Military history of African Americans in the Vietnam War

African Americans have always been involved in United States military service since its inception despite official policies of racial segregation and discrimination.

[2] In 1948 President Harry S. Truman abolished discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.

[5] According to Daniel Lucks the reason behind the high turnout was the pay, which for many, was more than they had ever made in their lives, and that young African Americans "perceived military service as a vocational opportunity, and they had the additional incentive to enlist to prove on the battlefield that they were worthy of their newly acquired civil rights.

[6] In Louisiana, Jack Helms, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, served on the draft board from 1957 until 1966.

Although initially uncommon at the start of the war, after the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., overt racism occurred at a higher rate.

[12][6] 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.

[6] Following complaints from African American soldiers, Confederate flags were briefly banned but soon allowed after resistance from Southern politicians objected.

[8] According to journalists Wallace Terry and Zalin Grant by 1968, racial incidents in Danang, Cam Ranh Bay, Dong Tam, Saigon, and Bien Hoa happened on an "almost daily basis" and had become "commonplace".

Following King's death race riots and conflicts occurred at Long Binh jail and Camp Lejuene.

It also inspired an investigation and creation of a committee to study racial bias and African American militancy in the armed forces.

"[3] Many African American soldiers claimed that they were unfairly targeted for punishment, including being denied for promotion and disproportionately assigned menial tasks.

A 1970 Army study of the 197th Infantry Brigade reported that African Americans soldiers frequently complained that “white NCOs always put black soldiers on the dirtiest details.”[3] L. Howard Bennett, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil rights in the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations noted a similar occurrence, that African Americans soldiers would "complained that they are discriminated against in promotions ... that they will stay in grade too long, that they will train and teach whites who come in and pretty soon their trainees pass them by and get the promotion.

During this time period (1966–1969) a study commissioned by the Army found that, commanders had failed to report 423 allegations of racial discrimination.

One such incident near the A Sầu Valley caused fifteen Black soldiers to refuse to report for combat patrol the following day.

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.

NBC journalist Frank McGee, who spent nearly a month living with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division recalled that "Nowhere in America have I seen Negroes and whites as free, open and uninhibited with their associations.

African American Sergeant Lewis B. Larry shared similar sentiments stating that "There's no racial barrier of any sort here".

[3] Many fellow African American soldiers echoed McGee's beliefs; in 1989 Wallace Terry stated that "the front lines of Vietnam" was the only place where Martin Luther King Jr's dream of "sons of former slaves and sons of slave owners [sitting] at the same table [came true]".

[5] In the Vietnam War, African American troops initially had a much higher casualty rate than other ethnicities,[8] though this declined somewhat throughout the course of the conflict.

[5] While at the start of the war the vast majority of African American soldiers "believed America was protecting the sovereignty of the democratically constituted government in South Vietnam and halting the spread of communism in Southeast Asia" King's opposition to the Vietnam War and death saw disillusionment and anti-war rhetoric grow among African American soldiers.

[16] 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.

New York Times correspondent Thomas A. Jackson reported that “Bitterness and disappointment in America [were] typical of Negro veterans".

A 1981 survey by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs found that only 20% of African Americans thought of their time as positive.