by Ed Bethune
In June of 1955, I finally got the long awaited offer to enter the Naval Air Cadet program. The flight surgeon gave his blessing to my new two-hole nose and everything else checked out. But the hitch was that I would have to agree to serve four years from the time I entered the program. I thought about it for a few days and decided to decline the offer to be a pilot. I would finish my three-year enlistment.
To celebrate the Fourth of July my first year in Korea, we smuggled some beer off the base and went to a nearby beach just a couple of miles from Pohang Dong. There were several Marines there, and for some reason, there was a large rubber raft tethered to the shore. After a few beers, eight of us decided we would launch the raft and paddle around the small bay that led out into the Sea of Japan. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, but a big, westerly wind was building to gale force level. We rafters failed to take proper account of the wind that was blowing us steadily out to sea, in the general direction of Japan. We were about a mile offshore before we realized our plight. We paddled as hard as we could but we were no match for the thirty-mile-an-hour wind. We were too far out to swim and there was little hope that the wind would subside. Fortunately, K-3 was a Marine air base and someone on the beach alerted the flight line that eight Marines in a raft were well on their way to Japan. Shortly, a helicopter approached and dropped a cable that we attached to the raft. The helicopter pilot towed us back to shallow water where we jumped over the side, pulled the raft back up on the shore, and then disappeared as quickly as we could. For several days thereafter, we lived in fear that the commanding officer would call us in for summary punishment, but nothing ever happened.
On Christmas day, 1955, I went to the village with some friends, but walked back to the base on my own. I crossed a small creek and saw a Korean family butchering a dog. I could not understand a word they were saying, but they were quite excited. They were going to have meat to go along with their Kimchi. That scene on Christmas day brought back a flood of memories of my life before the Marine Corps. I remembered the clarinet my mother gave me for Christmas when I was in the sixth grade and the holiday tunes I used to play on it. I thought of the hardships that Delta Lew and I faced when we were living alone in Pocahontas, and the separation and divorce of my mother and father. I cried like a baby. I was alone on the other side of the world and there was no Christmas tree, no family, no presents. The Corps was laying out a better meal for us, but as usual it was made from powdered eggs, powdered milk, and canned vegetables. The one treat was that they were going to serve fresh cooked turkey. As I continued on my way to K-3, I finally stopped blubbering. After all, I was much better off than the Koreans were. It also occurred to me that being in Korea was probably harder for my fellow Marines who did not come from broken families. I learned, at an early age, that family life can be difficult and that you have to make the best of it. I admit I was feeling a little sorry for myself that Christmas day, but I felt sorriest for the young Marines who had come from rock-solid families, the ones who had no experience with family separation.
Twice during my tour in Korea, the Marine Corps sent me to Japan for a week of R&R, short for Rest and Recuperation. In most cases the time off is a weeklong drunken orgy. Throughout the history of the world, military forces, ours included, have implicitly condoned prostitution. The military may declare certain areas and activities off limits, but the troops are encouraged to use condoms and taught the risks of venereal disease. I expect there will always be R&R, it may go by another name, but troops will be troops, now and forever more. The time off is recuperative—troops need R&R to maintain sanity—but it does not have to be all about drinking and sex. My first R&R was to Kyoto where I saw my first Japanese gardens, and many other memorable sights. I thought often of what I had learned from my father about “good Japanese” and “bad Japanese” when I had visited the War Relocation Center in Rohwer. It was educational to be in Japan where the “bad Japanese” lived. I was there just ten years after World War II, but I did not find a single person that I considered a “bad Japanese.” As a footnote, the Shore Patrol was everywhere in Kyoto, but I managed to avoid arrest and spent no time in the brig.
