Welcome to Veterans Radio. I am Jim Fossone. I'm the officer of the deck today.
We've got some great programs for you. I think you'll find very interesting. We
always want to remind you you can find more about Veterans Radio at its
Facebook site or by going to veteransradio.net where we're on the web
24-7. You can find a lot of our podcasts there as well. We post new ones every
Tuesday so you can get a new story, a new interview, something you didn't know
before by going to veteransradio.net. And before we get started we want to thank
our sponsors. First up we want to thank National Veteran Business Development
Council, NVBDC.org. It was established to certify both service disabled and
veteran owned businesses in the government and commercial or corporate
marketplace. You'll find out how they can help your business by going to
NVBDC.org. We also want to thank Eisenhower Center. It's a brain injury recovery center.
And in particular it's after the IMPACT program goes beyond awareness campaigns
and state-of-the-art imaging to help veterans first responders and athletes.
Learn more about EisenhowerCenter.com. They're located in Michigan and in
Florida. And finally we want to thank Legal Help for Veterans. Legal Help for
Veterans fights for veterans disability rights all across the nation. You can
reach them at 800-693-4800 or on the web at legalhelpforveterans.com. And finally
we want to welcome new sponsor to the program which is Veterans Business
Outreach Center which is located in Flint, Michigan and covers Michigan, Ohio and
Indiana. The Center is ran and operated by veterans to help other veterans in
National Guard, Reserve, spouses, expand and grow businesses. You can find more
about them by going to vetbizcentral.org 810-252-6200 and now on to our programs.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio Lieutenant Commander Ruben Keith Green
of the United States Navy retired. Commander welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you Jim. Happy to be here. Well we're always thrilled to have a Navy
vet here talking about his experiences. You have a unique set of experiences
having gone from enlisted to officer in the Navy which is never easy to do in
any service in particularly challenging here as you move from an African
American who enlisted for different reasons but then joined up, got into the
officer corps after a number of years and really got a chance to see the world.
So we're gonna cover the we're gonna cover the waterfront as I should say.
So we're glad to have you on Ruben. Thank you. So let's talk about why a kid at 17
years old down in Florida decides maybe even against parental advice. I'm gonna
go into the military and I'm gonna join the Navy. Well because I was headed
nowhere and I was going there fast. I decided that if I stayed in the little
small town of Tarkin Springs Florida largely segregated there wasn't much of
a future there for me. It didn't matter really how smart I was or anything else
it was just that the you know my path is pretty well laid out just based on you
know cultural demographics and stuff. So I decided to join the Navy against my
father's wishes because whatever he talked about the Navy with his buddies
and stuff he always seemed to be animated about it. Occasionally there would be
some bad stories that came up but I think he really enjoyed his time in the
Navy. He just had some issues with certain things. Well and you your family
has a history of service your grandfather your father you brothers I mean
so there is a family of service in the in the green history tree isn't there?
