Military history of African Americans in the Vietnam War

African Americans played a prominent role in the Vietnam War.[2] The Vietnam War was the first American war in which Black and White troops were not formally segregated,[3] though de facto segregation still occurred.[2]

25th Infantry Division soldier Milton Cook spraying tree line with M60 fire during Operation Cedar Falls in 1967. Cook died in Vietnam in 1968.[1]

Draft

Black Americans were more likely to be drafted than White Americans. Though comprising 11% of US population in 1967, African Americans were 16.3% of all draftees.[3] The majority of African Americans who were drafted were not conscripted, with 70% of Black draftees rejected from the Army.[2] Project 100,000, which helped dramatically increase US troop presence in Vietnam from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 two years later, sharply increased the number of African American troops drafted. By lowering the education standards of the draft, an estimated 40% of the 246,000 draftees of Project 100,000 were Black. Some activists in the US speculated that the uneven application of the draft was a method of Black genocide. Black people were starkly under-represented on draft boards in this era, with none on the draft boards of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Arkansas. In Louisiana, Jack Helms, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, served on the draft board from 1957 until 1966.[4] In 1966, 1.3% of the US draft board members were African American. By 1970, the number grew from 230 to 1,265, though this still only represented 6.6% of all draft board members.[5]

Service
Members of the 2nd Platoon, Company A, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry (Mechanized), set up an M-60 machine gun position during a search and clear mission
Company D, 1st Military Police Battalion Marines keep watch on the Cam Le Bridge

Across all branches of the military, African Americans comprised 11% of all troops. However, a disproportionate number were made officers, with only 5% of Army officers African American,[2] and 2% across all branches.[3] African American troops were more likely to be assigned to combat units: 23% of such troops in Vietnam were Black.[3] Racism against African Americans was particularly pronounced in the Navy. Only 5% of sailors were Black in 1971, with less than 1% of Navy officers African American.[6]

Discrimination

Overt racism was typical in American bases in Vietnam. After the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., some White troops at Cam Ranh Base wore Ku Klux Klan robes and paraded around the base,[4][7]:183 continuing their celebration by cross burning.[8] Da Nang Air Base flew the Confederate flag for three days in response.[8][4] In addition to being used in response to King's murder, Confederate flags and icons were commonly painted on jeeps, tanks, and helicopters; bathroom graffiti proclaimed that African Americans, not the Vietnamese, were the real enemy. Black troops were discouraged from taking pride in Black identity, with one troop ordered to remove a "Black is beautiful" poster from his locker.[4] Black identity publications and speeches were restricted, with some commanders banning recordings of speeches by Malcolm X or the newspaper The Black Panther.[7]

Black culture and norms were also not initially acknowledged on bases. Black troops did not have access to Black haircare products, soul music tapes, nor books or magazines about Black culture and history. Instead, the Armed Forces Radio Network mostly played country music. Military barbers frequently had no experience cutting Black hair, and received no formal training on how to do so.[4]

The Armed Forces took some action to make Black troops feel more included, including adding more diverse music to club jukeboxes, hiring Black bands and dancers for events, and bringing over Black entertainers to perform, such as James Brown, Miss Black America, and Miss Black Utah. Base exchanges began to stock Black haircare products and garments like dashikis, while books about Black culture and history were added to base libraries. By 1973, military barbers had been trained how to cut Black hair. Ultimately, many of these changes were made towards the end of the war when personnel had been greatly reduced, meaning that a majority of Black troops who served during the Vietnam War did not benefit from these reforms.[7]

Internal resistance

Racial tensions created internal divisions, causing Black soldiers to sometimes refuse to fight. One such incident near the A Sầu Valley caused fifteen Black soldiers to refuse to report for combat patrol the following day. Almost 200 Black troops who were imprisoned at Long Bình Jail staged a work strike for more than a month following a riot. In another incident, a race riot occurred on the USS Kitty Hawk, after the ship was forced to cancel its trip home and return to Vietnam. Black and White sailors attacked each other with chains and pipes, resulting in the arrest of twenty-five Black sailors, though no White ones. On the USS Constellation, Black sailors organized to investigate the application of non-judicial punishment among White and Black sailors. Six of the organizers were given less-than-honorable discharges, with rumors that up to 200 Black sailors would receive the same punishment. On November 3, 1972, about 100 Black sailors and a few White sailors staged a sit-in protest on the ship's deck. Many of the dissidents were ultimately reassigned from the ship, with a few discharged.[6]

Several Black troops deserted their posts. A few were smuggled through the USSR into Sweden, while up to 100 lived in a region of Saigon known as Soul Alley.[4]

Solidarity

Black identity movements within Vietnam War troops grew over time, with Black troops drafted from 1967 – 1970 calling themselves "Bloods". Bloods distinguished themselves by wearing black gloves and amulets, as well as bracelets made out of boot laces. Dap handshakes, or complex ritualized handshakes, originated among Black troops of the Vietnam War. The dap varied among units. Black troops and officers acknowledged each other in public with a Black Power salute, which is raising a fist.[4]

