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On the opening day of the Black History Month in the winter class of 1989 at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, an event took place that shook many students. Colonel Wiggins of the Air Force, the school Commandant got ready to introduce the guest speaker; a male Caucasian, approximately 55 years old, dressed in white shirt and blue tie. His hair was pronouncedly gray and he sported a tan typical of the space coast around the area of Patrick Air Force Base. As Wiggins began to gather his papers the man spoke bluntly from his chair.
"Colonel, don't bother with the introduction. I will cut my presentation short this morning. I find the way this crowd entered the building as a total disrespect for authority and the principles of military discipline we have been hearing of, since the days of our independence. Colonel, I guess you still have a couple of weeks to provide some level of respect indoctrination to this folks."
In his usual and calmed manner, Wiggins apologized to the man. Then he directed his attention to Class 89-1, "I ask my director of training, instructors, and especially to the students to take immediate action to correct these deficiencies. It is the policy of this institution to impart the best possible human relations training, so our graduates can serve in the important role of equal opportunity advisors. Through this training, we accept a serious commitment to provide sound, selfless and responsible human relations assistance to field commanders across the services. Let us remind ourselves that our brigades, squadrons and battle groups depend on your ability to evaluate human relations issues in order to provide consistent advise. We cannot accomplish it in this manner if we can't conduct an assessment of our own behavior. Please, consider the evaluation of those things that block your path towards a productive equal opportunity mission. What you obtain here is fruitless if you don't put your motivation and deportment as your biggest allies to your own expectations. Now, lets continue with our program."
The entire auditorium had remained quiet. The 100 members of Class 89-1 sat in perfectly aligned rows, six to the left and eight to the right of the auditorium, with an open walkway in the center. All the pupils fixed their eyes on the podium. Their heads, hands, arms, and feet didn't even move a bit. Twenty-six instructor cadre and staff from the academic department gathered in the rear of the auditorium, some sitting, and some standing. Uniformity had taken over, yet the crowd felt chewed. No more than five minutes had passed, but it seemed an entire season of reflection had been experienced. Many students wondered who had violated the norms of the class when entering the building.
The invited guest speaker rose and moved to the front of the podium and began his speech."Who cares whether we are blue, green or even gray? It never occurred to you that the so-called minorities' celebrations are distracters to the regular jobs and missions of the service? Well, all I know is that when I served in Vietnam all I saw was a bunch of Blacks and Puerto Ricans trying to form separate clubs in the jungle. You couldn't talk to them unless you bought marihuana from them. In the other hand, White soldiers had to go out on patrol alone, because we didn't trust the careless attitudes of these folks."
Instantly, an Army sergeant stood up from his chair and spoke. "I'm Sergeant Tito Brignoni. I beg you pardon sir? In my years of service in the Army you are the first White man who talks about Blacks an Hispanics the way you are doing here." Uniformity had rest. Heads rolled towards Tito. The speaker remained mute. For some reason, it was pay back time. Who ever had broken the class norms was no longer important now. Colonel Wiggins' earlier remarks had been timely, but a new frame of thinking had gone into new effect.
Tito continued. "If you think we are enough nuts to listen to your sarcasms, I think is better we hear your biography, so we know who you really are, and to verify if you ever served in Vietnam, like you claim."
"Ok, lets get to know each other better. Your name is Brignoni, and if I'm not mistaken it's Italian, correct?"
"Yes it is, however, my family is one half Taino Indian from Puerto Rico. "
The man added, "I was able to pick out your accent a mile away. You guys really have earned your reputation."
Before Tito could continue, another student rose abruptly. "My name is Petty Officer Trina Wallace, I'm of African American descent, and I think you don't understand why we are here today."
The man was quick to interrupt. "Lets bring another frustrating element to our war fighting capabilities. We put a bunch of nice looking women like you in a few boats and hell boils loose. The services need to analyze this little experiment of diverting our true combat capabilities into the role of having to protect women, along with the other proven factors that women erode group cohesion."
The class became more and more irritated and up tight in response to the treatment the students had received from this stranger. The man rambled obscenities and racial slurs to minority and female students who dared to challenge the contents of his speech. Many Caucasian students expressed total disapproval for the speaker's outspoken views and lack of respect to their peers and their own values and attitudes. The man addressed White students in a conservative and helpful tone. The Commandant intervened a half-dozen times trying to calm the irate audience. The school staff observed and took notes of the separate exchanges. This incident turned out to be more than a casual experience. At any given time, there were ten or fifteen students standing, some taking verbal nasty shots at the man, some were waiting for their turn to speak. The air was turning vicious. Small pockets of students had switched chairs, some sat on their jackets and others had completely removed their ties.
