>>>when Smith took offense to something the victim allegedly said to them

Any sailor who was ever stationed in such garden spots as Norfolk or even San Diego in the mid-late 50s can attest to what sort of verbal and physical abuse we often received from the locals. I know from experience that San Diego coppers in those days were every bit as henhouse, brutal, and vicious as the infamous HASP in Pearl when it came to dealing with sailors.

Or, a Viet-Nam vet being called a "baby-killing bastard" like I was at a friend's daughter's wedding because it happened to be held on Veterans Day and I was wearing my VFW buddy poppy. That was one of those teeth-gritting occasions when the only sensible thing to do was turn and walk away.

Unfortunately, while our natural instinct is to pound some loudmouthed jackass into the ground, we can't. I can sympathize with these men if this news story is anywhere near being accurate - but it looks as if they are now headed for serious consequences and the really sad part of it all is that the so-called "victim" probably isn't worth one tenth of the grief they are going to catch.

I've BTDT with Norfolk signs - including one that has the infamous "N-word" in it as well. I still have the 35mm color slide of that scene that I shot with my Building A-33 Minolta camera in the fall of 1959.

I ran across some towns that were hostile towards any military except one of their own native sons - and then only after they found out he "belonged" there. Other towns I've lived in or visited were very pro-military, like Portland Oregon during the Rose Festival, for example. The remaining 94.37% were somewhere between non-commital but curious to fairly neutral.

I never spent much time in Portsmouth - maybe a half-dozen business trips while I was in NAVSHIPS so I wasn't a typical sailor on the beach --- and that was years ago. I spent a lot of time in San Diego in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s and saw a wide range of attitudes over the years, almost like the pendulum swinging to-and-fro. I definitely remember the "two dollar bill payday" and saw an attitude change like a light switch getting flipped.