My second R&R was to Iwakuni, but a buddy and I made a three-day side trip to Hiroshima. The city was just beginning to recover from the atom bomb that the United States dropped there on August 6, 1945. That strike, coupled with a similar one at Nagasaki three days later, forced the Japanese Empire to surrender, ending World War II. Estimates are that in the first few months after the bombing as many as 100,000 people died, most from flash or flame burns during the explosion. It was strange to be in Hiroshima. I was nine when Hiroshima was bombed, and now at age nineteen I was there in the uniform of a United States Marine. We toured the city and on the last day of our visit, we happened into a movie theatre that was playing Flying Leathernecks, starring John Wayne. It surprised me to find a theatre full of Japanese people watching a movie, with Japanese subtitles, showing American Marines shooting down Japanese warplanes and killing Japanese pilots. My buddy and I scrunched down in our seats and then—discretion being the better part of valor—slipped quietly out of the theatre before the movie ended.
As I entered the last month of my tour in Korea, I was entitled by custom to tie a Short-Timer Ribbon in the side vent of my dungaree cap. No one can remember when or why the custom started, but everyone was eager to take the yellow and black ribbon off a bottle of Seagram’s Seven and tie it in their cap. It signified the highest standing of all; the wearer of the ribbon was in the last month of his tour and would soon be going home.
On the last day of my tour of duty, I boarded an R4Q transport, also known as a Flying Boxcar, for a flight to Yokohama, where I boarded the troop ship, General M. M. Patrick. On February 24, 1956, the Patrick set sail and arrived in San Francisco, and docked at Treasure Island, on March 6. I was back in the United States. The crossing ended with a rough two days of up and down as we rode over the San Francisco swells west of the California coastline. The first night ashore, in keeping with Marine Corps tradition, I went on liberty with several buddies. We all got drunk in a nondescript bar somewhere in San Francisco and that night I “got rolled,” a new experience for me. I did not know about it until I awoke on my bunk at Treasure Island the next morning and discovered that someone had separated me from the $100 cash that I had stored in the pocket of my blouse.
Getting rolled did not set well with me, but it was a good lesson similar to the gambling lesson I had learned when I was fresh out of boot camp. An old salt by the name of Corporal Sandwich used to run a blackjack game at El Toro after every payday. Sandwich had been in the Marine Corps for eighteen years, and he had tattoos all over his body. He had been up and down in the ranks and was a corporal at the time I jumped into his blackjack game. I had just received two crisp twenty-dollar bills as my pay for a half month as a PFC. It took Sandwich less than ten minutes to take possession of my two twenties. I have not played blackjack a single time since that day at El Toro, and no one has rolled me since that night in San Francisco.
The Marine Corps gave me travel time and a cash allowance to get from Treasure Island to Cherry Point, North Carolina, my next assignment. To save money, I finagled a hop on a military flight to Edwards Air Force Base in California and took a bus to Phoenix, Arizona. I wanted to visit with my dad before heading to Arkansas.
I spent a week with Daddy, and we had a great time. We went to the races every day that Uncle Mac, Daddy’s brother who also lived in Phoenix, had a horse running. For a while, Uncle Mac had the best quarter horses in the West. His first big winner was I’ll Do It. Later he had I’ll Do It Too and Do It for Me. We also took in a Baltimore Orioles spring training game. As I saw one of the players running to first base, I told Daddy, “I know that run.” I said, “I’m sure that’s Brooks Robinson from Little Rock.” I knew Brooks from my days playing baseball in Little Rock and, most importantly, I knew his distinctive running style. I got a roster sheet and confirmed that
it was Brooks.
At the end of my week’s visit, I caught the train to Arkansas and two days later I arrived at the old Rock Island terminal in Little Rock. Delta Lew, her husband, Bill, and Mother met me. I was in uniform and Delta Lew cried as soon as she saw me stepping off the train. It is a moment I have never, and will never forget.
