It was very strange. Most of us have probably been beat up by a group of kids when we were kids, but to have it happen as a fully grown adult is a very different thing. There is an element of seriousness in it that is apart from the emotional seriousness you feel as a kid. As an adult you very much feel in a far greater danger.
I was in Cecil Field, walking back from the chow hall one night in between the barracks, and I felt a very sharp, hard kick in the ass. I whirled around to see a black guy grinning at me, and when I asked why he had kicked me, he said "I don't like your hat" (referring to my squadron hat for the VA-46 Clansmen)
I said, "That is too damn bad because you and I are going to have at it" and as I removed my glasses, four other black guys stepped around the corner. They encircled me as I stepped backwards, and not knowing what else to do, I assumed a martial arts pose hoping to buy a few seconds of time with their uncertainty. It worked as one of them said "Ah, he knows karate..." but that only lasted a few seconds until one lunged at me, I took a swing and down I went.
They were kicking the crap out of me, so I balled up and protected my face and vitals as best I could. They were trying to kick me in the nuts and the face, but fortunately for me, they smelled like they had been drinking, and landed more kicks on each other's legs and ankles than they did on me.
It seemed like it went on for five minutes, but I suppose it may have been only 15 or 30 seconds, at which point I saw an opening in their circle, bolted up and shot through it in one motion with all five of them running after me. I jumped on the concrete steps into the barracks, but knew if I grabbed the door to open it, they would be on me, so I grabbed a swab that was sitting in a bucket there and began jabbing and swinging it at them. I think I had been screaming "HELP!" or "HEY! SOMEONE HELP ME!" over and over again at the top of my lungs throughout the entire time, but I don't really remember doing it.
They finally melted away, and I went across the street to the hangar and found my boss, who was on duty, an AD1 running the night shift. When I told him what happened, he said: "Do you want to get together a bunch of our guys and go find them?"
That was who my AD1 was. A good man.
While I searched the face of every black guy I passed on that base for months, I simply could not remember the faces. That taught me a lesson as well. When your fight or flight kicks in, it alters the way your mind records it. Some things are recorded in your memory quite clearly, but there are other things that are completely unrecorded. It is as if your brain throws out everything that isn't going to help you survive, like the color of the buildings, or...the faces of the people attacking you.
But anyway, it was that simple willingness of one of my petty officers, a black man to take my side and stand with me against a bunch of thugs kept me on the straight an narrow, the way I had been raised.