The band played “Auld Lang Syne,” elderly men saluted, bar girls and bystanders wept, as the parade marking the 20 November, 1992, closure of Naval Station, Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines, moved slowly down Magsaysay Avenue.
As I stood in the crowd, watching this rather inglorious end of a nearly century-old era, these words from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The Naulahka” (1892), came to mind:
... And the end of the fight is a tombstone
white with the name of the late deceased.
And the epitaph drear: “A fool lies
here who tried to hustle the East.
The decision to withdraw from Subic Bay ended a longstanding political debate. Since Filipinos won full independence from the United States in 1946, they were divided over the benefits of our military presence. Whatever the merits of the national political discussion, the American withdrawal meant economic dislocation, even disaster, especially for the city of Olongapo, adjacent to the Naval Station. In 1992, more than 20,000 Filipinos were directly employed by the Station and the shipyard, with about 160,000 more depending on income generated by the base. Many predicted that Subic would become a ghost town. “Our town is totally devastated,” said Olongapo mayor, Richard Gordon. “We will lose everything – our money, jobs – and we are not ready.” His statements reflected the concern of the average Olongapo citizen, those too close to the edge of subsistence to worry about the issues which led to base closure.
In any event, the colorful eighty-year history of America’s largest naval base outside the continental United States ended abruptly. A few months before, on a close vote, contested primarily because of the $400 million annual rent that would be lost, the Philippine senate had voted to kick us out for the following primary reasons:
- The base is an insult to Philippine sovereignty.
- The base, and the Philippines, are vulnerable to foreign attack by the enemies of the United States.
- The base houses tactical nuclear weapons which could result in catastrophic accidents.
- The base is a corrupting influence on the people.
While I could probably write a book on Subic Bay, having spent over two years there, in and out on R&R, overhaul, and upkeep on various ships during a long career in the Navy, in this column I will only address the last of the Philippine senate’s concerns, our corrupting influence. Sadly enough, those concerns were valid.
Beginning in early 1966, extensive effort and resources were committed to building Rest and Recreation (R&R) facilities for fleet personnel whose ships had rotated off the gun line in Vietnam. In what best could be described as a “moral dichotomy,” while the military authorities expended much effort in providing morally uplifting opportunities for American personnel onboard the Naval Station, historically little real consideration had been given to the corrupting influence and impact of thousands of relatively affluent military personnel who went on liberty in Olongapo, the extremely poor host community. As a result, Olongapo had for generations been a moral cesspool, the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Pacific, the arm pit of the Far East, where theft, prostitution, and almost any other illegal activities imaginable were a way of life and a means of survival for local Filipinos. The damage caused by this collision of cultures, values, and economic systems ultimately contributed to the Navy’s eventual expulsion from the Philippines.
Relations with Olongapo townspeople were generally good; however, some precautions had to be taken occasionally. For example, it was necessary to construct a bamboo fence next to the main gate to stop sailors from enticing Olongapo children to cross the “Perfume” River (named after a similar-looking river in Hue, Vietnam) separating the perimeter fence from the city. It was suspected that the children provided illegal fireworks, which were readily available in town, through the fence for money. These same female children, dressed in their white communion dresses, routinely stood in small boats floating in the river and begged coins from sailors passing over the river bridge. The male children would then dive unhesitatingly into the polluted water to retrieve any coins that slipped from the little girls’ grasp.
For the more sedate personnel, like me, the Naval Station Officer’s Club quickly became the social center of the entire military complex, featuring a Friday night Korean barbeque of almost mythological fame, rivaling the best bulgogi you could find in Seoul or Chinhae, and the weekend appearance of Manila’s most popular singers and dance bands. In this regard, the “O’Club” became the “Poconos of the Philippines,” a place where aspiring musical acts perfected their routines before trying to find success in Hong Kong, Singapore, or Japan.
The most popular commercial establishment on the Naval Station for sailors was “Building B-12,” the high value store. Established in 1970, this retail operation sold millions of dollars’ worth of stereo equipment, cameras, and Swiss watches over the years of its operation. Shipboard personnel routinely bought so much merchandise during port visits that whole sections of their ships had to be set aside for its storage. On one occasion, a ship left Subic for the gunline with the after-missile house stuffed with high value goods purchased by the crew and was assigned to inshore operations along the coast of North Vietnam. In fact, it ended up making the only daylight raid on the port of Hai Phong during the entire war. Coming under enemy fire from shore-based gun batteries, the ship was hit several times, including one round directly through the after-missile house. After determining that no one was injured, the crew’s major concern was to check the condition of the “goodies” in the shell-holed compartment. Luckily, my Sansui stereo receiver was in one piece, and I still play it.
Despite hundreds of sailors and Marines walking the streets with money in their pockets and mayhem on their minds, the Shore Patrol and local Philippine constabulary generally managed to keep the lid on things, at least until after dark. About the only time I ever saw things go South was when aircraft carriers were in port and dumped three or four thousand sailors on the beach. Discipline and crowd control never seemed to be a real problem, however, even at the height of the Vietnam buildup. Most disciplinary cases did involve transient personnel from visiting Seventh Fleet ships, and many times, they had been underway for long periods of time without going ashore. Thirty to sixty days at sea was common on the gunline off Vietnam, and sailors were simply unable to hold their liquor when they finally had access to it.