I spent two weeks in Arkansas, and during that time I made a quick trip to Pocahontas. I told my Uncle Lloyd that I had saved up enough money to buy a car, but I had no experience in car shopping. I asked him to help me. He was a Ford-man so he took me to Million Motors and I bought a brand-new, two-tone white and blue, two-door Ford sedan. I was officially in tall cotton. I drove around Pocahontas showing off my new car. A day later, I drove to Little Rock and did the same thing. I went on a date in Little Rock with Dana Kirkland, an old friend from Rightsell and East Side Junior High School. We played the radio constantly and Dana kept asking me to tune it to a particular station that played the music of a new singer named Elvis Presley. Dana was raving about Elvis and she was stunned when I said, “Who’s that?” We did not get much music in Korea and if we got Elvis, I must have missed it.
On April 1, 1956, while I was still on leave, my promotion to sergeant came through. I quickly got the chevrons sewn on my uniforms. Then I drove to North Carolina and started my last few months in the Marine Corps with the Second Marine Air Wing at Cherry Point. While there, I learned to sail with a fellow sergeant who was from Massachusetts. That planted a seed that would take root years later. As I neared the end of my enlistment, there was a threat that the Marine Corps might extend all enlistments due to a flare-up in the Middle East. It made me nervous for a few weeks, but the situation settled down and I made it to my discharge date. The Marine Corps gave me a series of psychological and vocational tests as part of the discharge process to help me understand what I should do with the rest of my life. Interestingly, the counselors who interpreted the test results did not tell me that I should become a dentist. The testing suggested I should be a teacher.
On January 20, 1957, my three-year enlistment was over and I mustered out of the Marine Corps. In the two days it took me to drive home, I had a chance to think deeply about my time in the Corps, what it would be like to re-enter civilian life, and what I might do with the rest of my life. I had just turned twenty-one.
12
HOME, COLLEGE, AND LANA
One should choose a wife with the ears,
rather than with the eyes.
French Proverb
In 1944, President Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, commonly known as the G.I. Bill of Rights. It provided educational benefits to veterans. When I signed up for the Marine Corps in December of 1953, I was told that if I served honorably I would be entitled to receive a monthly payment of $110 that I could use to go back to college. I was not sure that I would ever use the GI Bill, but it was definitely an incentive that was on my mind when I joined the Marines. In my second year as a Marine, I considered the idea of going into the Naval Air Cadet program, becoming an officer, and making a career out of the military. If there had been no GI Bill I might have stayed in service, but the bill was an attractive benefit that would help me get an education. I decided to finish my enlistment and go to college.
As soon as I got to Little Rock, I went to see my sister and her husband, Bill Hastings. I told them I was planning to find a job, earn some money, and then start college in the fall of 1957. Bill said I should not wait to get started because I might lose interest and never go back to college. He urged me to enroll for the spring semester that was just starting at Little Rock Junior College. He said I would have plenty of time to work a part-time job, and the early start would put me well on the road to graduation, particularly if I attended summer school. I had twelve hours of credit from the days I spent at the University of Arkansas in 1953 and I could earn at least twenty-five additional credits at Little Rock Junior College between January of 1957 and September of 1957 by going straight through. Bill’s idea made sense to me, so I enrolled at LRJC. I met other veterans and discovered that we had a more mature outlook than the kids who came to LRJC straight from high school. I was hungry to learn, and determined to prove to myself that I could get a college education. I attacked my studies energetically and, fortunately, I had good professors for my classes on economics and English history. I made an A in both courses and discovered that I thoroughly enjoyed learning about our Anglo-American heritage and free market economics. I seemed to have a flair for these subjects, unlike the mystifying science courses that had given me so much trouble in 1953. I decided to pursue a degree in business administration.
