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This is SGTMAJ Frederick B. Douglass. He was killed in the bombing of the USMC barracks in Beirut. I think of him every single year around this time, because he was one of the most impressive people I have ever seen.

I have a few anecdotes about him, he was from my state, and I saw him quite a bit over the course of a few years. There were a couple of stories, and I must say, the USMC was responsible for two of the most memorable nights of my life. He played a part in two of those nights.

When the JFK went into Alexandria, Egypt in 1977, there was an open invitation to the crew of the JFK to attend a party at the USMC quarters for the embassy.

Now, I have to tell you...when I heard that it was open house while I was ashore one night with a buddy, we said "Okay..let's go!" I thought there would be a thousand guys there in...what I didn't know. Maybe I thought it would be a soccer field on the grounds of the embassy or something like that...I was clueless, but my friend and I took a horse drawn carriage over...told them where to take us and away we went.

When we got there, it was a walled estate with a few buildings on it and a lot of vegetation. I was fairly lit by that time, and it was dark when we got there, but I do remember walking into that place. My memory is flawed here, because I have seen it in my thoughts so many times that I have no idea if it is reality or not. I remember going through a gate in what appeared to be a 10 foot high turquoise painted, cracked concrete wall. No broken glass or barbed wire on top of the wall. Anyone could have climbed over. I remember vegetation and some walkways inside what I guess had to be an acre. I also remember a lot of alcohol of all types flowing very freely. I thought the whole ship's company would have showed up, but I have to guess it was less than 100 people total, which was still a lot of people in that space. To be honest, it could have been 400 people in 4 acres...

But the most memorable part of that night was when I went to the bathroom. There was this little closet sized bathroom with a porcelain toilet in the outside wall side of the room, with two dinky little beat up aqua colored shutters right over the toilet at just below eye level.

The sink was full of unmentionable things...as was the floor. (The only time in my life I ever saw a more filthy, disgusting and revolting floor was at a little island in the Abacos called Nippers. (see this link at http://www.nippersbar.com/)

Anyway, I am relieving myself, one hand on the wall to stay upright, and I hear someone talking on the other side of those little shutters. Someone is getting chewed out, and I mean, royally. I heard scaps of "You piece of shit..." and '...kick your ass..." and "...embarrassment..."

So, I lazily reach over, open the shutters and peer out. There is a big, muscular black guy chewing this baby faced blond haired guy out. Heck, I am 19 or 20, and even to me he looked like a kid. And this black guy swivels his head to look at me and says "If you don't close that window and mind your own business, you're going to be sorry."

Man, I shut those shutters quick. It was SGTMAJ Douglass, the Top on the JFK. (I don't know if he was SGTMAJ at that time)

He was a most impressive guy.

There were two other occasions that stuck out in my mind...he was sparring in the hangar bay with a guy from my squadron who we nicknamed "Bruce Lee" (his real name was Timmy Naurimaya) because he came to the squadron with a reputation as some high level blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. They were sparring in the Hangar Bay, and it was pretty interesting to the uninitiated to see this big 6'4" (I think) guy sparring against this 5'4" guy.

But it was the other time I saw him that left the biggest memory (until, of course, I opened those shutters) was in Naples, Italy one night. Raining like hell, 0200 on the pier waiting to go back to the ship on a liberty launch with maybe 200 guys. Probably, all of them were drunk on that nasty Peroni beer, as was I. No wonder Naples was such a lousy place...all the people drank Peroni!

Anyway, the boats had not been running for maybe an hour, and things were heating up. Two guys got into a fight, everyone else urged them on. The volume rose, then for some reason there was a whole bunch of Shore Patrol guys surround some drunk guy with a stanchion in his hands (from one of the rope guides for people to stand in line)

The rope still went through the top of it, and the guy swing it like a baseball bat. None of the Shore Patrol wanted to risk getting clocked in the face by this drunk guy. (This was before the days of tasers) The crowd began to fairly enjoy this unusual spectacle, and began to voice pointed encouragement at a loud volume.

All this on the waterfront under spotlights.

I kind of remember coming back to reality for a few seconds and becoming aware of how unruly and bordering on being out of control this was. As I looked back at the guy yelling and clumsily waving the metal rope stand, SGTMAJ Douglass walked right up to the guy past the Shore Patrol and clocks the guy with an accurate, well delivered roundhouse. The guy drops like a sack of cement, and it seemed like before he even hit the ground the SGTMAJ turns to us and yells out "YOU MEN SHUT UP. NOW."

You could have heard a frikking pin drop.

THAT was astounding. Everyone just stopped like a switch had been flipped.

After I got out of the Navy, I went to college on the GI Bill (one of the last to get in before it went the way of the Dodo) I was reading the Boston Globe one morning, and the story was about the recent bombing of the Beirut Marine Barracks. I was just heartsick as I read this, and then there...down at the bottom of the page, was the face of that Marine SGTMAJ. Staring out of the picture, I saw the same eyes that I saw on that dock, and the same eyes looking back at me through those shutters. Very intense eyes.

I nearly fell out of my chair. I knew who that guy was. He had been killed in the bombing of the barracks, I think he was the highest ranking enlisted man killed there.

I have a huge amount of respect for US Marines. I look at this man who gave his life in the dedicated service of his country, and I know that he is not unique in the USMC. For that I thank God, and I am grateful to his memory, and to all those who serve and have served.

(Hand Salute)