A RIVETING ACCOUNT OF ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL LEGAL CASES IN THE HISTORY OF THE US MILITARY. As a Navy JAG lawyer who defended several of the Black sailors, Marv Truhe is uniquely positioned to write this book. Drawing on his first-person experiences with the case, as well as a treasure trove of unpublished files and records from the trials, Truhe tells a powerful story of racial injustice.
– MATTHEW F. DELMONT, Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College, author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad
IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN. Gifted author Marv Truhe has created a disturbing picture of lingering institutional racism in America’s military. Meticulously researched, this eye-opening narrative adds necessary context to the historical record of Black sailors’ service in Vietnam.
– ROBERT CHILD, author of Immortal Valor: The Black Medal of Honor Recipients of World War II
MARV TRUHE HAS GIVEN US A LONG OVERDUE AND WELCOME CHRONICLE of a shameful episode of racial injustice on a Navy aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. As a military defense counsel who represented several unfairly accused Black sailors, Truhe is well positioned to set the record straight on what was mischaracterized as a race riot incited by Black crew members. Truhe tells an important, largely unknown story from the war many would like to forget.
– EUGENE L. MEYER, author of Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army
MARV TRUHE TRANSCENDS MILITARY HISTORY AND LEGAL DRAMA. This book goes beyond the strategies that shaped the Vietnam War or the courtrooms that determined individual sailors’ destinies. Truhe delivers a compelling blow-by-blow account of events both on the Kitty Hawk and after—and in so doing, he crafts a powerful testimony to the American struggle for justice itself.
– TED KEMP, coauthor of The Ragged Edge: A US Marine’s Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion
THE STRATEGY BRIDGE REVIEW
Looking forward to the calendar year 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt saw continuing challenges facing the United States Navy. In his Z-gram No. 104, entitled “Challenge of 1972,” he looked at all that had been accomplished during his roughly eighteen months on the job as the head of the U.S. Navy.[1] He was a reformer, pushing the Navy in several directions simultaneously. He was liberalizing the living standards of sailors, adjusting liberty and grooming standards, and moving toward a more equitable fleet for the service of women and minorities.
RACIAL TENSIONS EXPLODE AT SEA IN ’72, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
For 50 years, Marv Truhe kept the boxes. He moved from San Diego to South Dakota, from South Dakota to Colorado, and a lot of belongings came and went. Not those boxes. There were five of them, cardboard Bankers Boxes filled with official investigations, witness interviews, medical reports, trial transcripts and other documents from an incident that rocked the U.S. Navy in October 1972: a Black vs. White race riot aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
THE VVA VETERAN BOOK REVIEW
A riot broke out in the early-morning hours of October 13, 1972, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier on combat patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War. Fighting fomented by racial tensions between white and Black sailors turned a section of the vessel into a battleground. Dozens of men were injured; three men had to be medevaced to on-shore medical facilities. The confrontations did not affect combat operations.