Allen James Greer (1878–1964) was an officer in the United States Army who received the Medal of Honor for actions near Majada, Laguna Province, Philippines, July 2, 1901.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor on March 10, 1902, for his action on July 2, 1901, during the Philippine Insurrection, when he charged alone against an insurgent outpost with his pistol, killing one, wounding two, and capturing three, with their rifles and equipment.

[1] After his graduation from college, Greer, with J. Walter Canada, raised sixty volunteers for duty in the Spanish–American War (Company L), and he was made their lieutenant.

[10] In the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, Colonel Greer was chief of staff of the 92nd Infantry Division, composed of black troops, except for higher officers.

[20][21] In May 1933, Greer was appointed commandant of Group or District 4 of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Tompkins County, New York.

[22][15] He was one of the officers who "helped restore order following a mutiny of Negro recruits" in the CCC camp at Preston, New York.

"[23][24] In April 1940, the "Army Orders" stated that "Col. Allen J. Greer, Field Artillery, [is] relieved from Fort Hayes, O., and, for the convenience of the government[,] will proceed to his home and await retirement.

"[25] "Army Orders" stated in September 1940: "By direction of the President, Col. Allen J. Greer, Field Artillery, upon his own application[,] is retired from active service effective Sept. 30, 1940.

"[26] In 1915, Captain Greer, as an instructor at the Presidio training camp, paid tribute to the horse as a still-valid tool in twentieth-century warfare.

The leader any given horse-mounted scouting unit had to be equipped with a compass, a map, field glasses, pencil and notebook, message blanks, and a watch.

Senator Kenneth D. McKellar of Tennessee which contained, according to a newspaper account, "startling revelations as to negro troops failing to measure up to the required standard of efficiency and valor while in active service.

"[11] According to historian Robert H. Ferrell, Greer also sent letters to "officers he thought might enlighten the department on the use of African-American troops" in the Army.

He noted that he had been chief of staff of the mostly black 92nd Division since it was organized[11] in October 1917, The letter stated: To start with, all company officers of infantry, machine guns and engineers were negroes, as were most of the artillery lieutenants and many of the doctors.

...[11]The letter said that the black soldiers of an American regiment attached to a French corps failed "in all their missions, laid down and sneaked to the rear, until they were withdrawn.

at the same time, so strict has been the supervision and training that many officers passing through our areas would remark that our men actually had the outer marks of better discipline than the other divisions.

[11]Of the black troops, Greer said, "Accuracy and the ability to describe facts is lacking in all[,] and most of them are just plain liars in addition.

"[12]: 98 Editors of black publications The Crisis of New York and The Eagle of Washington, D.C., began a movement to have Greer fired from the Army.

[31] The League for Democracy, an organization of Negro officers, wrote an objection to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, stating: "We cannot permit our descendants to read this letter [Greer's] in future histories and look upon our graves with scorn and contempt. . . .

'"[32] Lieutenant-Colonel Greer was a prosecutor in the noted June 1922 court-martial of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who was convicted of violating the 96th Article of War in publishing an open letter to President Warren G. Harding critical of the Army's high command.

[33][34] Wheeler-Nicholson based his defense on freedom of speech, but, as The New York Times put it, Greer argued "that when an officer or soldier took the oath of allegiance [,] he waived these rights.

[43][44] It was noted that Mrs. Greer had been the object of "considerable attention" aboard the ship by a fellow passenger, Ulysses S. Grant III, who "last night spent the evening with her at her apartments, which she shares with Mrs. Lake, the wife of a Honolulu hotel man.

[51] In 1933, Greer broke his collarbone when he and his daughter were in an automobile accident in Valparaiso, Indiana, as he drove her back to the University of Wisconsin.

[48] In 1927, Greer met Mary Owings Smith of Olympia, Washington, when he was stationed at Fort Lewis in that state.

[55][56] He said he was a military analyst for the Buffalo Evening News in Europe and Japan during World War II and that he wrote about the Bikini atomic-bomb tests in 1946.

A reporter described him as "mellow," "scholarly" and "almost a disinterested spectator" of the modern world who "walks around his neighborhood and occasionally has a beer.