statement

This is a contest, a struggle for the rights of enlisted men and women. Chief among these rights, surely, is freedom from fear.

In the Atlantic Charter, Roosevelt and Churchill adopted the Four Freedoms as the Allied war aims in the fight against fascism: freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear. The two leaders met at sea, beginning 10 August 1941, aboard the British battleship, Prince of Wales, in Placentia Bay, off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Roosevelt arrived for the confab aboard the USS McDougal.

Yet, 51 years later, in October of 1992, officially organized gangs of thugs--American sailors all--roamed the USS Belleau Wood at will. The aircraft carrier Belleau Wood (LHA-3) was, probably still is, flagship of a Navy battle group commanded by an Admiral.

Two days before his death, Allen Schindler confided to a Navy friend his danger from the Belleau Wood gangs--gangs which had previously beaten him; gangs which, even as he and his friend spoke, were arranging his violent end.

So far as is known, Schindler's friend's Statement, quoting Schindler, is the only reference to Belleau Wood "gangs" in the entire record. Even in his diary, which was of course kept aboard ship; Schindler omitted direct reference to the gangs. Thus, we see how fear, in addition to its other baleful effects, also inhibits free speech and assembly--essential for self-protection and mutual defense.

Fear is a paralyzing emotion. It prevents people from doing what they need to do, from the tasks that need to be done. Terry Helvey and I look forward to a Navy, indeed to an Armed Forces, without fear--or in other words, fearless--where all can say with Nietzsche, "Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared."