. I’m not some southern bigot.”
“No, I agree you are not some southern bigot,” O’Connor said, and smiled, and then looked at Celestine Anderson, who now glared at his former noncommissioned officer in charge. “Binghamton, New York, is truly a far piece from Birmingham or Atlanta. Certainly not in the South.”
BY NINE O’CLOCK Friday morning, Lance Corporal James “Movie Star” Dean had finished two sets of tennis with Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Prunella, had caught a cockroach that measured nearly three inches long while returning from his shower, saved the lively bug inside an envelope that he took from his stationery kit, had then driven the staff judge advocate to a morning-long meeting with the chief of staff at wing headquarters, and now worked at stuffing the frantic insect inside the leather tobacco pouch of Major-Select Charles Heyster, which he had left atop his desk with his pipe. Movie Star had the critter scrambling in the Cherry Blend, kicking shredded leaves out of the bag as the Marine struggled to zip the top of the pouch shut when Staff Sergeant Derek Pride walked through the door and caught him in the act.
“I don’t want to know,” the legal chief said, seeing the lance corporal finally pull the zipper shut and then noticing the soft leather sides of the tobacco container bouncing from the bug trying to dig its way out.
“Hey, Staff Sergeant, its just a joke on the asshole,” Dean said and laughed. “You’ll have to keep watch on Heyster when he goes to load his pipe. Shit, I wish you had a camera, so you could get a picture.”
“No!” Pride said, and grabbed the lance corporal by the arm, leaving the wiggling tobacco pouch on the desk and leading the tan, blond lad out of the prosecutor’s office. “I don’t want any part of any more of this insanity. I see that you have now buddied up with Captain Kirkwood, and you’re helping him loosen the bolts on Major Dickinson’s desk, his chair, his credenza, his side table, and unscrew the lightbulbs in his lamps so that they flicker on and off anytime someone walks past them. The major pesters me now to order him a whole office of new furniture, and his is perfectly good except for what you idiots do to it. I end up dealing with base maintenance here at least once a week, checking the wiring and outlets because of Major Dickinson’s chronic electrical problems. Then Corporal Farmer and Sergeant Amos, always sabotaging the major’s coffee mess. Did you know I caught Lance Corporal Pounds washing the officers’ pot in the toilet with the john brush? And you guys keep dumping your snuff and tobacco spit cups in it, too. The colonel drank some of it the other day and asked me if we had gotten a Louisiana blend because of the unusual flavor. He loved the taste and wants more of it. What am I supposed to do now? Let him drink shit and tell him it’s chicory?
“I’ve had it, Lance Corporal Dean! Do you hear me?”
“Lighten up, man,” Movie Star said, walking out the door and heading back to his barracks. “You better be glad that we like you so we tell you most of the bad shit. Think about drinking the wrong coffee.”
“Oh, I think about it daily,” Pride said, standing in the doorway, watching the colonel’s driver cut across the grass. “I nearly gag when I see the prosecutors drink their coffee or anyone else get a cup from the major’s pot. I am running out of excuses when I have to cut off Colonel Prunella from pouring his own coffee, so I can fill his cup from the enlisted mess. Is it still safe?”
“Fuck yeah, man,” Movie Star said, walking away. “Best rule is that if you see any of us snuffies getting some of it, most likely it’s safe for consumption.”
Then the lance corporal laughed and turned toward the staff sergeant while still ambling his way to his hooch.
“Oh, I dropped off mail in the barracks,” Pride said, standing on the steps. “I put your new
Penthouse
on your rack.”
“Fresh jack-off material,” Dean said with a laugh, walking backward. “Thanks.”
“I can’t get over how you just beat your meat right there in the barracks in front of everybody. Doesn’t it ever bother you to be so gross?” Pride said as the driver walked backward, smiling at him and grabbing his crotch.
“Everybody beats off, except you, maybe,” Movie Star said and laughed again. “I just don’t make any secret of it. What the fuck, right?”
“You’re strange, Corporal Dean, you know that? If you’re not goofing off, you’re jacking off,” Pride said, shaking his head. “Why not go out in the ville and spend five bucks on a bar girl, like most of the other guys do?”
“Man, you know, the black syph. It abounds!” the lance corporal said and shrugged. “I ain’t catching any shit that will keep me from getting home. Besides, old Rosy Palm and her five sisters don’t charge five bucks, and they never say no.”
“Black syphilis! Nonsense! There’s no such thing!” Pride said, throwing his head back in frustration and shutting his eyes.
“Not from what I hear,” James Dean called back, and then turned and began jogging toward his quarters.
“The man is plagued by stupidity,” Derek Pride said to himself and walked back to his office, where he turned on the radio and began sorting through his own mail. He looked forward to some peaceful time to himself, alone in the office while everyone else had duties outside the building, mostly in the courtroom. Corporal Jerry Farmer worked as bailiff, and Sergeant Dick Amos had relieved Pride as recorder for today’s and tomorrow’s sessions. As the staff sergeant walked back to his work space, holding a freshly poured cup of coffee from the enlisted men’s mess, where all the defense lawyers got their coffee, too, he glanced in the prosecution section’s door and studied the brown leather pouch lying next to Charlie Heyster’s pipe. It now lay still.
