"They'll try to sock it to a brother if they can," said Pfc. Alfred Exum Jr. of Denver, an assistant gunner on a 102 howitzer in the 82nd Airborne. "Just like civilian life, the white doesn't want to see the black get ahead."

To try to solve the growing racial tension in Vietnam, the military command in I Corps has tried to air and resolve complaints through 190 race relations committees. The results have been mixed.

The 101st Airborne Division's "watch" committee has stopped meeting altogether, well before I left Vietnam, despite continued grumblings among blacks. One Marine battalion commander has no faith in the procedure even though the Ju Ju's in his outfit continue their clandestine meetings.

Commanders with more foresight have encouraged militants to participate in the meetings along with white enlisted and officer personnel. Black Panther sympathizer Washington sat on one such group at Tien Sha, and Cpl. Joseph Harris of Los Angeles, a Karenga backer, twice arrested during the Watts riot, participated in one at the Marine base in Chu Lai. Both Washington and Harris were given jobs to keep whites and blacks in line at their enlisted men's clubs. When Harris suggested commemorating the anniversary of King's death, the Marine command supplied food and soft drinks for 300 black soldiers and Marines. The demonstration turned into a picnic and passed without incident. Heggs, on his own time and theirs, taught black history to black and white airmen, soldiers and sailors in the Danang area. At Tan My and Bien Hoa, black sailors and airmen meet regularly to plan black culture events and discuss their mutual problems.

My observations suggest that commands elsewhere would do better by opening such channels and showing such tolerance. Suggested Petersen: "The only way to reduce tension is to sit commanders at all levels down and give them a course in race relations as part of their military curriculum." "But," injected Capt. Freddie Harris of Tampa, Fla., a black company commander in the 9th Division, "you got to admit there is a problem first."

INCREASINGLY, the military is doing just that. And that is a first, though small, step in the right direction.

A recent Army assessment of racial tensions at bases around the world warned commanders that "to take an ostrich-like approach to racial fear, hostility and misunderstanding is indefensible, especially when the signs can be read in the racial obscenities written by both groups on latrine walls and can be heard from an alarming number of black soldiers who readily complain they suffer injustice in the Army solely because of their race."

The official study also took note of disturbances at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where some 30 black and Puerto Rican Marines attacked 14 whites; one of the white Marines died. Racial antagonisms led to a brawl among 200 black and white soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C. And 17 Marines were injured when blacks and whites, just returned from Vietnam, fought each other at Kaneohe Air Base in Hawaii.

Noting that "all indications point to an increase in racial tensions," the study predicted more trouble "unless immediate action is taken to identify problem areas at the squad and platoon levels:"

Subsequently, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird has appointed an Inter-Service Task Force on Education and Race Relations to develop an educational program for use throughout the Armed Forces. Commanders at Lejcune and elsewhere have modified their restrictions on Afro haircuts and black power salutes and banners.

L. Howard Bennett, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civil Rights, has proposed five immediate steps to curb the "dangerous increase in racial troubles" he has found in Europe and Vietnam. Bennett wants race relations instruction for every basic trainee. Instruction for every serviceman in the real meaning of black power signs - "a time for the black brothers and sisters to unite" and "work together" to "get into the mainstream of American life." Open forums where blacks and whites will discuss racial problems face to face. On-post social activities in which both black and white women from nearby communities will participate. And literature, films, recordings and entertainment which appeal to blacks.

There is the danger that these recommendations, however much enforced, may be too little too late. None of these suggestions are aimed, for example, at discrimination in awards, promotions and battle field assignments. And for many blacks, nothing short of an end to hostilities in South-east Asia can make any sense while the White House exercises "benign neglect of the racial issue" and ignores black needs and while Southern police continue to eliminate black problems with gunfire.

To what extent the black serviceman in Vietnam turns his war experience into violent or peaceful conduct when he returns home depends largely on his adjustment to civilian life and what consideration American society gives to his economic and educational needs.

The black soldier is returning home more militant than when he left. "I was a dead man when they told me I was going to Vietnam," a black paratrooper told me as he prepared to jump into the Ashau Valley. "I have nothing to lose here or back home. The white man has told me to die."

White friendships the black soldier makes drinking from the same canteen or ducking the same bullets are not as evident as they were three years ago when I first went to Vietnam. A few whites today refer to "my soul brothers" and make the black power sign. But most black soldiers don't expect such friendships to change the racist world to which he will return.