There's about a hundred years. And I think that's important for people to know
that you're bringing that perspective to it and and maybe have some advice that
maybe you wish somebody would have passed on to you and and maybe this
interview will let you let you do that. Now you got out of high school but
didn't graduate if I understand it right. Right I quit three years three three
weeks into my senior year and joined the Navy. So the reason I want to point this
out is because you're going to hear in this interview how far he's gone and he
is the author of a book that we're going to talk about and so it's one of those
things where that whole educational and growing up process you really did it in
the Navy didn't you? Absolutely I got my high school diploma my first year in the
Navy through the pre-discharge education program in Charleston South
Carolina and then while I was stationed in Cuba I was the discipline
yeoman for the Naval Station down there. I completed a bunch of coursework and
took some CLEP exams and I got my associates degree and then when I
transferred to Jacksonville in 1980 I completed my bachelor's degree requirements
and got my bachelor's degree and that's when I applied for OCS and went to the
Officer Canada School. And Commander Green here published a couple years back
and you can find it on all your favorite booksellers a very
interesting book called Black Officer, White Navy, Thriving While Black and
Sailing Second Class in the Post-Solmouth Navy. We're going to talk about that a
little bit but before we get there Commander talk about some of your
overseas duty assignments which I think would make everybody envious that they
didn't get such great assignments. Well I graduated from Mineman A School in
Charleston South Carolina in 1975 and then after a brief hiatus into the
reserves I came back to Charleston and they almost immediately sent me to
Ciginella, Sicily to be the detachment yeoman. I was a Mineman but they
figured out I could type so and they were short on Mineman so I went to be the
detachment yeoman. I spent six months in Sicily and made a couple trips around
you know I went to Naples once and knocked around in Sicily a little bit
and I came back to Charleston and then just a few months later they sent me to
Glen Douglas Scotland, the NATO ammunition depot there in Scotland. So I
lived in a little town called Helensboro but we worked at a NATO
ammunition depot. After I left there I was back to Charleston for a short while
and then I had converted from a Mineman to a yeoman and then they sent me to
Legal Clerk School in Newport, Rhode Island and then I was assigned as the
Mass Yeoman in Guantanamo Bay for two years and four days. Remember exactly
how long you serve in Guantanamo and after that I was stationed in Charleston,
excuse me, in Mayport. I volunteered for the Navy's Equal Opportunity Program
Specialist Program. The minimum requirement was Z6 but I got a waiver to
go as an E5 because they really needed people for those billets and after a few
years in Mayport once I got commissioned I was stationed on a frigate out of
Mayport. We made did a lot of drug interdiction stuff down in the Caribbean,
lots of Caribbean port visits and what have you and then when I became Chief
Engineer on an FFG, a frigate, I made a Persian Gulf cruise to Persian Gulf and I
left that job. I got assigned as the Executive Officer on the Navy Hydrofoil
stationed down in Key West. We did a lot of interdiction, a lot of port visits, a
lot of dog and pony shows every time we pulled in the port because all the
dignitaries wanted to fly in the Navy Hydrofoil so we were very accommodating
with that. Good PR for the Navy and good visibility for the Navy. And this is a
career that's spanded from 1975 until April 1st of 1997 and and during that
period I mean it's really amazing the different places you got to see in the
I'm sure the broadening of your perspective as an you really are clearly
an avid reader from reading your book. I know you're an avid reader and and a
pretty prolific and welled writer. As you look back and think about that 17 or 19
year old kid who just was getting into the Navy did you ever think this is
where you'd be? Not at all. When I when I dropped out of high school I had always
been a prolific reader. I was reading at a two-year college level but I was
flunking English because the in my mind the dead in Florida school system at
that time didn't have didn't prevent present very many opportunities for me.
There was no way with my grades that I was going to get a scholarship or
anything like that so joining the Navy was a was a logical choice for me. I
didn't want to join the Army or the Marines so you know I just followed
followed in my father's footsteps. But no I had always been very interested in
reading. Reading is what got me to where where I wound up today because if you
don't read you really can't learn that much. Well and it was important in you
know every promotion you've got to study and get there and every you know
taking school remotely and kids today your your version of remote learning is
much different than the commanders in mind because when you were on ship the
box showed up and you had stuff to fill out and mail back. It was an internet
remote learning so you had a very you had a proclivity to do this and you had
the opportunity to do this because again some of these Navy assignments allow
you to have time to focus on improving yourself don't they. That's a fact and I
was willing to sacrifice a lot of sleep in order to learn stuff that I needed
that would help me get promoted. My main goal when I joined the Navy when I
decided I was going to try to become an officer was to command my own ship and
there's a lot of reading and a lot of learning that has take place before you
ready for a job like that. And anybody of a certain age again if you're too
computer literate you won't appreciate this but your your discussion of
celestial navigation made me break into cold sweats again from doing it myself.
It was a horrible it was a horrible section of the book to read but I but I
brought back those memories of celestial navigation well boy that's a tough one.
