Another Campaign

I didn’t hate Matt Wilson when we first met.

I was thinking about that as I struggled into my old uniform. All those years of Jenny’s delicious cooking had made it easy for me to get out of shape.

I don’t recall having any immediate feelings about Wilson, although he appeared to be an all right guy when he joined our rifle squad on the western Main Line of Resistance in late summer, 1952. A light-skinned Negro (“Black” was a racist term then), he was good-looking and well-built -- sort of a smaller version of Mohammed Ali, without the easy smile and friendly gleam in his eyes.

Our squad leader, Sergeant Lyle Ranklin, introduced us and I held out my hand. Wilson gave me a blank stare and shook my hand as if it was something he wanted to throw away. Ranklin led him down the trench to meet the other men, his usual big white grin splitting his big black face. I silently told Wilson to go to hell. Then I figured maybe he was just playing it cool while he adjusted to his new surroundings. Most of us were unsure of how to react to Korea at first, before we slipped into a more or less constant state of controlled panic.

I went into our sandbagged bunker to try to grab some sack time before sunset. We maintained a fifty per cent alert after dark, so theoretically I would be free half of the night. But I couldn’t sleep much nighttimes since a Chinese soldier had crept up and lobbed a grenade that landed at my feet. I barely managed to avoid the blast, which left me with ringing ears and jangled nerves. It wasn’t much consolation that the grenade-thrower hit a land mine on his way back down the hillside.

Lying on the makeshift bunk, I wondered how Wilson would work out as a new replacement. I had had similar doubts about Lyle when he arrived a month earlier to take over the squad from Joe Giletti, who was being rotated back to the States. Joe had been very popular and we weren’t sure that we could fully accept another sergeant, particularly a Negro. There was only one other colored guy in the squad -- Bobby Marshall. He performed his duties adequately, but didn’t have much personality.

But Lyle quickly banished our worries with his good humor and obvious leadership abilities. A sergeant who can maintain discipline without being hard-nosed wins his troops’ highest respect. Besides, it’s hard not to like a big man with a big laugh and a big supply of dirty jokes.

As the first fire team leader, I worked closely with Lyle and a special bond developed between us. He and I and the other men had frequent bull sessions -- the best way to get a real education in human relations. Gambling and beer-drinking help, too, but we couldn’t do that while we were on the Line.

During the last year of the war it was standard operating procedure for each infantry division to keep two of its regiments in action and the other in reserve, rotating them as conditions allowed. Our work was fairly routine. We stood watch in the trenches, took turns manning outpost hills and going on patrols into No Man’s Land, with occasional fire fights to keep things from getting too dull.

Lyle told us that he had enlisted in 1944 while the Marine Corps, like the other armed forces, was still racially segregated. He had gone through recruit training at Montford Point, North Carolina, separated from the white boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. We exchanged some grimly funny stories about our drill instructors, agreeing that they were equally brutal with recruits, regardless of skin color.

I had only sketchy knowledge of past race relations in uniform and Lyle filled me in. Slavery and prejudice had so influenced many Americans that even World War Two had been fought with segregated military units. Then in 1948 President Harry Truman signed an executive order to integrate all of the armed forces.

But progress had been slow until the Korean shooting started on June 25, 1950, with the Northern Communist army invading South Korea. The under-strength Eighth U.S. Army, on occupation duty in Japan, had quickly been thrown into the field against the invaders. One of its units was the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment, which had performed well under fire.

Lyle explained that in the 1860s Congress had wanted to honor African-Americans’ service in the Civil War. So four black regiments had been established; two infantry and two cavalry -- the famous 9th and 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers. Over the years they had dwindled down to the 24th Infantry and Lyle was sorry when it was disbanded so that its members could be integrated into other units. But he was glad that full equality in the ranks had finally arrived.

“This is the first time since the Revolution that white and black troopers are fightin’ side by side,” he said, his eyes shining. “It’s the best opportunity we could have to knock down the color barrier. Back home Jim Crow segregation laws are still strong in some states. White folks, and some colored, too, think it ain’t right for the races to mix.

“But when they see that we all bleed the same color for them, they’ll have to change their minds. Maybe not soon. It takes a while to break old habits. But we’ve been workin’ for equality for three hundred years, so we can wait a little longer. All we ask is a fair chance to prove we’re as good as anybody else.”

His words made sense to me. They reminded me of my father, who had always told me to pull my own weight and not expect others to bail me out.

