 |
|
LOCAL NEWS |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Posing in an airport hangar are (from left) Willie Hamilton, Eugene Goolsby and Roland Jones. |
|
|
|
Local black vets take Honor Flight
By: Journal Staff
The Toledo Journal
Originally posted 7/30/2010
An estimated 1.2 million African Americans served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Most of them have passed away since the war’s end in 1945, having come home to re-encounter discrimination and mistreatment after fighting for democracy.
But Roland Jones, a soldier in the D-Day invasion of coastal France that initiated the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany, said he has no bitterness about how he treated once he was honorably discharged and returned to the supposed ''Land of the Free.''
''No,'' he said emphatically. ''Because I know [bitterness] won’t get you anywhere. The good Lord put us all on this earth. Therefore, we should treat each other with respect.''
Eugene Goolsby said he also has no hard feelings, despite living most of his life as a victim of discrimination in the country he defended.
''Why should I?'' he said. ''It was their loss and not mine and the reason I say that is they didn’t think we would be able to do any fighting. If you’ve got more bodies on the front line, the better off you are.''
Last week Mr. Jones, 90; Mr. Goolsby, 88, and Willie Hamilton, 84, were given the respect they deserve by being flown to Washington, D.C., to visit the World War II Memorial, which was dedicated in 2004 as a tribute to all of those who served – black and white alike.
The flight was the 14th for the Honor Flight Northwest Ohio organization. Twenty-four area veterans in all made the flight, and they visited other memorials in Washington, but the departure out of Toledo Express Airport marked the first time that Honor Flight had local African American vets on board.
Honor Flight spokesman Jim Tichy, a former local TV sportscaster, said vets are placed on a waiting list for the periodic flights as they register, and that he was gratified that the chartered airplane would carry its first African Americans.
''I’m kind of a fan of American history and I know how miserably our black servicemen were treated during World War II,'' Mr. Tichy said. ''And it’s just a damn shame simply because they were serving their country.
''They did put their country before themselves and yet the country did not reciprocate and treat them as well as it should have and so it’s a long overdue thank-you to all of our servicemen, but especially these three gentlemen.''
Mr. Hamilton, the youngest of the three veterans, served in the Army Air Force from 1944 until 1947 as a member of the military police on bases along the West Coast. He may have uncovered one of the few incidents of domestic terrorism during World War II. While on patrol at Muroc Army Air Field in California, he spotted a person atop the water tower, and after reporting the incident learned that the man was a German who was trying to poison the water supply.
As a young black man in discriminatory America, Mr. Hamilton considered the military as ''an opportunity and I signed up for it.''
But the discrimination didn’t end.
''You’d go into towns and things where they wouldn’t serve us,'' he said.
Even while wearing your Army uniform?
''That’s right. You couldn’t wear nothing else but that uniform.''
Like the other two gentlemen who took the flight to D.C., Mr. Hamilton said he harbors no animosity about how he was treated by white Americans. Warfare going on or not, that was life in the United States in the 1940s and, sadly, for more decades to come.
''You get used to it,'' Mr. Hamilton said. ''You know what to look for. You know where you’re going. And that was it. There was nothing you could about it.''
Mr. Jones, who said he looked forward to ''mingling'' with other vets at the WW II memorial, remembers when white soldiers in training were given guns but their black brethren were given pieces of wood.
''In basic training, we weren’t allowed to have guns. We had to train with a broomstick,'' he said.
Why?
''Well, they didn’t trust us.''
After a 1942 directive by President Franklin Roosevelt gave blacks the opportunity to become U.S. Marines, Mr. Goolsby was one of the first to be recruited and served from 1943 until 1946.
The Marine Corps didn’t want blacks, Mr. Jones said, so it bought 50 acres of land separated from Camp LeJeune, N.C., where the blacks were trained in segregation.
''We couldn’t even go to Camp LeJeune unless we were with a white officer or sergeant,'' he recalled. ''That was the only way we could go.''
Mr. Tichy, as a longtime journalist, was descriptive in his media advisory about the first African American vets to participate in Honor Flight Northwest Ohio, an organization funded only by donations.
''Despite their distinguished service, all three veterans experienced the humiliation and the embarrassment of discrimination,'' Mr. Tichy wrote. ''Jones and his fellow Black soldiers were given broomsticks – instead of rifles – during their basic training. Hamilton was refused service at a coffee shop – while in uniform – while escorting White soldiers in Victorville, California. And Goolsby – with his Army draft notice in hand – reported for duty only to hear the words: ‘We aren’t taking any n***** volunteers.’''
The president of the local Honor Flight group, Lee Armstrong, told the two dozen veterans gathered in a Toledo Express hangar to drink plenty of water because it was going to be hot and humid in Washington, D.C., that day. And he made special note about the three African Americans among the veterans taking the trip.
''They did many wonderful, wonderful things,'' Mr. Armstrong said. ''And they put the country ahead of themselves. Unfortunately, at that time period ... there were some that were treated like second-class citizens.''
Mr. Hamilton, the Air Force veteran, said that he’ll never understand why he was discriminated against, both while fighting for the U.S. and during the years afterward.
''I’m in this country just like everybody else,'' he said. ''I’m a citizen. An American citizen. I was born here. So I feel that all this separation and everything is not what this country should be about.''
But the former soldier said he expects that the country he defended will remain one of discrimination and racial acrimony.
''It’s not going to change,'' Mr. Hamilton said. ''It might get a little bit better, but it’s not going to change.''
Honor Flight Northwest Ohio is a 501(c)(3) all-volunteer organization dedicated to flying veterans to the nation’s capital. Flights are funded through the generosity of Northwest Ohioans. Air transportation, motor coach, meals and other amenities are provided to the veterans without change.
Honor Flight Northwest Ohio has escorted 365 veterans to Washington, D.C. But there are still nearly 500 men and women on the waiting list, Mr. Tichy said
Across the country thousands more are hoping to experience an Honor Flight. Since its inception in 2005, the Honor Flight Network has transported nearly 40,000 veterans to the nation’s capital. Donations may be sent to: Honor Flight Northwest Ohio, P.O. Box 23018, Toledo, OH 43623.
For more information, visit www.honorflightnwo.org.
|
|
|
 |
|
