Inauguration Day

My first “tour” at Ft. Benning, GA, home of the Infantry School, was in 1951, when my father was recalled to active duty for the Korean War. A veteran of World War II, he had remained in the inactive reserve, something a five year old did not understand. He and my mother had just purchased a house and moved in with my sister, not yet one year of age. All I knew is we were going far away, and I had to have a lot of shots before I could be registered in the on post elementary school.
Up to that point I had never been further away from home than my grandparents’ house, a three hour distant ride. Traveling by train, plane and automobile, we arrived in Columbus, GA, two days after leaving my grandfather’s in New Hampshire, and moved into an army housing area called “Battle Park.”
Integration of the armed forces was underway at that time, but not complete, and some commanders dragged their feet at incorporating black troops into what had been all white units. The commander of the battalion to which my father was assigned was a southern gentleman, who believed that placing all the blacks in his command into a separate company was “integration.” My father, a reservist (and a Yankee), and therefore considered by the regular army officers to be at the bottom of the pecking order, was placed in command, and was, indeed, the only white in an infantry company of black soldiers. Shocked wives of his fellow officers asked my mother if he carried a gun when he went to the field, and were more stupefied at my mother’s response as to why he would want to do something like that.
For most people, who serve in combat, the unit you serve with stays close to your heart. And that is true with my father. He is still a proud member of the 104th Timber Wolf Division, but though he will turn 90 this year, he remembers with great fondness, that all those great guys at Ft. Benning, who accepted a red haired Irish guy from Maine as their commander and who could stand tall with any man.
Today we saw the inauguration of our first African American president. How far things have come in a lifetime. And to the Brothers I had the honor to serve with: Right on!