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Marine Corps Pushes Racist Trials

By VVAW

FREE THE PENDLETON 14

The fight to free the 14 Black Marines at Camp Pendleton, who were jailed for breaking up what they believed was a Ku Klux Klan meeting on the base, is again heating up as the Pendelton brothers and their supporters prepare for the final rounds against the Marine Corps Brass. Not surprisingly, the Court of Military Appeals has denied a motion to take the trials out of the hands of the military where the so-called "Uniform Code of Military Justice" (UCMJ) guarantees convictions with the brass playing all the roles--judge, jury, prosecution and defense lawyers, and, or course, hangman. This is the system that gives the Brass its 97% rate of convictions over enlisted people. Because the appeal to move the trials to civilian courts have been denied the trials are being run through as fast as the Brass can get them to go. This has demanded an equally swift response on the part of the movement to Free the 14.

Around late July the newly appointed Secretary of the Navy came to the San Diego-Orange County areas to "inspect the troops," check on the cruise missile and make some speeches to the local businessmen about "war readiness." Thinking that San Diego is Navy and Marine Corps Brass turf, Clayter figured he'd get showered with love and affection by the large community of GIs and veterans. What he hadn't counted on was the militant demonstration that greeted him when he came to give an arms race speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club and the Navy League at the El Cortez hotel. The San Diego chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War had got wind of his visit and along with other vets from Los Angeles, Organizing Committee for a National Workers Organization, Youth in Action and other organizations they staged a demonstration against Sec. Clayter and the legal railroad being run down on the Pendleton 14 by the military and their rich bosses. Surprised by the demonstration the big man had to be brought in through the service entrance, probably the closest the former head of Southern Railroad Co. has ever been to a time clock in his life. Leaflets about the demonstrations were received well by GIs and Sailors from Camp Pendleton to the 32nd St. Navy Base.

While leafleting, VVAW also learned of an assault on a Black sailor, Kenneth James by 3 sailors as part of an initiation ritual into the Ku Klux Klan. After being attached while asleep in his bunk James required many stitches where the attackers had ht him in the head with a pipe. The Brass' response to all this was to press some phony drug charges on James while letting the Klan initiates off easy with only a sixty day restriction, $100 fine and a general under honorable conditions discharge for one of the attackers. Kenneth James told VVAW after receiving a leaflet that he felt that he was up against the same battle as the Pendleton 14 and that the picket line against the Secretary of the Navy had his support.

It is exactly this type of cooperation with the Klan by the military that has helped the Klan in dramatically stepping up its scum activities and that was directly responsible for the situation at Pendleton that led to the incident the 14 are being charged for.

In the past six weeks VVAW, the Pendleton Brothers and other groups have been fighting and exposing what the Marine Brass are trying to do to the Pendleton 14. Through door to door leafleting, programs at churches and schools the VVAW as well as the Revolutionary Student Brigade have taken the issues of this case out to thousands in southern Calif. And made this not only a struggle to free the 14, but part of the broader fight against the bosses war plans, and their use of our bodies to fight their wars. Some of the defendants themselves have become very active in bringing these questions out to people and becoming organizers on their own behalf. Refusing to give in to the threats of both the military's defense and prosecution lawyers some of the brothers have used every opportunity to speak out on radio and in public about their experience fighting back against the Klan and the military Brass.

Naturally the Brass have retaliated against this, and have tried to silence the most militant of the defendants, restricting them to base and using the military's defense lawyers to run down plea-bargaining offers " you can't refuse." Some of the lawyers, both military and civilian have insisted all along that the case had to be fought exclusively in the military courtroom and not by building support among the masses of working people and GIs. The majority of these lawyers have browbeat their defendants with the idea that if the Pendleton 14 just cool it the Brass will be more lenient with them. But nothing could be further from the truth. While the Klan steps out and continues to use the military as a recruiting ground, the Brass is handing out convictions of the Pendleton 14 right and left in an effort to make an example of them and try to derail the growing support for 14.

One of the defendants, Don Hunter has been held 6 months past his enlistment. During this time the Brass have piled up a lot of petty charges against him and are pressing to have a second court-martial. Eddie Page, has been sentenced to 2 years in Leavenworth. A third, Herman Fletcher will serve 6 months and be given a Bad Conduct Discharge.

Trials for other members of the 14 are progressing: Bill Spencer and Tony Matthew on October 17th and Billy Bishop on November 1st. Rather than no outside support, as the lawyers suggest, members of VVAW and other organizations are holding picket lines and marches through downtown San Diego. The Brass would like nothing better than a quiet trial and a defeat for the Black GIs and all the other GIs who stand with the Pendleton Brothers. Now is a critical time for all of us to stand together with the Brothers.