Many sailors only wanted to walk around, get a good meal, buy a few souvenirs and post cards, call home from the Naval Station telephone center (in 1967, the going rate for a call to the United States West Coast was $1.00 per minute, and the waiting lines were wrapped around the building twenty-four hours a day), and go back to the ship for some well-earned sleep. The main reason that good order and discipline were maintained was that the authorities reacted swiftly and with ample force to any threat of a disturbance. Sailors knew that the response to disorderly conduct would be immediate, with overwhelming force, and that the consequences would be, at a minimum, loss of liberty for the duration of the ship’s import visit.
It’s hard to accurately describe Subic City and the adjacent town of Olongapo during its heyday at the height of the Vietnam War. Think Dodge City, Kansas, when it was the toughest town in the West; think Storyville in New Orleans before Prohibition; think Natchez Under the Hill before the Civil War. And after you think about these places, start over, because you are not even close. When you went out the main gate into Olongapo, all your senses were bombarded. It was a kaleidoscope of the mind, or maybe a “Coney Island of the Mind,” to quote the beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. There was a cacophony of sounds: “hill-billy” music with an oriental interpretation wafting out of bars; jeepney (highly decorated World War II-era Jeeps converted to taxis, usually with religious motifs) drivers soliciting passengers. (Question: how many passengers will a jeepney hold? Answer: one more), and sailors from around the world speaking in their native tongue.
There were unidentifiable smells: open sewers; mystery meat frying over outdoor spits; cheap perfume, etc. Aborigine Negrito warriors, who were supposedly headhunters a few generations ago, sold their handwoven “papa-san” chairs along the dirt streets; little old bare foot ladies sold black velvet pictures of Jesus that looked you straight in the eye, no matter where you were standing (eerie – made you want to confess to things that hadn’t even happened yet.); ragged children begging for a few centavos; and touts of every description: “You want a custom made suit? Be ready tomorrow. Guaranteed not to shrink. How about a genuine Rolex? $50? $25? How much you got?” My wife once came all the way from Mississippi to see me for a few days while one of my ships was in port. One afternoon, I briefly walked her around the town to see some “local color,” and noticed that she was wearing sandals. As we walked the unpaved streets, I became worried that she would contact some exotic, tropical disease, so when we got back to the ship, I got a bottle of Listerine mouthwash and carefully washed her feet.
Olongapo was a one-industry town, servicing the needs of thousands of sailors and Marines who were unleashed daily onto its dirty streets. Simply put, anyone who wanted trouble could find it. The names of the most popular bars, located on the main drag, Magsaysay Drive, immediately outside the main gate, the area known as the “Gut,” were infamous among American personnel: the Showboat, Cock-eyed Cowboy, Old West, Joy Club, Hot City, Strawberry Fields, Woodstock, Pussy Cat, and the Fleet’s Inn. All these bars, and even Mr. Doughnut down the street, succumbed to the lure of easy money from prostitution.
Although the behavior of a few “ugly” Americans broke the heart of anyone with a brain, especially considering that the bar “hostesses” were usually poor girls from the rural Philippines just trying to survive, the availability of plentiful and cheap women drew sailors to the red-light district of Olongapo like a magnet. In time, however, many insightful Filipinos came to believe that the prostitution industry was a cancer on the body politic because of the social problems it caused – primarily an economy based on the exploitation of poor women with the added liability of thousands of unwanted Amerasian children.
When Corazon Aquino took office as President of the Philippines in 1986, after Ferdinand Marcos had her husband, Benigno, assassinated at the airport in Manila, one of her first official public statements had to do with the Subic prostitution industry: “I will do my best so that we will be able to provide jobs for our women ... so they will not have to resort to prostitution.” I must point out that such a rowdy, even lawless place was an embarrassment to the average Filipino. Olongapo/Subic no more represented the PI (Philippine Islands) than TJ (Tijuana) or other border towns represented Mexico back in the 1960s. Unfortunately, it was common to see similar situations outside America bases in Saigon, Thailand, Korea, Okinawa, and in the Mediterranean.
Another situation that concerned naval authorities was the marriage between sailors and Filipina nationals. Such marriages were actively discouraged, and this struck me as a manifestation of covert racism. Before a serviceman could marry a Philippine national in country, a series of artificial obstacles had to be overcome. These included interviews by the base chaplain, in-home “investigations” of the girl’s parents, an exhausting succession of forms to be filled out, and a waiting period of at least six months.
While some young, naïve sailors were, no doubt, taken advantage of by bar girls and other young ladies who were only looking for a meal ticket and passage to United States citizenship, most of the relationships seemed sincere to me. It was possible to have a civil wedding in Olongapo, without official naval approval, and I performed several; but the American Embassy in Manila would reject, out of hand, any visa request that was not accompanied by the required documents from the Naval Station. I did notice, however, that the sailors wanting to get married often fit the same profile: very young, introverted, and little history of dating American girls.
Even today, American relations with the Philippines are in a minor key. While the leaders of both nations have agreed that the “United States and the Philippines stand together as friends,” the relationship with our last “colony” is still strained. Without the American presence, or maybe because of it, the Philippines remain what the Egyptian sociologist, Saad Edin Ibrahim, describes as an “almost” country: “It’s almost democracy; it’s almost a free market; it’s almost a multiparty system; it almost has a free press, and its economy is almost ready to take off.” In the final reckoning, only the passage of time will tell whether our presence in the Philippines and at Subic Bay will prove to have been a blessing or a curse.
Light a candle for me.
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Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
