Duty Driver Day

This day began approximately eleven months after June 6, 1960. Private Tan Renrut entered the U.S. Army on that day. I suppose if he had wanted to he could have checked the date those southern Americans burned a interstate commercial bus down to the wheels. Then he would’ve known what day he had been assigned to duty driver.

Tan chose to enter the Army after spending his first year in college. He was a student in good standing at Wayne St. University. Never failed a course was what he told me. He needed insurance for the baby his college girlfriend was beginning to swell with, so he joined the Army hoping for a career after Officer Candidate School and a glorious experience as a warrior in his country’s service.

Of course, he could have chosen to not marry her or even to abandon her but Tan had a conscience and this wasn’t the first pregnancy in his life. Surely this child would have been aborted or something else, he thought,  if he didn’t “do the right thing”. He had felt the pain and shame of abortion from his high school sweetheart’s tragedy and he was humbled and traumatized by that. To think of what she had endured was forever a sharp pain in his psyche and soul.

He and his college buddy were really close. They spent all available time together and making love continuously, effortlessly, intensely…playing singing and dancing. Yes, that was what they did..Young love it was ..so he married this African American with pretty blue eyes..Yes, from Louisiana with blue eyes, a really fine looking thing she was ..What a body too.She was also smart and self-respecting in every way but she was pregnant.  They married and he went to Ft.Knox, Kentucky. They were eighteen years old.

She went to live in New Jersey with his family while he pursued his career in the Army. Basic training followed in Ft. Benning, Ga.  with advanced individual training at Ft. McClellan Ala.

A moment here to reflect on Tan’s  upbringing. It was in the northeast US. His neighborhood was ethnically and culturally mixed but it did seem odd that often whites hung with whites and blacks/negroes stayed with their own..It was unwritten in the Northeast ..just ..seemingly”understood”..Tan had difficulty understanding that. He chose his friends and foes freely on both sides of the fence..He lived on the border street of the white school district. Not knowing that was why he had been attending the “white” schools. He was comfortable wherever he sat.

The white policemen were nasty he thought but they had a nasty job. He thought it went with the territory. His family was proud African-Americans.They took serious pride in being black and being proud of the heroes of that day..Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Kid Gavilan, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billy Eckstine.Oh , hell yeah..they all were so damn good, his Dad always said..His Dad was a great baseball player would have been in the majors if they hadn’t been segregated. Everybody in his family was “good-looking” and could dance and sing all they wanted to. His family thought that the one or two black policemen were Toms but they did have a job so that wasn’t the worst thing. They were not friends of the family though and definitely didn’t deserve to be trusted.

Tan didn’t realize the Army was “integrated ” only eight years before his induction. He had only been in the south twice on his Uncle John’s farm briefly when he was four years old.His grandfather was a WWI vet and father WWII vet. He was made to be a soldier.

He left Ft.Knox due to crowding and was convoyed by the Army to Ft, Benning,.Ga. Encountering racism all the way, he was baffled. “It did not make sense to me” , he told me.

Signs at gas stations and restaurants  said “We Don’t serve no niggers”,..watercoolers with “white only” on them while rusty pipes with water running out were signed “for colored”

This was 1960 United States of America, his country,  he knew.   He did not know this.. “It really was pissing me off”, Tan said but “I kept my cool”.

Eleven months later he had been assigned to Ft.McClellan after Chemical Corps school. He had been waiting to be processed to OCS for five months. Naive, but no longer blind, Tan did his duty. McClellan was also the Basic Training post for the Women’s Army Corps. So with Chemical, Biological and Radiological warfare as his  MOS he had the liberty of sharing a post where the women outnumbered the men six to one. He did not ever think that his Officer School papers were being trashed. That his prolonged stay there was deliberate because of the racism that is still systemic in his country. No Tan was too naive to go there…then

Then that Sunday in May came. Tan was assigned to be Post duty driver. Not the worst duty he thought.Class “A” uniform, ..his style..loved his spit shined boots..five creases starched shirt/Khakis. It was a warm sunny spring day, slow..everything seemed to be on easy that day.

The First Lieutenant, the officer of the day, summoned Private Tan Renrut to his office..told him he was to go into town to pick up a Colonel coming in from Ft. Belvoir, Va. at the bus station. The town, 13 miles south of the fort, was Anniston, Ala.

Private Renrut was driving a U.S Army loden green sedan, four-door, 1960 Chevrolet .with official white numbers and lettering. A stick shift on the column, Private Renrut was in his element driving..The bus from Belvoir/ Washington was due in at 1700 hrs. It was 1630 hrs. when he pulled his official vehicle up in front of the Anniston Bus Depot.

There was a mob, major mob, in front , men and women,  mostly men in front. They were blocking the driveway which exited in the front and the buses entered in a circular fashion from the rear. Private Renrut exited his vehicle and started for the driveway but the mob cursing and uttering racial slurs and epithets were blocking his way.  He knew them by now. Armed with farm tools, old rifles, shotguns, sticks, axes, teeth missing they were a sorry lot he thought.Fear wasn’t there at all then.Just some crazy ass crackers on the shuffle was the way he processed it.He walked around the mob and up the driveway to the “colored” entrance.

Something was strange though. He could feel it in the air. He walked proudly and strongly into the station. He saw the porter as he heard him exclaim..”God Damn, Boy” Wat you doin’ in here”..he was on his knees scrubbing the floor..Renrut was startled..”I came to pick up a Colonel coming in on the bus from Washington” he said to the porter.The porter’s face was twisted with fear ..His eyes were bulging as he said “You better get yo ass outa here. Them damn peckerwoods done burn the bus down to wheels and riotin” and beatin peoples all  up all over the damn place…”

“Then my heart was beating,” Renrut told me ..beating so fast and hard I could feel it like a drum on the outside of me..He jumped in the phone booth and called the fort. The lieutenant answered and Tan told him the news..The Lieutenant said, “Oh Shit, I forgot about that Renrut, forget about the Colonel and come back to the fort.”…and hung up. Tan didn’t have to call him back for instructions or help.He knew he was on his own…

Before he exited the colored depot he knew that his vehicle was parked in the front with that mob of crackers around it and all in the driveway but he was thinking, using those innate instincts from his deepest kidnapped ancestors. I am walking out towards the back was his plan, walking until I get around the curve and then I am going to run like hell around to the front they will be following me but I will be..running like hell by the time they get to the top.

As he walked out the door and headed to the back he heard someone say”there’s one maybe he wants some too”..he was on total edge now but he stayed with the calm walk until he turned the curved corner of the upper driveway then he busted it out..combat boots, class “A” uniform on the double time like never before…They were running behind him.He saw his vehicle and was getting his keys out as he came upon it.Opening the door, key in the ignition, starting it up all at the same moment The women had remained by the car. .One jumped on the hood as the car kicked over.He was putting the pedal to the metal as he shifted and popped that clutch.Took that biddy for a short ride on the hood before she fell off to the side…

Now, he was moving through Anniston and he was thinking too.With tears in his eyes, about being in uniform ready to give his life for his country, their country, about his father and all the others who had gone before him, worked and died..for this?..to be chased and…. …………..he seethed…

He was going to be sent to Germany rather than be processed to OCS from here he had been told..His grandmother had sent his wife and six-week-old son to be with him in “Bama that past Christmas because “married people should be with each other if they could”.

..He thought and seethed some more..He was going to have to take the bus with them on it to wherever to get out of Anniston.

He stopped at the Black Cab station and bought his first pistol for $12.00…

No, they were not going to do this to him or his family ……He had it on him at the ready as he and his small family boarded the bus to Atlanta two weeks later…

A true story….