Download Tom McCabe Prof. Lawless ENG 101 Throughout history, active

Tom McCabe
Prof. Lawless
ENG 101
Throughout history, active military service members at home and abroad have had to
overcome social problems within the military itself, in addition to the usual militaristic physicalcombative stresses they faced each and every day. The main social issue they have had to
overcome was, and arguably still is, discrimination. Discrimination, in all of its forms, has
effected servicemen of all walks of life. It has effected soldiers in previous military conflicts, as
well as soldiers on the modern battlefields. However, the real question is, exactly how has the
various forms of discrimination effected the soldier’s combat effectively in the past, and
comparing that to the present social issues affecting combat on the modern battlefield, has any
positive progress been made, or attempted, toward knocking down these social barriers, and
adopting equality among soldiers.
In previous wars and conflicts, and into the modern era, soldiers have faced
discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and even age. Some examples
of these forms of discrimination in previous military conflicts were the racial issues the United
States Army’s Harlem Hellfighters faced during World War I, and the ethnicity issues the
African American soldiers of the United States Marine Corps faced during World War II.
However, as previously acknowledged, there are still discrimination issues present in modern
military conflicts. These include the gender issues faced by female pilots of the United States Air
Force, and the discrimination based on sexual orientation faced by United States Naval Officers.
During World War I, almost all of the soldiers that served, and were actually accredited
for serving for the United States Military, were Caucasian men. However, although this was one
of the first major global conflicts to include African Americans as servicemen, they received
significantly less recognition as legitimate soldiers within the United States’ Military.
Furthermore, the African American soldiers that did serve were often even lended to allied
nations that were in need of troops. Normally, when that is necessary in a war, the United States
Military, as a whole, simply supports their allies. However, in regards to the African American
soldiers, it wasn’t exactly like the United States Military supporting their allies as a whole; it was
more of a “’donation of troops’ to the allies” type of scenario. One unit of African American
soldiers that was faced with this issue was the 369th Infantry Regiment. The 369th Infantry
Regiment originally started out as the New York National Guard’s “15th New York Infantry
Regiment”; later, once they were called into Federal Service, they became the “369th Infantry
Regiment”. However, the “troop-donation” that they experienced happened in 1918 when their
regiment was reassigned to fight for the French Army for the remainder of the United States
involvement in World War I. Despite the discrimination the 369th faced, they actually turned out
to be a very effective unit; and although the discrimination issues weren’t resolved until conflicts
that would take place in future, the 369th Infantry Regiment earned the nickname, the “Harlem
Hellfighters”, as well as earing large amounts of medals including one Medal of Honor and many
Distinguished Service Crosses.
Unfortunately into World War II, the racial discrimination, that African American
soldiers serving in the United States Military faced, still had not been fully eliminated; the
United States Military was still heavily segregated. However, African American enlistment into
the United States Military was at its highest level than in any previous military conflict. Despite
the large amounts of African Americans enlisting, the United States Air Force and Marines still
didn’t have a single African American in their ranks, and the United States Navy only accepted
African Americans that were to be assigned to culinary roles such as waiters and cooks.
Furthermore, at this time, the United States Army mainly assigned any African Americans to
non-combat roles, however that didn’t mean they did non-dangerous jobs. Also, the United
States Army only had a handful of African Americans that reached officer rankings. Racism
toward African American soldiers at that time, was still so present that those soldiers often even
had to give up their seats to Caucasian prisoners-of-war. Most of the discriminatory non-combat
roles that African American soldiers serving in the United States Military were assigned to were
labor-intensive. They were given fewer supplies and issued less equipment then Caucasian
soldiers in the United States Military. Some examples of the discriminatory non-combat roles
assigned to the United States Military’s African American soldiers were mine-detection and
mine sweeping. That role is similar to the modern United States EOD units, or explosive
ordinance disposal unit. EOD units, basically an exact modern equivalent of minesweepers, have
to take the role of removing IED’s (improvised explosive devices) from the travel routes of
soldiers on the battlefield. Just like minesweeping, any wrong move, no matter how small, the
mine, IED, bomb, or anything that can explode, detonates killing the soldier and anyone around
him. With the view, during World War II, of African American soldiers being inferior to their
Caucasian counterparts, this difficult and extremely dangerous non-combat role seemed perfect,
from the perspective of the United States Military at the time, for African American soldiers
because since they were seen as inferior, they were declared expendable which recognizes them
as acceptable losses if they were to die. On the contrary, African Americans were clearly aware
of these racial biases toward themselves, and constantly felt the need to go out of their way to
prove themselves in order to gain the respect and recognition the wanted so badly. African
Americans often looked for every chance they could to defy the present racial biases against
them, an example of this was during the attack on Pearl Harbor when the African American
serviceman, Dorie Miller, dragged his wounded commanding officer to safety and then
proceeded to operate an Anti-Air Machine Gun and shoot down several attacking Japanese
aircraft; all without any formal combat training. He later became recognized as one of the first
African American heroes of World War II, due to the medals and awards he received for his
courage during that attack. That is just one of the amazing acts of courage that African American
soldiers displayed during both World War I and World War II, but due to the large amount of
heroic and courageous acts performed by African Americans in military conflicts up to that point
in time, the United States started attempting to develop racial equality for it military soldiers.
