Forgotten Heroes
Colonel Fred Vann Cherry
First Black POW
Tortured for over seven years
(October 22,1975 – February 12, 1973)
U.S. Air Force Pilot
Korean War & Vietnam War
Military Service 1952 -1981
Born – March 24, 1928
Died – February 16, 2016
MEDALS
Silver Star
Legion of Merit (2)
Distinguished Flying Cross (2)
Meritorious Service Medal
Bronze Star Medal (2)
Purple Heart (2)
Air Medal (3)
1952–1981
1952–198 February
Colonel Fred Vann Cherry talks about being a POW in Vietnam
Black Women in the Vietnam War
Army MAJ Cora L. Burton served at the 91st Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai from September 1969 to September 1970. A northern city, Chu Lai experienced almost daily rocket attacks during this period. MAJ Burton served as a hospital supervisor, monitoring patient triage and stepping in during emergencies.
During the Vietnam War, approximately 700 WACs served in theater and as many as 75 of them were African-American.33 One of whom was WAC CW3 Doris “Lucki” Allen. Early in her military career, she asked for a transfer out of a dead-end job in public relations at Ft. Monmouth, NJ, and went to the Army Language School in California because “it was the only place they would send me.” CW3Allen had encountered a typical problem woman faced in the workplace during the 1960s.
Major Crossdale-Palmer served at the 85th Evacuation Hospital at Quin How during the military buildup in Vietnam in 1965 and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. When her 12-month assignment ended, she extended for an additional six months and was transferred to the 17th Field Hospital in Saigon.
Army Nurse Captain Elizabeth Allen, who served as a nurse to the Vietnamese soldiers at Cu Chi Base Camp Hospital.
At 24 years old, Craigwell joined the military. When she got to Vietnam she was 30—older than most of the nurses. She served as a head nurse supervisor of triage during a 12-month-tour. She was stationed at the 12th US Air Force Hospital at Cam Ranh Bay Airbase. Craigwell was in Vietnam at the height of the Tet Offensive in January of ’68.
In the 1960s, when women in the United States sought the ever-elusive proverbial voice, there was one woman in a jungle crying out to be heard. Ironically, when the fiercely independent Doris “Lucki” Allen volunteered for service in Vietnam at the age of 40, her life and work began to personify the second wave of the feminist movement.
OFFICERS & AWARDS
Hazel Winifred Johnson-Brown was a nurse and educator who served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1983. In 1979, she became the first Black female general in the United States Army and the first Black chief of the United States Army Nurse Corps.
Many Vietnam veterans had their lives and careers shaped by military, political and diplomatic actions during the war, but Colin Powell is the only one who helped shape military, political and diplomatic actions at the highest levels after the war.
Ruth Alice Lucas, who overcame race and sex barriers back in 1968 by becoming the first African American woman to be promoted to the rank of full colonel in the United States Air Force, was born in Stamford, Connecticut on November 28, 1920.
A complete list of every Black Medal of Honor Recipient in the Vietnam War and all U.S. Wars http://tinyurl.com/37n5u5cf
Frank Emmanuel Petersen Jr. (March 2, 1932 – August 25, 2015) was a United States Marine Corps lieutenant general. He was the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general.
Samuel Lee Gravely Jr. (June 4, 1922 – October 22, 2004) was a United States Navy officer. He was the first African American in the U.S. Navy to serve aboard a fighting ship as an officer, the first to command a Navy ship, the first fleet commander, and the first to become a flag officer, retiring as a vice admiral
Racism in the Vietnam War
In the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, black Americans rioted in more than 100 US cities. But in Vietnam many white soldiers flagrantly applauded his murder. At Cam Ranh Bay, a group of white men wore Ku Klux Klan robes and paraded around the military base. At another compound, the Confederate flag, so symbolic of racial persecution, was hoisted for three days. Don Browne, a black staff sergeant in Vietnam, overheard a white soldier protesting that King’s image was always on TV.
Unquestionably, African-Americans were disproportionately punished. A 1972 Defense Department study found that they received 25.5 percent of nonjudicial punishments and 34.3 percent of courts-martial in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, given these numbers, African- Americans were overrepresented in military prisons: In December 1969, they represented 58 percent of prisoners at the infamous Long Binh Jail, near Saigon.
Vietnam War And Its Racial Implication
Race is not often mentioned in discussions of the Vietnam War. But as with the Civil War, racism was deeply embedded in the conflict. The atrocities committed against nonwhite civilians in Vietnam both fueled and reflected the racial violence experienced by nonwhite citizens in the United States. And like the Civil War, curators of the war’s memory have ignored contentious issues of race in favor of creating a national narrative of reconciliation.
On a hot summer night 50 years ago, while other U.S. troops were fighting in Vietnam, dozens of Marines on Camp Lejeune, N.C. were fighting each other.
The explosion of racial violence on the Marine Corps’ main East Coast infantry base left one white Marine dead and more than a dozen others injured − some seriously. Dozens were charged with crimes, including homicide.
In another area of discrimination, public events, the Marine Corps took steps to curtail military participation and support of segregated activities. In a bulletin issued on 12 November 1963, commanding officers were directed to permit participation “only if the event was available to all persons without regard to race, creed, color or national origin.”
The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. The earliest casualty record contains a date of death of June 8, 1956, and the most recent casualty record contains a date of death of May 28, 2006.