I just started to sweat when you brought it up. So let me let me go back though
because I want I want to talk about the book and I want to talk about the
experiences while there's a whole batch of great experiences that you had being
in the in the Navy. Being an African-American in the late 70s through
the 80s into the 90s in the Navy was not a piece of cake and and one line that I
made a note of that you you wrote you said the daily indignities that minority
sailors and officers had to endure and it really was that in the book we
explains a lot of that but but commander talk to us a little bit about how
those experiences came in day in day out but but ultimately didn't stop you
from doing what you want to accomplish. Well if you grow up in the South as a
lot of enlistees do especially you know minority sailors the South contributes
Georgia contributes more military members than any other state in the Union
but if you grew up in the South you learn quite early to both to adjust to and
anticipate some of those responses and I always viewed any sort of overt or
covert hostility or disrespect to whatever as a challenge I would make it my
point to outperform or outshine the people that were trying to diminish me
because I knew at some level that it stemmed from either fear or jealousy so
my goal was to rise above all that and to just run work circles or run circles
around the people that were trying to diminish me at some level at some point
they begin to respect you because of that but there is a toll that that takes
on you both psychologically and emotionally having to fight that battle
constantly. Yeah I wanted you to expand on the idea that as a black sailor you'd
run into this problem of where you would not get recognized for exceptional
work that's being done. Well you know that started early in my career and it
was quite a shock to me because I thought my father was wrong and I learned
very early that he was right. I thought that when Admiral Zoomwalt said that
there was no black Navy no white Navy there was just one Navy. Everyone would
hand salute and that's what would happen. I joined the Navy six months after
Admiral Zoomwalt retired and when I went to my Mene school there were 25 people
that started that class and only seven of us graduated that was the number two
graduate in the class and David Badger excuse me David Badger the class genius
graduated number one he has a photographic memory he emailed me after he read
the book 20 years after I had last seen him that told me what my exact GPA was.
So but he was aware they lowered my grades from being an honor roll eligible and
then they told me I wasn't eligible for promotion and it was the daily the weekly
indignities I had to endure at at personnel inspections and during
practical examination they made it quite clear that I wasn't welcome even though
I was outperforming you know 20 25 or 26 other people. And I think it's easy
sometimes to think well they're just picking on me because there you know and
indeed certainly the the the younger enlisted guys all get picked on but
this was this was not that this was sort of a systematic we don't want this black
sailor to get too far advanced that's the really the message they were sending
you wasn't it. That is exactly correct. And let me again remind our veteran
radio listeners we're talking to Lieutenant Commander Ruben Keith Green
so it didn't work what they were trying to do and I told Ruben before we had
started that my problem in reading this book is about every page I had to stop
and write down another book that he referenced or some history that he
referenced that I wanted to go read about. Talk to us why it was important
commander for you to write this naval history of Minority Service so embedded
into into your book Black Officer White Navy thriving while while black and
sailing second class in the post Zummelt Navy. Well I thought it was important that
any individual has their own story but I thought it was important to wrap what
was happening in the country around my particular story. For instance the
instance where I was preparing to go to see the Persian Gulf deployment and my
supply officer was denying me the resources I needed to prepare the ship.
That was going to have an impact on the if my ship didn't deploy on time that was
going to have an impact much beyond just my particular ship not deploying other
ships might have to schedules might have to be adjusted the captain was going to
get hammered I mean there was a domino effect and I compare that to the
problems that black farmers were having in the 1980s during the same time period
where they were being denied resources in order to properly farm and it was
specifically black farmers so I wanted to show both the you know the on the
ground view and then the 10,000 foot view of what was happening in the larger
larger country. I kept trying to tie what was happening to me and what was
happening in the Navy to events that were happening throughout the nation
both political and economic and cultural. And one of the things that I think you do
a great job of in in the book is talking about Admiral Zumult and what what his
goal was and how far short we were coming in it in the Navy at that point
can you talk about your if I dare say admiration for the admiral and where you
think if we had followed his directions we might be better off. Well you call it
admiration I prefer the term reverence he's a he's a real hero to me and he
literally had to be educated by his minority affairs assistant Lieutenant
Commander William S. Norman who had put in a resignation letter because he was
so disgusted with the Navy and their lack of progress he'd been on all of the
boards and committees and recommendations and he had his own experiences
similar to mine and Admiral Zumult said bring the sky and I want to talk to him
