Black Soldier on okinawa with a bayonet lugged carbine

[painter777]

My Father having grown up in the south working the fields as a sharecropper with many different people of color and nationality always spoke highly of their work ethics. Of course like he said "If you didn't work you didn't eat". He served 2 tours (Engineers) in the Philippines and was always of the opinion that we would have lost WWII had it not been for the Black Engineers he served along with. He said they had something to prove and they did so. Along with many immigrants who served so bravely for their new homeland........ The United States.
Read about the ALCAN Highway and see what these Black Engineers, who were brought up from being stationed in the swampy tent camps of southern Louisiana accomplished without the machinery others had. Most of their work done ahead of schedule by hand and done so correctly that they were often sent to correct shoddy work done by those who had the tools and heavy equipment they needed. I believe this was one of if not the first time they were 'Allowed' to work on the same project that Whites were working on. Read about how the Blacks lived in tents in -40 -60 F and built many of the barracks the others lived in. All the while not being allowed to enter any of the small camps or the bigger cities so they wouldn't intermingle with the locals. My Father often spoke of serving in the Pacific with some of the Black Engineers who worked on the ALCAN. He shared stories told to him by these men that he related to horror stories in the bitter cold and swarms of biting, stinging insects. (Dad never did like the cold). He had a war buddy named Lamar, a Cajun Black who worked the ALCAN. Lamar would share stories, told with his Cajun Flair, he was a lifetime family friend who often brought his family to our childhood church services.
It took this country to long to understand they were worthy. But that was the Politics of War and Society at the time.
Eyes opened after the Buffalo soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen and others fought through 6 European countries.

But today with all this PC BS as I think TenOC is poking at, We can't say 'The guy over there, the Black guy' or 'The Brown guy' without offending someone.

If anyone had the right to be upset it was the Black service men and Women of WWII.
But they dug deep and moved forward. I, like my late Father am proud of their and every ones efforts on behalf on our country.

Color of the skin to me is just a way of pointing some one out of a crowd or trying to describe a person or their heritage.

I say again:
Bless those that serve

PS: It's hard to find stories or videos that give these men the real credit they deserve for their efforts on the ALCAN. In those early days they didn't want to credit them. Just in recent years are stories and books becoming available that point out their accomplishments. I was able to find a video below that describes a little of the conditions and credits their accomplishments. There might be better ones, but this is what I have right now.

Below are some bits from a recent book-
The Construction of the Alaska Highway, 1942: The Role of Race in the Far North