Chief As White As Me

Onerous and offensive as it is we are commonly asked to identify ourselves by race to government agencies and other organizations to meet various statutory reqirements. Church and state laws also chronicle (not necessarily sanction) our births. Absent church and state law, many of us would still be happy bastards and others still rotten. The state, the law, can only document race and birth; it cannot create. That was tried infamously in Germany, South Africa, and the United States.

In the Navy from August, 1958 to December, 1961 I slowly learned of another world. The USS Valley Forge, CVS 45, was an aircraft carrier home ported in Norfolk, VA. and it wasn't until years later that I realized I never saw any blacks on liberty in the places I and the other guys I hung around with went to.

We were at sea. I worked in after engine room. The Chief Petty Officer (CPO) in charge of forward engine room had ordered a sailor to work in the bilges. Hey, we all took our turn there. The sailor demurred saying that he didn't do that kind of work (or words to that effect). The Chief told him to get his BA to the bilges or he would be written up. The sailor told the Chief that he was as white as he. Now the sailor was a black man. No mistake about that. He told the Chief to check his records in the Personnel Office; they would show that he was a caucasian.

The sailor went to the bilges and the Chief went to the Personnel Office. The records indicated the sailor’s race was caucasian. He was from the United States Virgin Islands. I seem to remember the Chief shaking his head in wonderment which was the best part of all this. I remember their names but the Chief will always be rememembered too as Chief As White As Me. Shaking his head.

The ship's nickname was The Happy Valley.The picture here shows the ship as we entered Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1959. I was aboard then. Eighteen years old. A happy bastard for the most part I would think.

Tom Paine