“We all had to fight for our piece of the American pie when we first came here,” Dad said. “Irish, English, German, French -- each group had to make it on their own. It wasn’t easy, but we wouldn’t let anyone tell us it was impossible, either. Anybody can succeed in this country if he sets his mind to it and ain’t afraid of hard work.”

Dad was strong on letting people make their own choices, even bad ones. One day we drove past Abel Sorren, a town drunk. I said I felt sorry for him. Dad shrugged. “He made his bed. Let him sleep in it.”

That was kind of funny because Abel didn’t care where he slept off his hangovers.

I don’t think Dad and his friends thought much about extending their equal opportunity ideas to colored people because there weren’t many of them in our Iowa farming country. Having little contact with non-whites, I couldn’t help growing up with some prejudicial feelings. I guess that was true of most of my generation. But I got over those feelings when I started associating with blacks, Asians, Latinos and others who turned out to be just as American as the rest of us.

I was mildly proud of my tolerance, which made Wilson’s attitude toward me puzzling and offensive. The next time we met he gave me a look of such vicious hostility that I wondered if the other guys had been talking about me behind my back to him. After that there was a constant air of tension between us. I couldn’t understand it and wished we could work it out peacefully. But I wasn’t going to make the first move and give him the satisfaction of thinking I was sucking up to him.

Things started to heat up a week later when our squad was assigned a reconnaissance patrol and I was a little late preparing for it. “Boy, you so slow people might think you got some lazy slave blood in your veins,” Wilson said mockingly.

I felt a flash of anger. Then I told myself that maybe he just thought he was making a smartass joke and tried to laugh it off. And so it went as our time on the Line played out, with Wilson constantly trying to get under my skin in small ways.

We had a few comforts, relatively speaking. There was mess tent a mile back where we got one hot meal a day -- a welcome relief from the C-rations we lived on. And a portable shower unit we could use once a week under normal conditions. But we were pretty busy for a while and nearly two weeks passed since my last shower.

It was a pleasant time of year for Korea. The sweltering heat and monsoon rains of mid-summer were past. Even so, I felt and smelled pretty rank; something my buddies let me know they were aware of. As I was getting ready to walk back to the showers, Wilson made a sickly face at me and held his nose.

“You get real clean, boy,” he said. “Or your Klan brothers might think you stink like a nigger and lynch you.”

My temper flared and I started toward him. Fortunately Lyle was nearby and ordered us to cool it. He told me to go on to the showers while he talked to Wilson.

When I returned, Lyle met me with a worried expression. I asked him how he had made out with Wilson.

“I ain’t sure,” he said. “He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of a giant redwood and he won’t be satisfied until somebody knocks it off.“

“I might do that,” I said. “If he doesn’t stop bugging me.”

Lyle took me to his bunker for a canteen cup of real coffee brewed from grounds, not the foul-tasting instant stuff that came with our rations.

“Wilson and I are kind of alike,” he said. “Only he wants to fight for integration with his fists. He seems to think he’s on a one-man crusade for our entire race. When he found out that you’re a boxer, he reckoned that takin’ you out would make him walk tall with the other colored guys.”

That was a surprise. My boxing career -- if it could be called that -- consisted of entertaining the members of my training battalion at Camp Pendleton with exhibition matches. I was skinny enough to be a junior middleweight, with a long reach to hold off opponents while I wore them down. It was fun and I won most of my matches before we shipped out. But I regarded boxing as just a sport and never fought outside the ring. The war provided enough serious fighting.

“Did I ever tell you about when I was on Iwo Jima?” Lyle asked. When I shook my head, he went on. “At first the higher-ups thought Negro Marines were only fit to be support troops, little more than laborers. When we finally got overseas, they formed some of us into combat units, and I was bustin’ a gut to get into action. There was never a more Gung-ho Leatherneck than me. I daydreamed about showin’ the white guys what a hard-charger I was, bein’ in a foxhole with a white buddy and killin’ Japs with him. Maybe we’d save each other’s lives and become like blood brothers.”

Lyle smiled wryly. “Well, life don’t always work out the way we plan it. I didn’t see much action and my buddies weren’t very impressed with me. After that I started learnin’ what life in the service is really like. The men you have to work with are all kinds -- some first rate, some just average and some rotten A-holes you wouldn’t trust near your sister. That might be the guy you find yourself with pinned down by hostile fire. You might sooner want to shoot him than the enemy. But you have to stick with him because he’s your buddy. You need each other to stay alive. And your country needs you both to work together, or you might not have a country to go back to.

