Equality or Discrimination?: African Americans in the U.S. Military During the Vietnam War (review)

Considering the vast array of current scholarship on the military and political facets of the Vietnam War, surprisingly little research has been pieced together concerning African American troops. Taking place in the context of the turbulent 1960s civil rights struggles, the story of the service of African American troops in Vietnam deserves much more recognition than it has received from historians of the period. Yet, Natalie Kimbrough has failed to craft a fresh account that goes substantially beyond existing scholarship.

The first two-thirds of the book provides a valuable synthesis of relevant secondary scholarship on race relations. Mention of President Truman's important 1948 Executive Order 9981 and President Kennedy's lesser-known 1961 Executive Order 10925—each mandating or reaffirming the desegregation of the armed forces—opens Kimbrough's assessment of Vietnam era integration practices and subsequent race relations. Countering a well-established wartime premise, Kimbrough boldly "stipulate(s) that . . . [the] image [of American forces having comprised a fully integrated army] is fiction" (p. 11). Her argument, which pervades her study, rests on the meager calculation that despite the lifting of governmental tolerance of military segregation, discriminatory practices precluded full assimilation and integration. However, Kimbrough concludes that even with these calamities, "African Americans achieved at least a higher degree of equality than ever before" (p. 149).

A summation of the general circumstances surrounding black troops follows. Coming from a segregated society, the military offered the enticement of educational benefits following service and a means for recruits to display patriotic fervor. Blacks reenlisted and were drafted in larger numbers even as they found themselves often relegated to the more dangerous combat roles, resulting—over the first four to five years of the draft—in disproportionate casualties and deaths. Even so, black troops had hoped their sacrifices might be rewarded by more equality back home. Yet, by the late 1960s, such sentiment waned as defensive racial solidarity and apathy infiltrated black ranks just as domestic racial and antiwar tensions intensified.

The latter third of the text awkwardly situates three former soldiers within a theoretical framework. Kimbrough analyzes the daily doses of racism that Private David Parks experienced and described in his published diary; the harrowing treatment Colonel Fred Cherry courageously endured as the highest-ranking African American officer captured by the North Vietnamese; and the racial discrimination that led Marine Terry Whitmore to desert.

Clearly a refreshing perspective cannot be derived from just three main primary sources. Surprisingly, President Johnson is mentioned sparingly, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara—whose Project 100,000 directive in 1966 led to increased numbers of black draftees—is wholly absent from the text. Moreover, the stark and subtle differences between the various civil rights groups are seldom recognized or explained. Additionally, misstatements and overgeneralizations are peppered sporadically throughout the text. For instance, Kimbrough concludes that in Martin Luther King's public opposition to the war, the Civil Rights Movement "converge[d] on many levels with the Anti-War Movement" (p. 82). In fact, King's opposition was nothing short of audacious, with large majorities of Americans and members of the press, including numerous black troops and other notable civil right leaders, denigrating his stance. More worthwhile assessments of this subject can be found among the wide range of resources included in the book's rich bibliography. James Westheider's Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War comes to mind as an excellent beginning point.