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Chapter 2 Joining Up T he men of Montford Point joined the Corps for reasons as varied as their backgrounds and, for the most part, for reasons similar to those of white recruits. Some responded to the Marines’ reputation as a fighting service, hoping to become one of a band of fierce warriors, a modern gladiator. Some succumbed to the allure of adventure, to the opportunity to travel to exotic places. For others, the romance of serving in the Corps was symbolized by the appeal of the famous dress blue uniform and the impact they hoped it would have upon members of the opposite sex. With the nation just beginning to pull out of the Depression and conditions still difficult, especially in the South, economic considerations inevitably were an underlying factor for many enlistees. Some joined specifically to obtain employment, or to escape the poverty of the tenant farm or the mill town, although employment was among the least frequently mentioned reasons for joining. Facing the draft, which had been instituted in 1939, some joined to avoid being drafted into a branch of the service in which they did not wish to serve, and some were drafted into the Corps. Many knew that African Americans had not previously been admitted to the Corps, and some joined specifically to ensure an end to the Corps’s practice of racial exclusion. Others were completely unaware of the Corps’s racist history; a few joined with no idea they would be sent to a segregated training camp. To a man, however , they shared a fierce determination not just to complete their training successfully, but to excel, to prove to the world they could be exemplary Marines. Al Banker I joined the Marine Corps because I felt it was the proper thing to do. To be patriotic to my country. I felt that this is history in the making. And I felt that I wanted to be a part of it. That’s the reason I decided to volunteer for the Marine Corps. I was frightened, and I said to myself, what did I do? And then I realized that this is it. I’m in this Marine Corps, and I’m going to stick it out to the end. Because, at that time there were never any colored troops in the Marine Corps. It was an all-white unit. And we were reminded of that fact. And this was the first time that we were allowed to join the Marine Corps. Ellis Cunningham Knew nothing about the Marine Corps. As far as I was concerned, there was the Army. And the one branch of the Army that I was particularly interested in was the cavalry, and that’s because I knew this guy in the horse cavalry. They [the horse cavalry], they rode horses and wore the large campaign hats. . . . I was on liberty, because I didn’t see them at work, I just saw them going on liberty. Well, that’s what I wanted. Campaign hat, riding boots, and a horse. That’s the way, that’s what I thought, and that’s the way I felt when I went to register for the military. I went on the 10th of November, 1943, and how I know it was the 10th, because I put it down as my birthday. And that was not my birthday, incidentally, but I didn’t know this was the Marine Corps’s birthday at the time. And why I put it down as my birthday was, people at the draft board there, when the question came up, when’s your birthday, that’s the first time I realized that gee whiz, you might be in trouble here. Your birthday passed a few weeks ago, and you didn’t register. So now if you say what your real birthday is, you’re going to jail. . . . So I said, today is my birthday. And that’s the birthday I kept throughout the Marine Corps. So anyhow, they pack us up after a couple of weeks, and took us to Camp Jackson, at [Columbia, South Carolina], you know, it’s Fort Jackson, but then it was Camp Jackson. That’s where they conduct the examination, and assigned you to where you were going. And this was in December of ’43. So, you had a long line of examination stations there. Doctors and psychologists and what have you. And hundreds of us there, being processed. And each person...

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