The Young Peers of Long Binh

To the typical young enlisted man facing trial by court-martial, the jury hardly seems to be composed of his peers. Usually the panel is dominated by officers who are older and more at home in the service than he. When enlisted men are selected, they are often crew-cut senior noncoms with little sympathy for youngsters who challenge military custom. At the Long Binh logistics base in South Viet Nam, however, a civilian lawyer and a veteran Army colonel recently collaborated to produce the most unusual jury in military memory.

The case itself was routine. Specialist Four Henry Rollins, 24, a combat veteran serving his second tour in Viet Nam, was walking with a buddy who wore fatigues but no hat. The absence of the hat meant that Rollins' companion was, technically, in improper uniform. A command sergeant major hailed the G.I.s by shouting, "Hey, soldier!" The pair disregarded the call, which came from behind them. When the sergeant major caught up, a scuffle took place. Rollins decked the noncom. Charged with assaulting a superior and failing to obey an order, Rollins faced a sentence of six months at hard labor plus a reduction in rank and pay.

Not So Tight. During the pretrial hearing, Joseph Remcho, 27, a member of the Lawyers' Military Defense Committee that has been defending G.I.s, asked that the jury be selected at rani dom. Remcho had lost on the same moi tion in a dozen previous cases. This time, however, Colonel Arthur Corley, commander of Long Binh, consented. Explained the career officer: "The mil-j itary justice system is under attack, par- i ticularly by those who consider themselves more liberal than the establishment . . . We decided to give it a try to show that we are not so tight."

Using Social Security numbers, rotation dates and other personnel data as guides, computer programmers at the base worked with more than 100 names --officers and enlisted men of assorted ranks--and winnowed out a group of nine. The authorities were really after a cross section of ages and grades rather than a true random sample. But when the give-and-take of courtroom selection was over, the final panel of five contained not a single officer. Instead there were two junior sergeants, one specialist five and two specialists four. The senior man, and hence the president, was only 23 years old.

Quick Verdict. The key point in the one-day trial was the sergeant major's testimony that he had not even touched Rollins before he himself was struck. This conflicted with the sergeant major's earlier statement to the military police. Another item that apparently weighed heavily with the jury was whether the shouted "Hey, soldier!" coming from behind constituted an order to stop. Finally the jury seemed not to take the initial violation of being hatless very seriously. At one recess, the jurors left their own hats behind, and were reminded by a passing officer to retrieve them.

The verdict of not guilty was quick in coming. Remcho insisted that "the jury brought into the courtroom the kind of things that enlisted men know about." Corley, while not arguing with the outcome, regretted that no officer was on the panel to lend "greater balance and maturity." Major John McHardy, the military trial judge, had the most decisive comment: "The verdict was supported by the evidence."

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