before he before he retires. And that Lieutenant Commander Norman walked in
there with a list of 20s basically there were 20 recommendations but they
really were demands. Zumult said that I called him in to interview him and it
turns out he was interviewing me but those two together worked to identify and
eliminate all of the institutional biases that existed in the Navy and
obstacles. It wasn't until Norman pointed it out to Zumult that Filipino
sailors could only serve in the Stewards branch and Zumult immediately changed
that so that one that one point changed the course of the career of many many
Filipino sailors that's just one example. So I admire the man greatly the
problem with Zumult and his era was that much of the civilian leadership did
not like what he was doing and there were very powerful southern politicians
including John C. Stennis and there's a story in the book where when the some of
the black sailors on some of the ships had begun to protest their treatment and
and do sit sit down work stoppages etc. Henry Kissinger called Zumult tells him
the president wants you to immediately discharge those sailors with a
dishonorable discharge. Of course Richard Nixon knew that wasn't possible he's a
former naval officer himself but that was just the the law and order type
approach that the government was taking towards those sorts of issues and then
when Senator John C. Stennis got wind of that he wanted to blame it all on Zumult
saying he had created a climb enough for misadmiss and along with former C&O
George Anderson and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Admiral
Thomas More who was a racist from Alabama there was a lot of pushback to
what Zumult was was trying to do and the animals lobby both retired and active
duty were in to a large a large extent aligned against them because the Navy
had almost no black officers like 0.5% and and they didn't want any.
Now and again the history that's involved in the book is really well done
in eye-opening I didn't want to come back to maybe three pearls of wisdom that
you have here too so that you can talk to the broader audience and maybe some of
the young men and women who may listen to this. Talk about the importance of
mentorship both in your situation but in everybody's situation as you try to
advance. If you don't have a good mentor you are going to make a lot of mistakes.
I had people that looked out for me and they were almost all white because just
by the the rank demographics the only time I've worked for a black man I worked
for two black men in the Navy and that was early on in my career and one of
them had turned down a commission and he told me said Keith if you want to make
any changes you need to get some gold on your that's where you're going to be
able to make some some changes so mentorship is important but what's
even more important is having a sponsor which is someone with some power that
can help guide your career and look out for you if you happen to run into any
trouble. The sponsors are as important as the mentor. For my career I have people
that looked out for me multiple occasions one of my heroes is Master Chief
Daniel J. Zepiro. He saved me from a vindictive Master Chief that was trying
to destroy my career by fabricating these negative critiques and whatnot and
Dan Zepiro is the true hero to me he really did save me. Well again these
are the you know hard-earned lessons that you want to pass on to people is
look for those mentors and those sponsors but you also talk about and this
shouldn't be surprising to somebody who writes so well and who was a you know
sort of accidental yeoman and legal professional here. The power of
documentation I think again that's something that is a lesson you learn
over time and maybe you can pass it along. That is one of the most important
things I learned in the Navy. It doesn't matter what you say it is only what you
can prove. If you can't prove that you're being discriminated against it can be
happening on a regular basis but you need to have proof and you also need
documentation to prove that you're right. A lot of times you will bring up an
issue and you may have a gut feeling that something needs to be done or
something shouldn't be done but you have to be able to document it because I
mean the military operates on numbers. The numbers are critical whether you're
a supply officer or a weapon air or an engineer. You have to stay within those
parameters in terms of you know doing your job and if something falls outside
those parameters and number one you haven't paid attention to it or you
haven't documented a ton of bricks can fall down on your head but it's very
important to document what is happening to you in your career and what's going
on around you. I made a point of every time not every time but often when I
would go see one of my bosses especially after I got my commission I'd see one of
my bosses about something and I would just casually ask is there anything that
I'm doing that you don't want me to do is there anything that I'm not doing that
you want me to do and whatever that was I would write it down because I didn't
want any surprises at the when it's time for my fitness report so if it was
something I needed to change I would jump on immediately and if everything was
going well I'd look for ways to improve. Well and there's one more that I want to
use and then we'll shift into some of your more recent writings and in Black
Officer White Navy you talk about the power of words and symbols can you
elaborate a little bit about that commander? Oh I certainly can. Going back
to the first six months I was in the Navy there was a young man at one of the
school's commands there in Charleston, South Carolina who had filed a
discrimination complaint. He was facing the same kind of discrimination I was.
