Sailors Express Anger, Sadness Over the Stark

It is not difficult to understand the anger, sadness and skepticism that has pervaded the southern waterfront section of this city since the deaths of 37 sailors aboard the frigate Stark. After all, many of the sailors at the sprawling 32nd Street Naval Station could find themselves in the same part of the world, in a similar situation.

This week, the No. 1 topic at the base was the “accidental” missile attack Sunday on the ship by an Iraqi warplane and the second-guessing that inevitably followed: How could such an incident be unintentional? Why didn’t the ship defend itself? Why isn’t the U.S. retaliating?

Wonder and Melancholy

“They are amazed, just like when all the Marines got killed in Beirut,” said First Class Petty Officer Phillip Toussaint, his tone a mixture of wonder and melancholy. “It’s that same feeling that hits you. By you being a sailor, you look at these guys as part of your family.

“I felt, when I first heard about it, like I had lost a brother or a sister. I felt the same kinship.”

Toussaint has 22 years in the Navy, some of them aboard a fast frigate not unlike the 453-foot Stark. Had it been his ship that was hit, he could have been sleeping in the same compartment that was blasted by two missiles fired by the Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet.

He has trouble believing that a ship in those waters did not have its guard up. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but it’s my feeling that if I were on board a ship like that, I would have expected us to be more ready,” he said.

Toussaint has to believe that Capt. Glenn R. Brindel had no idea that the Iraqi plane he signaled twice had hostile intent. But Iraq’s claim that the jet mistook the U.S. ship for an Iranian vessel is hard for him to swallow.

He can only repeat himself with a shake of his head: “I don’t understand how it could have happened.”

Despite rapid growth and increasing diversity, much of San Diego still fits its reputation as a Navy town. About a sixth of the county’s population depends on a military paycheck. The major port for the Pacific Fleet, more than 100 warships dock here.

The Miramar Naval Air Station, home for the fighter pilot school of “Top Gun” fame, occupies a large stretch of the north central part of the city. North Island Naval Air Station, base for submarine hunters, helicopters and planes, shares Coronado with the historic Hotel del Coronado and more contemporary luxury condominiums. In North County is Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine Corps base west of the Mississippi.

Many of the Navy’s ships are docked off the 32nd Street Naval Station, which straddles the border with National City and sits at the edge of a shabby section of Barrio Logan just south of the Coronado Bridge. In a neighborhood such as this one, news of sudden death in the distant Persian Gulf becomes very personal.

‘Real Scary Feeling’

Waiting in a car to pick up her boyfriend outside the Naval base, her toddler in her lap, a young woman admits that the attack has frightened her. “It’s a real scary feeling,” she said. “You know it can happen any time to anybody, as long as they’re in the Navy. If I had my way, he wouldn’t be in the Navy.”

Another, enlisted optical repairer Cindy Jones, could be one of those sent to sea. “It really makes me insecure about the whole thing,” she said. “If the Navy is going to send its people out there, they should defend them better. It was a war zone.”

“It strikes me in a bad way,” Henry Washington agreed as he prepared to share a bottle with some other sailors in the dirt parking lot of the base’s nearest liquor store. In seven years in the Navy, Washington has been aboard ships off Beirut and Grenada, but plans to leave the Navy soon.

“When we look at the situation,” he asked, “why are we dying this way?”

Desire for Revenge

The fear goes hand in hand with the bellicosity of men who work each day on ships with tremendous firepower. Few have quelled their desire for revenge.

“On my ship, everybody kind of feels the same,” said a boatswain’s mate stationed aboard the cruiser Long Beach. “Retaliate.”

“Show ‘em that we’re not over there to get pushed around,” said 20-year-old Rodney King, a fireman aboard the ship Juneau. “Show ‘em that they can’t do anything to our ships and get away with it. Personally, I don’t think it was an accident.”

“The question,” said 22-year-old electrician’s mate Earl Maples, “is why didn’t we do anything before it happened? Why didn’t we take action when the plane was flying over? We contacted (the jet) twice. Either they didn’t hear us, or they ignored it.

“Why didn’t we do anything?”