“I told all that to Wilson, but I don’t know if it sunk in.“ Lyle said. “So I’m askin’ you to try to keep the lid on when you’re around him. If I have to, I’ll talk to the Captain about havin’ him transferred to another company. But I hope it won’t come to that. You bein’ a Corporal, you’re expected to be more responsible than a P.F.C. Will you promise me, as a personal favor, that you’ll do your best to keep peace in the squad?”

When he put it that way, I couldn’t refuse. But my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t know if I could take anymore of Wilson’s crap without exploding, no matter what he thought he was crusading for.

Finally our regiment was rotated to a reserve camp where life was a little safer and easier. We still had to drill, stand inspections and go through maneuvers to keep our combat skills sharp. Some of the men griped that they wanted to return to the Line where they could get some rest. But the chow was better and more plentiful. One day at lunch I had just filled my mess gear and was trading scuttlebutt with a couple of machine gunners before finding a seat, when something hit my arm, spilling my chow on the ground.

I whirled around ready to swing and saw Wilson grinning wolfishly. It required all of my willpower to remember my promise to Lyle. But I controlled myself and went back to the mess table to get a second helping, knowing that I was just delaying the inevitable.

No further words between Wilson and me were needed. Our looks of pure hatred at each other said it all. When we finished eating and walked back to our squad tent, the other men were waiting expectantly.

We went behind the tent and squared off. I jabbed hard, cutting Wilson’s lower lip. Then he got inside my guard and delivered some swift body blows before I could clinch and throw him back. We were preparing to go at each other in earnest, when a big body thrust between us and a deep voice barked: “Knock it off!”

Only Lyle’s furious glare held me back. I wanted the pleasure of pounding Wilson’s arrogant face to a pulp even if it cost me my stripes. But I obeyed Lyle’s order to go in the tent and wait at my cot, while he marched Wilson off to the Company Command Post.

An hour later they returned and Wilson silently collected his gear to move to a squad in Fox Company. Lyle looked so sadly disappointed at not being able to keep racial harmony in his squad that I regretted having let him down. I just hoped that things could get back to normal between us now that Wilson was gone.

Time passed and the ugly memory faded somewhat. We did our work dutifully but with less wisecracking revelry than before as camaraderie and morale were slowly restored. Our reserve time ran out and we drew cold weather gear to return to the Line for the last winter before the Armistice was signed, bringing a cease-fire but no peace treaty to Korea.

We continued fighting snowstorms and Chinese Communists until both overran our outpost hill, killing Lyle and sending me to the Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. When I recovered, I was so close to the end of my tour of combat duty that they shipped me Stateside to finish my enlistment.

So the war that wasn’t really a war, never officially declared or ended, became America’s Forgotten War. With good reason. It had come too soon after World War Two to excite much interest in civilians and those of us who survived it felt that what we had done was hardly worth remembering, The military professionals went on drilling and griping and we who left the service got busy with family and job responsibilities. Whenever I felt a twinge of nostalgia, it could be quenched by going to a VFW bar to hoist beer mugs and swap yarns with other aging veterans.

But the most aggravating thing about history is that it keeps on happening so fast that it won’t let you live comfortably in your part of it. There was the U.S. military buildup in Vietnam and all sorts of groups protesting in the streets for this or that cause. I learned that there was even a name for people like Matt Wilson -- “Blacktivists,” short for black activists, demonstrators so impatient for racial equality and civil rights that they clamored for them with in-your-face confrontations.

I wondered what Lyle would have thought of them. And was Wilson one of their organizers? I had no way of knowing, as I never heard of him again.

Before I realized it, I had slipped into a dilemma that threatened to tear me apart. I felt that I had to get back into action and do what I could to prove that Lyle and all the others had not died in vain. Korea -- the first time since the Revolution that white and black American troopers had bled the same color together for their country -- should not be allowed to remain our Forgotten War.

I told myself that such thinking was crazy. I was too old and soft for another campaign. My place was at home with Jenny and the kids. Let other people have their turn on the Line fighting for what they believe in. But the harder I tried to resist the call of duty, the stronger it grew. Finally I talked it over with Jenny and she agreed that I had to go or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

Every man should be lucky enough to have a wife like her, I thought as I checked out my appearance in the mirror, making sure my cap was squared away and my ribbons were in order. Then I left my motel room to join Martin Luther King’s voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in March, 1965.

The End

(A/n: Most of us know about the major mileposts in America’s struggle for equality -- the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Law, integration of schools and businesses, etc. But we should remember that the real work of improving human relations is done at the individual and community levels. Even when the community is as small as a rifle squad.