Finally, with everything African American soldiers did to gain recognition despite the racial
discrimination against them, their actions up to and during World War II led to President Truman
signing Executive Order 9981 in 1948, an order that officially ended segregation and racial
inequality in the military. As a result, World War II marked the end of segregation in the United
States Military.
-Annotated Bibliography:
Barbeau, A. E. (1996). The Unknown Soldiers: African-American Troops in World War I.
Philadelphia, P.A.: New York: Da Capo Press.
This source talks about how, in America during WWI, African Americans weren’t publically known
to be a significant part of the US military. The author explains how many African Americans
weren’t given nearly the same amount of credit for the things they did that were on par with their
Caucasian counterparts. This connects to my project because it shows how, due to racism,
African Americans weren’t given the same amount of credit.
Ellis, M. (2001). Race, War, and Surveillance: African Americans and the United States Government
during World War I. Bloomington, I.N.: Indiana University Press.
This source explores the pre-WWI controversy most African Americans faced while they were
deciding whether to join the US military and fight in WWI. That question was “should African
American should feel obligated at all to fight for the United States. This source would be, in my
opinion, very valuable to my research because this was a fundamental dilemma for black citizens
at the time, and clearly there is going to be several different arguments due to the fact that some
still didn’t join while others still did. Some felt that they weren’t obligated to the United States
because they were treated so poorly, while others joined not because they necessarily felt
obligated by their nation, but out of their own free-will and interest.
Harris, S. L. (2003). Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I.
Washington, D.C.: Brassey's Inc.
This source explains a lot about the immediate post-WWI difficulties the African American soldiers
went through, particularly violence against them in many cases. This source also ties many
previous historical events, which were the result of racism in America, to the reasons why
African Americans were treated so poorly before, during, and after their time serving in the US
military. They were treated, even while on active-duty, very violently, compared to similar
Caucasian regiments.
Kornweibel, T. (2002). "Investigate Everything": Federal Efforts to Compel Black Loyalty during
World War I. Bloomington, I.N.: Indiana University Press.
This source is significant because it can relate to Source 3’s question of whether African Americans
should feel obligated to the United States. However, this source isn’t from the perspective of
black citizens making the choice, it is from the perspective of the United States attempting to
compel their African American citizens to become loyal to their (The USA’s) government, and
the Federal efforts to attain such loyalty. African Americans, at the time, were being treated
basically as second-class citizens and saw WWI as an opportunity to prove themselves and gain
the respect they deserve.
Roberts, F. E. (2004). The American Foreign Legion: Black Soldiers of the 93d in World War I.
Annapolis, M.D.: Naval Institute Press.
This source explores mostly the 93rd Infantry Division’s role in World War I. However, this source
often ties the experiences the black soldiers went through in the 93rd Infantry Division, in
regards to racism and other limiting factors, to the experiences of the black soldiers of the
Harlem Hellfighter’s 369th Infantry Regiment. This source doesn’t heavily explore the lack of
racism by the French, but it shows how significantly racism limited them within the US military.
In this project this source will aid in creating a comparative analysis between the two groups
experiences. The events these two groups of soldiers can be seen to be very similar, In that, both
were being heavily oppressed by a racist society during their time on duty.
Slotkin, R. (2005). Lost battalions: The Great War and the crisis of American nationality. New York,
N.Y: H. Holt and Co.
This source explores how American Progressive Era leaders were seeing the ability the US had to
beat the chaos of the Civil War and it reconstruction showed that the US was capable of, and had
mastered, their organizational problems, along with large-scale industrial mass production. Also,
as this source explains, due to this a generation of new leaders adopted a heroic vision to attempt
to control the course of future development. However, they explain that the USA’s newly
mastered skills have caused rapid change, which unfortunately resulted in Social Disruption.
They realize that in order to reach their goal, they must “cure” this social disruption before the
previously mentioned, rapid changes, persist