Apology, Honor Overdue For Heroes

African-Americans have been fighting and dying for this country for centuries.

In fact, the first Revolutionary War casualty was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave and one of three patriots killed outright by the British during the Boston Massacre.

Only a precious few have been honored for their valor, though.

During the Civil War, 24 blacks were presented the Medal of Honor, America’s highest award for heroism. During the Spanish-American War, six blacks were among the 109 servicemen so honored. During World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined, however, only three received the high honor.

Incredibly, no blacks received the Medal of Honor for World War II valor, though they fought alongside some of the 433 heroes who did. That damning statistic speaks volumes about about the Jim Crow prejudice black servicemen faced 50 years ago, from the recruiting office to combat and back again.

On Jan. 13, the Army will correct its intentional oversight when President Bill Clinton awards Medals of Honor to seven black servicemen - six posthumously. The only living recipient will be Vernon Baker, 76, of St. Maries, Idaho.

Baker, an ex-soldier who learned to treat people respectfully from his gentle-but-firm grandfather, is a fitting representative - for the six other honorees, for the dozen and a half black soldiers from his unit who died on strategic Hill X in northern Italy on April 5, 1945, and for the thousands of African-Americans who served honorably in a U.S. military that treated them as less than human.

Last weekend, Spokesman-Review Staff Writer Ken Olsen told Baker’s remarkable story in a three-part series.

In leading an assault on German-held Castle Aghinolfi, Baker walked his troops unscathed through a mine field. Then, he single-handedly took out a fortified German observation post, three machine-gun nests and two bunkers.

Retired Maj. Gen. James F. Hamlet, at that time a second lieutenant in Baker’s regiment, said of his fellow officer: “It was such conspicuous gallantry that it awed everybody in the same business. He did everything that Sgt. York did in World War I, and they made a movie about Sgt. York - because Sgt. York is white.”

For his trouble that day, Baker was chewed out by a colonel for wearing a wool cap into battle. Baker routinely preferred the cap to his helmet, which he felt inhibited his hearing. Later, the white captain who abandoned Baker and a handful of survivors on Hill X claimed in a carefully edited report that black soldiers were “terrified to fight at night” and lived in mortal fear of the assault on Castle Aghinolfi “due to disastrous experiences there before.”

Now, that top-secret lie has been exposed.

Finally, Baker and other black heroes of World War II are getting the honor they deserve. Maybe it’s time to make another war movie.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board