‘What Had I Done to Warrant This Kind of Punishment?’

“I am blind because this is what the Lord wanted me to be,” says Robert Routh Jr., one of the survivors of the Port Chicago explosion, which forms a backdrop for “Mutiny,” a two-hour NBC teleplay executive-produced by three-time Oscar nominee Morgan Freeman.

After the explosion, Routh, who now lives in Los Angeles, lay in his hospital bed, wondering how a young man, blind at 19, would be able to make a living.

“Lying in my hospital bed--I confronted the Lord with just that. [I asked him] ‘Well, I’ve come into the Navy to make a career, and now what am I going to do? And what had I done to warrant this kind of punishment?’ And of course, the Lord did not answer me then, as I don’t believe I was ready for the answer,” he says, reflecting on the unexpected course his life has taken.

Over the years, Routh kept his faith in God and his hopes in American democracy, while earning his bachelor’s and master of arts in sociology from Pepperdine University. He has been employed as a veterans benefit counselor by the Veterans Administration since 1975. A member of the Blind Veterans Assn. since 1947, he became its first African American president (1985-87).

It was at church that Routh made contact with one of the Port Chicago mutineers, Percy Robinson. “We go to Christ the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in the Leimert district. I had been at that church maybe five, six, seven years when Mr. Percy Robinson just happened to overhear me talk about Port Chicago. . . . And of course, the revelation came that both of us were there.”

Routh and Robinson, whose lives have been significantly affected by the disaster, both attended a private screening of “Mutiny” at the Magic Johnson Theatres earlier this month. Robinson initially participated in the mutiny but was among the roughly 200 soldiers who, when faced with a possible death penalty, returned to work.

“Psychologists and psychiatrists tell us that we learn 85% of what we know through our eyes. But the ear certainly has been the method of keeping me edified over 55 years come July,” Routh said. “And so this production that Mr. Freeman and his people have done has really done credit in a way of telling the story as it was. There were about 12 or 13 of us brought together to see the initial showing here at the Magic Johnson Theatres. All of us are hopeful now that this will cause the president to stop his reluctance to make an attempt to right this wrong. But it appears to us at this time that time is running out if any of the survivors of the mutiny will be alive. When you look at the [survivors], they’re becoming as extinct as the dodo bird.”