No more than 25 minutes ago, the class had arrived to the auditorium. Now, the Commandant was ordering the guest speaker be escorted out of the building using the door behind the podium. Then he asked the students to take their seats, to get back in uniform, and remain quiet until he spoke in private with the guest. He assured the class that he would do his best to find out what caused the failure of the event. Shortly after, Wiggins returned and announced the speaker wanted to apologize to the class. Some students refused the idea of having to listen to the man, further. Simply, they had enough of him, already. Wiggins said that it was better to send the class next door into their own separate small groups. He wanted the instructors to discuss the situation in the open environment of small groups of 14 students each.
Group Six took the honors of being the top performing section during Class 89-1. This honor is awarded to the section that accumulates the highest academic average and the best individual and group problem-solving skills. The group was comprised of 12 Army members, plus one from the Air Force, and one in the Navy. Of these, six were Caucasian, five were African American, and three were Hispanics. The group had two females. An Army captain and a Navy chief petty officer served as Small-group leaders. The group sat in the fishbowl mode with the instructors at the narrow edges of the bowl. Tempers were still flaring. The instructors drilled their minds with hard provocative questions, perhaps from their notes taken in the auditorium. Some group members cried, unable to express their feelings, others spoke their minds out, but others felt the incident had been staged to assess individual and group emotions. The instructors stressed that everyone in the auditorium has the duty to challenge this type of behavior. Those who didn't speak in the auditorium were wrong. Once the barriers to communication about the incident were broken, the group began to work out the issues about the misterious speaker. They were able to examine what had happened to them and why they reacted in hostile and disorganized manner. Led by the instructors, the group concluded there was fear in the air towards the unknown . Hostility and avoidance had mingled in the course of a frustrated crowd.
After 25 minutes of discussion, the class returned to their seats in the auditorium. The stranger came out, introduced himself to the class as Mr. Kemp, and offered a formal apology to the class. He went further by giving a slide presentation about his family and some of his experiences in Vietnam. He had been born White in South Africa. Both of his parents were killed in a plane crash. A Black couple adopted him at the tender age of two, raised him, among three other half-sisters. At age 12, his parents came to Boston, and he went to obtain a college education and citizenship in the United States. Returned to South Africa and married a beautiful Black girl with whom he had five children.
In his Vietnam story, Mr. Kemp related that he was Platoon Leader of an infantry outfit called out to secure a hill after six days of battle with the enemy. His platoon sergeant was Frank Quiñonez, a Black Puerto Rican who had served one year in Vietnam with the 9th Infantry. Frank had finished his military tour and returned to the island. After a while decided to volunteer for duty with the Screaming Eagles, to return to Vietnam. Mr. Kemp related that upon their chopper landing on Hill 937, the strong smell of human flesh froze him to a point of not being able to think clear. All his troops had exited the helicopter and the crew chief was yelling that the bird had to take off. Quiñonez returned inside the chopper, grabbed him by the load-bearing belts of his combat gear and dragged him out to battle. While both leaders were setting up a defensive perimeter, Kemp was called in the radio to go take command of a company; its previous commander had been killed. Before he left, he told Frank, "I know you will make it happen, take charge...the troops are in good hands."
Quiñonez kept working with his troops in the darkness of the isolated peak. He stumbled and fell into a foxhole and found another sergeant senior to him. The sergeant had a soldier with a radio and another holding an M-60 machinegun. They seemed to be scared, so Frank advised the sergeant to come out and take over as top leader. The platoon was able to hold ground for four days until the enemy gave up and left the area. The division commander came down in a chopper and handed out a Silver Star decoration to the sergeant that Frank pulled out of hiding. Kemp told Quiñonez that the general was just looking for the senior person in the area to hand out a medal, but everyone knew that Frank should had received the decoration.
Mr. Kemp confessed being extremely proud with the manner minority and women have confronted the hardships of military service, and he was hounded by the fact that Quiñonez was never recognized for his actions at Hill 937. Now, he had dedicated his life to present scenarios like this one to others, so they will see how a class, a group, and organizations exhibit behaviors typical of that of other societies, individuals, groups, and audiences.
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Torpedero de Batey Boricua
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