TERRY O’CONNOR WALKED back to the jury and looked at the witness.
“Tell me then, Gunny Glickman,” the defense lawyer said, folding his arms, “when you say ‘inferior races,’ you mean the black Marines are like when we refer to the lower echelon of enlisted men as inferior ranks.”
“Yes, sir, something like that,” Glickman said. “I don’t mean anything prejudice by it, but just a way of categorizing those people, I guess.”
“No, nothing prejudiced at all,” O’Connor nodded. “Does intellect have anything to do with their inferior status?”
“Probably, sir,” Glickman said, swallowing hard. “I’m no sociologist, but we all know that colored folks don’t have the intelligence of white people.”
“So that’s why you give the black Marines the lion’s share of duty then, generally speaking,” O’Connor said quickly, before Charlie Heyster could raise an objection.
“Yes, sir, one of the reasons,” Glickman said. “That and their conduct, and the Q-A numbers.”
“Q-A numbers, meaning quality assurance,” O’Connor added.
“Yes, sir, quality assurance,” Glickman said, nodding. “We test everything that gets repaired, to be sure it goes to the field working at a hundred percent.”
“We don’t seem to be able to find any data on that, gunny. Can you help us there?” O’Connor said, walking to the defense table.
“Well, sir, I keep track of that stuff in my head,” Glickman answered, smiling.
“You don’t commit to writing a running tally on performance, then?” O’Connor said, walking back to the jury.
“I’ve been leading Marines and evaluating their performance for better than nineteen years, sir,” Glickman said. “I keep track, but not on paper. I just don’t have time to do that sort of thing.”
“Oh, I understand,” O’Connor said, walking toward the witness. “So from your insight and experience, you just know which of your Marines make mistakes and which ones consistently effect repairs without flaws in their work? Is that it?”
“Pretty much, sir, yes, sir,” Glickman said, nodding.
“What is the minimum general-clerical-technical score for a Marine to achieve in order to get to work in your occupational field?” O’Connor asked, walking to the defense table and picking up a stack of papers fastened together in the upper right corner.
“Sir, you probably have it in your hand,” Glickman said, shaking his head. “You have to be pretty smart, I know that much.”
“Yes, you do, gunny,” O’Connor said, looking at one of the pages from the handful of papers. “According to the Marine Corps’
Military Occupational Specialty Manual,
a person has to have a general-clerical-technical score of at least one hundred ten points. For example, your GCT score is one hundred eighteen. So is Celestine Anderson’s, one-eighteen. Did you know what Lance Corporal Wendell Carter attained for his GCT score?”
“Not a clue, sir,” Glickman said, shaking his head. “One hundred eighteen?”
“Guess again, gunny,” O’Connor said, and laid the pages of data on the witness’s outstretched hand. “According to a survey my office did of all your workers, Wendell Carter ranks the highest, with a general-clerical-technical score of one hundred forty-two. To put that in perspective, we require a warrant officer to have at least a one hundred ten GCT, and a commissioned officer to have a minimum score of one hundred twenty.”
“I didn’t know that, sir,” Glickman said.
“Your Honor, this document with the citation from the Marine Corps’
MOS
Manual, and the listing of personnel in Private Anderson’s section with their GCT scores and other individual personnel data for each man, is exhibit twenty-nine,” O’Connor said, laying the stack of paper stapled in the corner on the judge’s bench. Then he turned to the gunny.
“This survey that we just entered into evidence shows that there is little difference in the intellect among your work section’s Marines, whether black or white. Those scores are color-blind,” O’Connor said, walking back to the jury and facing the witness. “In fact, the man with the highest GCT in your section is black, Lance Corporal Wendell Carter. Now, how do you suppose those Marines feel, standing the majority of watch because you consider that they have inferior intelligence?”
“Sir, with all due respect,” Glickman said, now showing anger in his face, “those numbers you just reeled off are just numbers. They may use them to choose how a guy gets in my occupational field, but they don’t reflect work performance and dependability. And they sure don’t say a thing about a bad attitude. I know my shop, and I base the duty assignments on performance, not color.”
“I know you believe that, gunny,” O’Connor said, walking to the witness stand and smiling. “I don’t think you mean to let prejudice influence how you manage your men, but I suggest that you need to take a closer look at it. Could be that your treatment of these men instills their bad attitudes. Could be that your subconscious bias does not allow them the time on the job they need to gain the necessary experience to perform their work flawlessly. Would you agree that perhaps your treatment of Celestine Anderson could help account for his anger, and burst of passion that led to the death of Private Harold Rein?”
The gunny turned his eyes down and he sighed while wringing his hands.
“Yes, sir,” the gunny said, and looked up, his voice cracking as he spoke. “I’ve thought of that quite a bit. I just try to run my shop as best as I can, and maybe I was unfair to Anderson, but he brought it on. We just never got along. I wish things could have been different for him, sir.”