Trade
Well-known Member
I first met Reinhart in Air Force AIT. And then we both got order to Vietnam after that. He was one of those guys that was really funny but he always pulled it off while maintaining a very serious demeanor. This incident happened when we were in AIT together at Sheppard AFB Texas in the spring of 1970. Back then the black power movement was a thing in the military.
And anytime 2 or more black guys would get together they would all give each other the black power handshake, called the DAP. When it got really annoying was in the chow hall line. If there was one black guy near the front of the line he would let any other black guy that came in cut in line with him and as they did they would all give each other the DAP handshake. This happened a lot and it was getting pretty annoying to us white guys but nobody did anything about it.
One day I was with Reinhart and 3 or 4 other white guys waiting in the chow line and sure enough this one black dude that was near the front started letting 4 or 5 "brothers" cut in line in front of us. And Carl says "That's it, we're not going to take any more of this shit." So walks up towards and gets in front of the group of black guys that had cut in line in front of us and says to us "come on guys, get up here". and so we all walked up and cut in line in front of them. And Carl holds out his arm and blocks the group of black guys and just stands there and stare them down.
Now Carl was a tall dude. He stood 6 foot 3 and he's looming over them but he's really skinny. He claimed he weighed 150 something but that was probably in full uniform with combat boots after having eaten a heavy meal. I mean he's so skinny if he turned sideways you can hardly see him. And when he puts on a shirt it looks like it's still on the hanger. But he stared down that group of black line cutters and they didn't do a thing about it.
I have one photo of Rhinehart. This was taken later on when we were both stationed at DaNang.
And anytime 2 or more black guys would get together they would all give each other the black power handshake, called the DAP. When it got really annoying was in the chow hall line. If there was one black guy near the front of the line he would let any other black guy that came in cut in line with him and as they did they would all give each other the DAP handshake. This happened a lot and it was getting pretty annoying to us white guys but nobody did anything about it.
One day I was with Reinhart and 3 or 4 other white guys waiting in the chow line and sure enough this one black dude that was near the front started letting 4 or 5 "brothers" cut in line in front of us. And Carl says "That's it, we're not going to take any more of this shit." So walks up towards and gets in front of the group of black guys that had cut in line in front of us and says to us "come on guys, get up here". and so we all walked up and cut in line in front of them. And Carl holds out his arm and blocks the group of black guys and just stands there and stare them down.
Now Carl was a tall dude. He stood 6 foot 3 and he's looming over them but he's really skinny. He claimed he weighed 150 something but that was probably in full uniform with combat boots after having eaten a heavy meal. I mean he's so skinny if he turned sideways you can hardly see him. And when he puts on a shirt it looks like it's still on the hanger. But he stared down that group of black line cutters and they didn't do a thing about it.
I have one photo of Rhinehart. This was taken later on when we were both stationed at DaNang.