I never met him but I know what was happening. You gotta remember Charleston
was where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Admiral Thomas Crowe said
that when he was stationed there he never met anybody in South Carolina that
thought the South had lost the Civil War. So my buddy and I were walking
down the sidewalk in front of the school and this pickup truck pulls up in
front of us and it's the captain of the school and he tells us to get in he wants
to give us a ride. Well of course the hair on the back of my neck stood up
because this guy had never paid any attention to us at all. So we got into
his truck and plastered it all across the dashboard where stickers honoring the
Confederacy. Forget hell the South's gonna rise again etc etc and I was
terrified. I literally was worried that something was about to happen to me. I
looked in the rearview mirror to see if there was a car behind us. That symbology
for a person raised in the South can be quite powerful. So I spent almost all of
my career in the South and seeing Confederate flags and those types of
stickers all over the base and in people's offices was not an unusual
occurrence but it has an ability to be intimidating to minorities. Well I think
it's just good advice for everybody right to think a little bit about hey
what you say in the symbols you use has a certain amount of power intended or
unintended and you may have to decide for yourself whether it's a good
intention or a bad but don't overlook the power of words and symbols and I
think that's really driven home in your book and again it really recommended to
folks. They can find it on any of your booksellers your online sellers. It's
also in ebook version. So Lieutenant Commander Ruben Keith Green you did a
great job. Thank you. I'd like to turn if I can to sort of some things that are
going on more recently while the book is really capturing that period of time
during your service from 1975 to 1997. Here we sit in 2020 and the country
again finds itself evaluating talking about arguing about symbols and the
case for renaming forts and bases and ships and you've written on two articles
I want to talk about one in the United States Navy Institute magazine in 2020
of June the case for renaming the USS John C. Stennis. Talk to us about what
motivated you to write this commander and in a little bit about why and how you
wrote it. Well it always galled me to think that the man who did so much to
try to derail the changes in the Navy that allowed me to become an officer was
honored with an aircraft carrier and I had read
Zumwalt's memoir that talked about Stennis's efforts to derail his
trying to bring the Navy into the 21st century and then when I read about
Stennis's background as a prosecutor in Mississippi where he was complicit in
trying to execute three black men who had been convicted based on
confessions obtained via torture I just found it appalling and so for me that
was something if you're talking about removing symbols that divide I just I
just could not imagine myself being assigned to a ship that was that was
named in honor of someone with a background like that I mean just think
about that it's Black History Month and you know you've got these you know
Black History Month celebrations going on and you've got you know potentially
these white sailors say hey well you know Stennis was a bad hard racist right
you know I mean that would be something every day you walk aboard that ship and
you hear John C. Stennis arriving it's just a constant reminder that you're
serving on a ship named for an ardent segregationist who rode his defeat by the
Supreme Court in his ability to execute those men rode that into a career as a
prosecutor and judge and then a Mississippi State Senator and I just don't
I think that sends a wrong signal in the 21st century when you're talking about
inclusion and diversity it just it's like a constant slap in the face and
it's really interesting as we go through this debate about different forts and
different ships the naming of it you know you wonder who the heck did what
vetting on these names or what other political pressures were involved in
putting the name forward and skipping over the all of the maybe the bad history
if you will and did you find that was what was really involved in the Stennis
is is those sort of outside forces in the naming well Ronald Reagan was an ardent
admirer of John C. Stennis Stennis did a lot for the Navy I believe that based on
some of the recordings that came out after the fact that Ronald Reagan may
have been sympathetic to Stennis's racial views so he was willing to overlook
all of that and honor the man who was quite powerful in the South and I don't
know if Ronald Reagan said he wanted something he was going to get it they
kept taking that tear down this wall line out of his speech where he told
Gorbachev to tear down that wall and he kept putting it back in and he did
utter it so I think it was a strong will personality and I'm not sure what he
thought about zoom wall but he was an ardent admirer and and was full of
respect for John's Stennis yeah I don't have the background on the you know what
went into that a little more timely naming I think when we ought to talk
about is the USS Doris Miller you you tell folks to look it up as you do in a
lot of your writing you sort of tease them with it and say now go do some
research of your own but let's let's go ahead and tell Doris Miller story