The monthly stipend from the Marine Corps was not enough to cover all my living expenses, so I shared a cheap apartment with two other veterans. One of my roommates was Lewis Bracy, also a veteran of the Marine Corps. Lewis had a part-time job at Samuelson Cigar Company and encouraged the company to give me a part-time job delivering cigars, cigarettes, and sundries. I made the grand sum of a $1.50 an hour, but I was able to get in thirty hours a week and that gave me enough money to get by. The Samuelsons were nice people and I worked with a number of colorful fellow employees who had been with the company for years. We drivers got a stack of new orders each day when we came to work. It was our job to fill the orders, load them on our truck, and deliver them to drug stores, small groceries and other vendors. I have always liked to drive, so I really enjoyed the job. I drove all over Little Rock and got to know the small business owners and managers who were our main customers.
On September 4, 1957, I punched-in on the time clock at Samuelson and started filling the orders I would deliver that day. One of the orders was for a drug store on Park Street near Little Rock Central High School. As I drove the delivery truck out 16th Street, I was oblivious to what was going on at the high school. I had no interest in politics, did not take the newspaper or have a television set, and I only listened to music on the radio. Little did I know that I was about to run headlong into a sociopolitical conflict that rocked the nation and dominated world news for days. As I neared South Park Street, I saw crowds gathered and then, to my surprise, I saw troops and Army vehicles. I was just out of the Marine Corps and accustomed to seeing troops and military equipment, but to see them in front of the high school that I attended through the tenth grade was breathtaking. I parked the delivery truck and began asking people in the crowd, “What’s going on?”
I quickly learned that Governor Orval Faubus had deployed the Arkansas National Guard in support of those who were protesting the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Some people were saying the governor was not taking sides and that he sent the troops in “just to keep order,” but the restless crowd was clearly in favor of what he was doing and they said so in the crudest terms.
The governor’s deployment of the Arkansas National Guard was not “just to keep order.” The governor was currying favor with die-hard segregationists who opposed the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Governor Faubus was dead wrong to oppose the admission of black children to a public school—that was obvious—but I needed and wanted to know more. I got a newspaper that afternoon and began to learn as much as I could about the conflict.
In the days following, President Dwight Eisenhower tried to calm the situation. He warned Faubus not to interfere with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education, the landmark case requiring public schools to integrate with all deliberate speed. Faubus did not respond. On September 24, the president ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of Governor Faubus. The 101st took positions immediately and nine black students—The Little Rock Nine—successfully entered the school the next day, Wednesday, September 25, 1957.
I followed the events closely and drove by the high school as often as I could. I wanted to etch the unpleasant sight of troops at LRCHS into my memory.
My study of the Little Rock school integration crisis would last for years, but I had no idea on that day in 1957 that I would eventually play a part in the struggle to improve racial relations.
The best thing that ever happened to me occurred at Little Rock Junior College shortly after I enrolled. I was talking with my friend, Lewis Bracy, when a beautiful blonde-haired girl walked right by us and into a classroom. I asked Lewis if he knew her and he said, “Yes, that is Lana Douthit. She is very popular, and everyone likes her.” I asked Lewis if he would introduce me to Lana and he said he would. The next day we positioned ourselves in front of the classroom so that it would be hard for Lana to come out of her class without acknowledging our presence. Our plan worked. Lewis got Lana’s attention and then, being a straight-laced guy, commenced a formal introduction. He said, “Miss Lana Douthit, may I introduce you to Mr. Ed Bethune.” I had prepared for the moment by putting on my best outfit, a brown leather bombardier jacket and khaki pants. At the time, I had crew-cut hair and I was not sure I looked my best. Lana, on the other hand, had on a smart grey wool suit with a black velvet collar and trim, and she had on high heels. She was all dressed up for some event she was going to after class. She looked like a million dollars. I was a little nervous, but she was not. As I was about to say my first words to Lana, Lewis cut me off and continued the formal introduction that he must have learned from Emily Post, “And, Mr. Ed Bethune, this is Miss Lana Douthit.” It was now my turn to speak, so I told her it was nice to meet her, that Lewis and I were Marine Corps veterans and we did not know a lot of people on campus, and that I hoped to see her around. She smiled and said, “Sure, but right now I have to go downtown.” That was it, but it was a start.