The Black Liberation Front of the Armed Forces was a Black solidarity group formed by Eddie Burney. In 1971, Burney and other Black troops stationed in Vietnam held a demonstration in response to the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Within the Air Force, at least twenty-five Black solidarity groups had formed by 1970, many of which were based in the US. Another group formed on the USS Constellation, known as The Black Fraction.[6] Other groups that formed included Blacks In Action, the Unsatisfied Black Soldier, the Ju Jus, and the Mau Maus, which were all semi-militant.[4]

Punishment and casualties
Marines firing mortars

African American troops were punished more harshly and more frequently than White troops. A Defense Department study released in 1972 found that Black troops received 34.3% of court-martials, 25.5% of nonjudicial punishments, and comprised 58% of prisoners at Long Bình Jail, a military prison.[2] It further remarked, "No command or installation...is entirely free from the effects of systematic discrimination against minority servicemen."[6] Black troops were also almost twice as likely as White troops to receive a punitive discharge.[6]

In the Vietnam War, African American troops initially had a much higher casualty rate than other ethnicities,[2] though this declined somewhat throughout the course of the conflict. In 1965, nearly a quarter of troop casualties were African American. By 1967, it had fallen to 12.7%.[3] In total, 7,243 African Americans died during the Vietnam War, representing 12.4% of total casualties.[9]

After the war

Black veterans of the Vietnam War were twice as likely as White veterans to experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), at a prevalence of 40%.[4] Reasons for the disparity in PTSD prevalence could include social and racial discord during the war, institutional racism within the military, and racism after the war. Black troops were also more likely than White troops to relate to the Vietnamese people as an impoverished, non-white group. Additionally, Black troops were less likely to rationalize brutal violence employed against the Vietnamese, and were significantly more disturbed by it than White troops. It has been speculated that White troops were more able to dehumanize the Vietnamese than Black troops.[10]

Black veterans were much less likely to write memoirs about their experiences. A 1997 paper noted that, of almost 400 such memoirs by participants in the Vietnam War, only seven were by African American veterans (less than 2%):[11]

  • GI Diary by David Parks (1968)
  • The Courageous and the Proud by Samuel Vance (1970)
  • Memphis-Nam-Sweden: The Autobiography of a Black American Exile by Terry Whitmore (1971)
  • Just Before the Dawn: A Doctor's Experiences in Vietnam by Fenton Williams (1971)
  • A Hero's Welcome: The Conscience of Sergeant James Daly versus the United States Army by James A. Daly (1975)
  • Yet Another Voice by Norman A. McDaniel (1975)
  • Thoughts about the Vietnam War by Eddie Wright (1984)

Both James A. Daly and Norman A. McDaniel were prisoners of war, publishing their respective memoirs within two years of their releases.[11] Of Daly and Whitmore's respective works, American literature scholar Jeff Loeb noted:

...their overall quality, perspective, and degree of self-reflection should have, in my opinion, long since earned them a place among the very best books about Vietnam by veterans, white or black, as well as having firmly ensconced them in the canon of contemporary African American autobiography. The sad fact is, however, that not only are these books barely mentioned in critical works but both were allowed to go out of print, though Whitmore's has recently been reissued.[11]

Awards and recognition

It has been investigated whether or not Black troops are less likely to be nominated for a Medal of Honor than White troops; out of 3,500 recipients, only 92 have been Black men. As of 2019, the most recent Black Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War was John L. Canley, who received his Medal in 2018. Twenty-two Black men have received the Medal of Honor for actions undertaken during the Vietnam War:[12]

See also

References
  1. "Milton Cook". The Wall of Faces. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  2. Rothman, Lily (22 May 2017). "50 Years Ago This Week: Vietnam and the Black Soldier". Time. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  3. Goodwin, Gerald F. (18 July 2017). "Black and White in Vietnam". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  4. Maycock, James (14 September 2001). "War within War". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  5. Westheider, James E. (2011). Fighting in Vietnam: The Experiences of the U.S. Soldier. Stackpole Books. pp. 33–34. ISBN 9780811708319.
  6. Cortwright, D. (1990). "Black GI resistance during the Vietnam war". Vietnam Generation. 2 (1).
  7. Westheider, James E. (1997). Fighting on Two Sides: African Americans and the Vietnam War. NYU Press. pp. 76–77. ISBN 9780814793015.
  8. Simons, G. (1997). The Vietnam Syndrome: Impact on US Foreign Policy. Springer. p. 243. ISBN 9780230377677.
  9. "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics". National Archives. 29 April 2008. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  10. Allen, I. M. (1986). "Posttraumatic stress disorder among black Vietnam veterans". Psychiatric Services. 37 (1): 55–61. doi:10.1176/ps.37.1.55.
  11. Loeb, J. (1997). "MIA: African American Autobiography of the Vietnam War". African American Review. 31 (1): 105–123. doi:10.2307/3042186.
  12. "VFW Honors African-American Medal of Honor Recipients". Veterans of Foreign Wars.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.