because I think it was avoided or ignored or forgotten for so long well
when he was serving in Pearl Harbor I forget which ship exactly but he was
trained as an ammunition loader but once Pearl Harbor attack began his captain
was severely injured he helped get his captain to safety and then went back up
and he operated this machine gun which he had not been trained to operate and
shot at multiple Japanese plays there's no documentation that he ever shot
shot any down but he was one of the last three men to leave the ship as it was
sinking and he helped you know save a lot of people on that ship now when
the initial press reports came out they just said an unnamed black sailor had
done all these things and so the black press began pushing to have the sailor
recognized he got a lower award than some of the other awardees on the ship
but they began to use Doris Miller as a recruiting tool and he
wound up getting transferred to another ship after his recruiting journey
across the United States and was lost at sea when one of the other ship he was
unsunk I learned a lot more about this story when I read a book called black
men in blue water by Chester Wright who knew Doris Miller and some of the people
that knew him so there are many many gems in that book it's not a well-known
book but it's a great reference if you want to know what the Navy was like for
black sailors prior to you know the early 70s well and you make another
suggestion in this article on the replacement name for the Stennis let's
let's remove his name tell us who you think it ought to be named for well the
man that Admiral zoom Walt who is credited with bringing the Navy into the
21st century and who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from
President Bill Clinton you can watch that clip on YouTube he said that William
S. Norman his minority affairs assistant did more than any person on the planet
to improve the flight of black sailors in the Navy I find it amazing that
Lieutenant Commander Norman's records are not in the distinguished veteran
section of the the National Archives Dennis Den Martin Nelson who was one of
the Golden 13 and wrote the book the integration of the Negro in the United
States Navy his records are there but William Norman is one of those overlooked
heroes that without him educating zoom Walt and teaching him how things were
for minority sailors and their families many of these changes may not have taken
place for decades and these are the kind of stories I think it's so important to
tell down through history so that they don't get lost and that young men and
women coming up whatever they're facing what in your book you talk about issues
for the for gays and blacks and Hispanics but whatever issue you're facing you can
look at these guys these stories you're telling us and realize there's hope that
that one man one woman can can make a difference in the right situation don't
you absolutely you have to believe that change is possible and once you believe
that then you have to start looking for ways to make it happen just in August of
2020 you wrote an article called the Navy's perpetual racism problem and how
to fix it for the Center for International Maritime Security and I want to
ask you a couple of questions I think you right up front point out three
problems first is there's racism in the ranks second is that's a failure of
leadership and third it's the Navy's unwilling to face head-on the first two
problems and and what I want to have you expand on a little bit is your
suggestion that what the Navy needs to do is to target the problem as though
we're an operational necessity and matter of national security to fix what
were you thinking about as you wrote that well I compare it to a captain who
runs his ship or ground when the captain runs his ship or ground whether it's a
soft grounding or hard grounding he doesn't get to select the officer that's
going to investigate whether he did anything wrong or whether the ship was
well-trained etc someone outside of that organization takes a full court press
looking at all the training the past history the material condition etc what
were the circumstances they do a a an all-encompassing look to see what
contributed to that now when someone is accused of racism the captain selects
someone to do that investigation and that person knows that the captain is
going to sign his fitness report at the end of the reporting period so there's
a conflict of interest there the other thing is the Navy has equal opportunity
program personnel assigned to many major large commands some as a collateral
duty and the captain also signs their fitness report but what is interesting is
that the person who has the most knowledge in the most training can only
make an advisory opinion which is very often overridden there was an article
that came out a special report in routers just last week and it talked
about the high barrier that minority sailors face when trying to report
discrimination in the Navy and between 1987 and 1991 the average
substantiated discrimination complaint numbed percentage for the Navy was 7%
according to this article in 2019 the average substantiated rate was 6% so it's
actually dropped all these decades later the problem is people really don't
understand how pervasive racism is so what they a lot of times what they
perceive is just normal everyday behavior is microaggressions and
sabotage or whatever but you know the Navy really needs to revamp and not
