Trouble was brewing in Key West. Lines were being drawn. Sides were being chosen. And the island’s economy suddenly felt fragile.
It was 1966. The social unrest that island residents usually saw only on television was just starting to puncture their southernmost bubble. The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t exactly universally embraced and racial violence was becoming common in the South.
The Vietnam War was escalating and American moms were losing more sons to a very different type of war. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the counterculture emerged and opposition to the war increased exponentially.
“Back in 1966, the military and the civilians in Key West were not getting along,” John Picco, a retired Navy fighter pilot and current president of the Key West Military Affairs Committee, told the Keys Weekly this week. “The secretary of the navy was considering leaving Key West entirely.”
Key West’s economy, labor market and business community couldn’t survive that departure, so something had to be done. That’s when 24 prominent local businessmen, whose names are still familiar despite the passage of six decades — Ed Knight, Frank Toppino, Kermit Lewing, Earl Duncan, Johnny Parks and dozens more — took action. There were meetings, ideas, arguments, probably cocktails.
But they eventually created a group that would repair and rebuild relationships with the military. After all, most of those men had served. Many had fought a very different war 20 years prior in Europe or the Pacific.
The result of those hastily called meetings? The Key West Military Affairs Committee, affectionately known as MAC, which to this day meets monthly (seemingly at the crack of dawn for civilians who have never awakened to a bugle).
Key West’s MAC this year celebrates 60 years of connecting two vastly different communities — servicemembers and civilians who, despite their differences, must share a 2- by 4-mile island.
Happily, the 1966 undertaking by those 24 local businessmen worked like a charm.
The Navy would eventually reduce its presence in Key West in the 1970s, but not because of rancor with the townspeople.
For the past 60 years, MAC has been composed of retired and active duty service members in all branches. Its membership never exceeds 50 people and also includes elected officials and supportive business owners.
MAC hosts a fundraising golf tournament every year so it can support the needs of students at Sigsbee Charter School, which serves 79% of Key West’s military kids and families. It’s also located on Navy property. MAC rolls out the red carpet every winter to welcome the Wounded Warriors Project for their Soldier Ride. The group hosts and supports the Sea Cadets and Key West High School’s Navy Junior ROTC programs.
“One new thing we’ve started doing is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for Coast Guard personnel who can’t be home for the holiday,” PIcco said. “And we deliver welcome kits to any soldiers and sailors who just arrived in Key West right after finishing boot camp. Then they get tossed out of the barracks and have to fend for themselves when it comes to housing and everything else. So we give them gift cards, directions to places, ideas, things like that. That can be a tough time for single servicemembers and sometimes the little things can make a big difference.”
The committee celebrated its anniversary at a dinner on Oct. 14 at the Truman’s LIttle White House. And they invited the high school cadets and plenty of others — both civilians and service members.
Sixty years after its creation, the Key West Military Affairs Committee is still making a difference — just as the original 24 founders had done in 1966.
