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My dad was a career Marine officer. When the Korean War broke out, he was in the First Marine Division. He made the famous landing at Inchon. They fought their way north toward the Chosin Reservoir, where they ended up getting cut off and had to hunker down for the winter essentially behind enemy lines.
Dad was an anti-aircraft officer; in the rush to get to Korea, he ended up commanding a "service battalion" which consisted of all African American marines who were cooks, truck drivers, etc. The services had been integrated, but not really. The situation then was that they were presumed to be incapable of becoming "real" marines, so they weren't given training; they were just shunted into the "service" battalion. I don't think Dad bought into the idea that they could not be trained, but he knew they had not been. His second-in-command was white; other than the two of them, the unit was all black.
During that winter an incident occurred wherein another unit was separated from the main body, and called for reinforcements. Everyone was busy fighting - the situation was pretty grim. So the general told Dad to get his bunch of "night fighters" as they were mockingly called, get some weapons, and send them to go rescue the others. These kids were cooks and truck drivers, did not have weapons, had not been trained in combat. They were, for 1950, what Jessica Lynch was in 2002.
Dad said no.
He said you'll just get them all killed, and still not solve the problem.
He told me some 45 years later that it was bad planning by top brass that had them trapped there, bad planning not to train people who could have been good marines, and would have been criminal to send them to the slaughter. I gather it was somewhat of a showdown, and he prevailed. They did not go, and the other unit managed to fight its way out on its own.
He, of course, was given a negative fitness report, and that pretty much destroyed his military career.
This is why I keep hoping for someone high ranking in todays military to just say NO! I want a modern hero. Any damn fool can "soldier on;" it takes a hero to stand up for what is right.
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