I’ve heard and read from various sources that blacks got screwed in the Vietnam war, both because they were sent over there in disproportionately large numbers, and because they were more likely to be put in front-line combat positions.
I would think, though, that this would apply not just to blacks but to anyone who was from the lower economic class, whatever their race.
Were blacks or other minorities uniquely sent off to die in Vietnam?
people who have/had some higher education are likely to be placed in a role where they can make use of it. This may result in their service taking them somewhere fairly safe. Those with only elementary education - which included many blacks in that era - were deemed ‘good enough for the infantry’. The drawbacks of this (in military terms, not social engineering ones, i.e. not enough junior leaders with abilities) are now recognised more.
I wrote a report once on Adam Yarmolinsky (one of McNamara’s “Whiz Kids”) and researching it I read a good bit about the desegregation of the army (with which he was involved). While technically the army was integrated under Truman, it wasn’t as integrated as many politicians liked to claim.
Relevance to this: one of the biggest sources of discriminations against black soldiers was stateside. Many of the towns where military bases were located, especially in the south of course but also in other parts of the country, were still heavily segregated and black soldiers- didn’t matter if they were a buck private or a West Point grad, couldn’t go into most of the businesses in town. It was ironic that a 17 year old new recruit from a non-English speaking family in South Dakota could come and go as he pleased but if a 90 year old visiting retired general came to town he had to take all his meals on base or else eat in the black section of town, and in some places this was going on well into the 1960s.
It hit fever pitch in one Carolina town (I don’t remember if it was North or South Carolina as it’s been a while since I did the research) when two black privates were jumped by a gang of rednecks while just using a “whites only” washeteria (unfortunately that didn’t mean "just undershirts and dress shirts and white Fruit of the Loom). The black privates were outnumbered but they were also a helluva better fighters- they’d just been through basic training and were being prepared for combat- so they kicked some serious ass, and of course got arrested and there was a major “hang em high!” rally with locals and politicians and the like. Ultimately they were returned to the military for disciplinary matters, BUT…
Yarmolinsky and other Whiz Kids, already super popular down south by virtue of being
1- affiliated with JFK and RFK
2- about as Yankee as you could get
3- Jews
4- Ivy league educated Yankee Jews affiliated with the Kennedys
5- by their own admission cocky and arrogant to begin with
played hardball with this and other bases where there’d been incidents. They told the towns “integrate… now!” and the towns responded, as the Whiz Kids knew they would, “Go to hell”. Yarmo and Co. said “fine… we understand, you have your traditions, we won’t interfere. In fact we’ll help… to make sure these things never happen again, we’ll close the bases and move them to a town that will integrate.”
That’s when a lot of the same politicians who’d postured and strutted about how “no military base is gonna change our way of life” suddenly, once they saw that McNamara was behind these guys and so was LBJ, became a bit more ameliorative. Even the most racist of the towns, faced with the prospect of having their bases closed or at least considerably downsized (and then as now many of these towns would have died on the vine were it not for the military money) agreed to integrate.
As for the draft, whites probably found it a lot easier to get college deferments or have the necessary officials declare them vital or inexpendable for service. Also, the military has long been a major ticket out of the ghetto/the cotton fields (regardless of race, but a lot more blacks were impoverished percentagewise than whites- then even more than now I’d think) so many joined voluntarily or were willing to go when drafted. Many (including one of my father’s favorite students [he was white but taught at an all black school] were also given the “army or jail” option. (My father felt guilt for the rest of his life for convincing his student, who was arrested for a fight- not his first- to go with the military out, convincing him it would give him an outlet for his rage and more importantly a college education, and instead the student was killed in the war- I looked up his name first time I saw the memorial as a gesture to my long dead dad.)
Sorry for superflous info, but discrimination stateside was probably more severe than in-country.
It was a lot more than just ironic when black American soldiers during World War II saw German POW’s being given things that they were denied.
IIRC, Lena Horne left a USO tour because German POWs were seated in front of black U.S. soldiers.
Speaking from the stateside perspective, here’s how I recall the situation.
Overt discrimination did not exist in military regulations as it did in WWII. Discrimination did still exist on the more personal levels. The military cannot just issue an order to all their officers to “no longer be a bigot” and expect that everyone will comply.
In the more general areas, when the Vietnam War got ramped up and the military was using the draft for manpower there were a lot of deferments that a young man could use to avoid the draft. The most common deferment was the student deferment. If you were in college you could get deferred. When you were in college you could join the ROTC and come out as an officer. If you were really connected, like someone we all know, you could get a slot in the National Guard, do practically nothing, avoid Vietnam and still say you served in the military. At that time there were very few black men either in college or connected enough to avoid the draft.
With the civil rights movement a lot of these inequities started to become an issue. A disproportionate number of blacks were being drafted and ended up as infantry soldiers. A meager effort was made to resolve the inequities. The most obvious was the draft lottery which lasted two years. A lot of deferments were eliminated or modified. However, by that time the manpower needs had started to diminish so the real effects of the changes did not have that much impact.
Suffice it to say, the have nots end up making the sacrifices on a disproportionate basis.
It is a common perception that blacks were drafted in higher proportions and were killed in higher proportions than whites. It is not true. I used to have a better cite than this (when the subject came up before) but this will do.
At the time of Viet Nam the percentage of blacks in the military was about what it was in the total population. After the draft that percentage went up.
Well, I was trying to find out where that laundromat thing was, and I googled “Vietnam integration washeteria” and Google thought I was a virus. Thanks a lot. 