Homecoming

James Edward Johnson, 23, a Marine veteran of Viet Nam, went home to West Virginia 17 months ago with a Purple Heart and a dream: he wanted to become a state trooper. But Johnson had two problems. One was his right ankle, shattered by a Viet Cong machine-gun slug in April 1966, when he was a sergeant with the 4th Marine Division. With regular exercise, he was able to get into good enough shape to pass the physical. His other problem was less easily solved. Johnson is a Negro, and there were no Negroes-- Vietvets or otherwise--among West Virginia's 322 troopers.

Nonetheless, the state was eager to integrate its force and readily accepted Johnson's application. Last July, after voluntarily giving up $140 a month in disability pay, Johnson joined 23 white recruits in a 20-week training course at the state-police academy near Charleston. It was, almost from the beginning, as psychologically trying as anything he had known in Viet Nam.

All but one of the recruits--Michael Blasher, 24, a friend since their teens--either ignored or insulted him, says Johnson. When the men sat down at mess, there was a scramble to avoid Johnson's table. When they went into the field, seven or eight trainees would pile into one car, leaving Johnson and Blasher alone in another. When lessons were given in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the instructor showed how a hand kerchief could be used--in case any one was ever called upon to save a Negro. The word nigger was used freely, and because of their friendship, Blasher and Johnson were called "salt and pepper."

No Crybaby. Something had to give. When Recruit Douglas Ratliff punched him in the jaw during a judo class, Johnson, who ranked first in physical fitness, struck back. No one broke up the scuffle until Johnson decked Ratliff, who took three stitches for a cut lip. Ratliff was asked to resign for breaking a strict no-fighting rule. Blasher was forced out because of his "attitude"-though he was first in the class scholastically. Impulsively, Johnson resigned in protest, charging that Blasher had been bounced because of his friendship for him. Blasher, who had spent a year on the Los Angeles city force, had no trouble finding another police job in Maryland's Montgomery County, next door to Washington.

Apparently, the top men in the force knew nothing of what was going on. Ironically, they even made things worse for Johnson by solicitously singling him out at inspections to ask him how he was doing. Why did Johnson say nothing? "I'm not a crybaby," he explains. Now he would like to try again, and has asked Governor Hulett Smith to reinstate him in the academy. Last week Smith promised a full investigation.

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