just the Navy Department of Defense I've been fighting for two years to get some
of those statistics released to me and so far they've been unwilling to do it
as you look back over your long career and you can go back a hundred years
because you can go through your father's and your grandfather's service and as
you project forward as a as a you know think deep thinker on this issue is the
Navy heading in the right direction I'm it's incrementally slow but are we at
least making progress what's your what's your prognosis here commander I think
we're headed in the right direction but you know once again it all comes back
to leadership if you if the leadership is committed to fixing a problem it'll
happen Apollo 13 you know that those people back there Houston said failure
is not an option and as far as I'm concerned if you've got 40% of the Navy
complies of military personnel continuing to accept the status quo is not an
option because we had we had significant racial incidents all over the
military back in the 60s 70s and on through the 80s you don't hear about a
lot of those because it's it's kind of hushed up but people are getting tired
and people are getting frustrated because you can't use the system to help
protect yourself and help people accountable well people eventually are
going to start going outside the system on more than one occasion I had to use
unorthodox methods to make my point and to protect myself and really it's if
you're you know you've had a great career again we talked about this earlier
that you don't you know regret having committed your adult life to the Navy
oh absolutely I would recommend anyone join the military what I regret is the
system that I trusted to protect me you know they teach you to fight but then
when you fight for yourself the wagons get circled around the perpetrator as
opposed to the victim that has been my experience and that's been reported to
me from from many other people so the system has to change and recognize that
when you protect someone who is behaving in a racist manner you are
undermining the stability of that organization and when people vote with
their feet you're cutting off your nose to spite your face because as people
begin to spread those messages about the Navy had a terrible reputation in the
40s and 50s people were actively telling people not to join the join the
Navy so if that message gets out there again then you're eliminating a large
portion of your your recruiting pool and you're you are causing that
recruiting pool not to have the opportunity to have this great career
I mean you're we're trying to give we should this country should be giving
people equal opportunity to succeed and we shouldn't let those kind of view
points and processes say well you can't you can't go to Sicily you can't go to
Scotland you can't you know so it's a very there's a real there's a real push
and pull here and a need for people to say I'm gonna get through this and I'm
gonna prove my worth and you've certainly you've certainly done commander
it's a good as I say it's a great story I know you have a website and you're
continuing to write things why don't you tell our veteran radio listeners a
little bit about how they can find you and how they can communicate with you
well I have a rudimentary website at Ruben Keith green calm I'm not on any
other social media but I am on LinkedIn Ruben Green writer looking for minority
veteran stories one of my goals is to write a book about the experiences of
African-Americans and minorities from various branches of the service because
mine is just one story that's one data point if you get enough people sharing
their stories people don't know this but there are very few you can count on one
hand the stories and books written about the Vietnam war era on one hand you can
count those by authors of African-American ancestry and two of those
are fictionalized versions that were written by people that never served so
there's a big hole in the literature about the experiences of African-American
service people after the Vietnam war era and I'm trying to do my best to fix
that well we appreciate all that you've done and you continue to do on behalf of
the military the Navy the African-American community and getting this
history preserved and out so that it can influence policymakers and just regular
individuals going forward and Lieutenant Commander Ruben Keith Green
thanks for spending some time today with Veterans Radio thank you and I really
appreciate the opportunity and I want to thank everybody for listening to
Veterans Radio today I am Jim Fawcone it's been a pleasure to be your host I'm a
Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web you can follow Veterans
Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio shows by
going to veteransradio.net and until next time you are dismissed
you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals contact Legal Help
for Veterans at 1-800-6934800 they're experts in handling cases
before the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims their number again
1-800-6934800 Veterans Radio needs you if you like our shows that are informative
surprising stories and relevant information on what's happening at the
VA in the military we'd like your support individual support of $5 to $50 a
month or corporate sponsorship of a thousand to ten thousand dollars would be
welcomed you can go to veteransradio.net click on the sponsorship or support
tab pay online and keep Veterans Radio on the air