My Fascination With History
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in ancient and modern civilizations, military strategies, and historic battles. From a very young age, my brother and I would draw pictures in crayon of the battlefield at Little Roundtop, fought on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. We asked our parents for child-sized gear from Amazon so we could re-enact battles, often with my sister in charge – when she wasn’t being a CEO, Dorothy or a NASA astronaut!
Some of our best times were spent at an outdoor bookstore specializing in used books. We chose mostly non-fiction, historical biographies and encyclopedia collections dealing with military history. We spent many weekends making our way through our stacks of new information and reading out loud to each other when we found something interesting. Later, the three of us would write scripts, assign parts and act out scenes.
How My Independent Project Started
My interest in military history grew after my dad and I watched a marathon on History Channel of the series “Band of Brothers” together. It was the 70th anniversary since the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. I was immediately fascinated. My grandfather fought in Vietnam as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne, earning a Bronze Star. My dad was a Captain in the Army.
The series made such an impression on me that I started reading and watching videos about Vietnam, WWII and other conflicts. I wish my grandfather were still here so I could ask if he would be willing to share his story with me. I imagine it would be hard for him to talk about it though, given all the horrible things he experienced and witnessed and the fact that when he returned home to South Carolina he was still subjected to racial segregation there.
My family and my Papa's friends both tell me how much I look like Papa, and how proud of me he was. I sure hope so. He used to drive from New York to Connecticut just to spend time with us and to babysit. Mostly I just wish he were here for me to talk to him and go fishing with him just one more time.
I really hate cancer.
But mostly, I'm just grateful for the time we DID have together.
I am so honored to be his Grandson and feel privileged to have Papa as such a strong and loving influence in my life for as long as I did.
I will never forget him, or his distinguished and honorable service to a country that did not love him back as much as it should have.
May he rest in peace and power.
With Papa’s Army service in mind, I independently designed a history project consisting of a 3-part informational video series with my commentary about alternative strategies that could have been implemented for the United States to win in Vietnam. Gathering information from soldiers’
real-time journals and looking back at news coverage and popular music from that era helped me better understand feelings towards the war, from both sides of the conflict.
For my next installments, I'd like to talk about racial tensions in the United States that were also reflected in infighting and racial conflicts among Black and white soldiers fighting each other overseas in Vietnam. I will discuss Muhammad Ali's refusal in March 1967 to report for induction, on the basis that he was a conscientious objector. As a result, he was arrested and stripped of all his boxing licenses, which basically ended his career during his prime, as a punishment for his opposition to Vietnam. His conviction was later overturned in 1971 by the United States Supreme Court, and his licenses were reinstated.
On military bases in Vietnam, racial tensions between white and Black combatants overflowed after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which included Confederate flags appearing on bases and fights breaking out. These instances highlighted the ongoing Civil Rights struggle and lack of equal rights back home in the United States for Black GIs.
What was going on back home exposed Black troops to psychological warfare by the Viet Cong, who used such war tactics as Hanoi Hannah taunting Black G.I.s and telling "Soul Brothers" they should not sacrifice their lives in Vietnam when they did not even have human rights at home, and that their real enemies were other Americans..
Hanoi Hannah's comments sounded a lot like what Muhammad Ali said in one of his most famous speeches opposing fighting in Vietnam as a Black man and a Muslim:
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.
But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.”
https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/muhammad-ali-refuses-to-fight-1967/
Years later, the whole world would view the Vietnam War the same way Muhammad Ali had back then. His comments were not popular with everyone at the time and wound up costing him everything during his prime fighting years. He was banned from boxing for three years, sentenced to five years in prison, suspended by the World Boxing Association, and stripped of the WBA heavyweight champion title.
But the fact that he was willing to risk his career at his peak performance did get people thinking and listening to him. By the time of his death in 2016 at the age of 74 from Parkinson's Disease he was once again viewed as a hero, a Civil Rights leader, and an icon who is still known all over the world as "The Greatest."
Photo Credit: Mike Tolliver on Unsplash