Honoring Sergeant Carter (3 page)

Joe Wilson was a godsend. Deeply interested in the history of black soldiers, Joe had played a part in the campaign that led to the Medal of Honor awards. In the months after we met he gave me several pointers about how the military functions, as well as pertinent military history, including information on the Twelfth Armored Division. Well connected with black veterans associations, he offered to get their help with my plan to have Eddie reburied in Arlington National Cemetery. Joe arranged a meeting with the veterans of the Jackie Robinson Post of the American Legion, and with other black veterans from
all over Los Angeles. They were all enthusiastic about having a role in sending a hero to Washington.

 

A
bout this time a man named Woodfred Jordan called Gloria Long. He was indignant because to date none of the press materials on Sergeant Carter had mentioned anything about the National Guard. Long passed Jordan on to me. As soon as I identified myself, Jordan tore right into me. “How could you let them put out these press releases? They don't say a thing about our contributions. We were the first black National Guard unit in California.” On and on he went. “I knew Carter,” he said. “We worked together. We started with nothing in Los Angeles, and we trained and built Guard units in San Bernardino and San Diego. We made history.” After the war he and Sergeant Carter had been assigned by the Army as instructors in the first black National Guard units to be organized in California. “What Carter did in Germany was a spontaneous act,” Jordan continued, “but what we did in Los Angeles was real engineering.” Though I was miffed at Jordan's dismissive comment about Sergeant Carter's heroic acts in Germany, I held my tongue. Jordan said he was a master sergeant and he had worked with Eddie Carter and Rance Richardson, who were on loan from the Army to train the National Guard. Here was another piece of the puzzle.

I asked Buddha whether his father had been in the
National Guard. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “he used to ride his motorcycle down to the armory on Exposition Boulevard.”

When I said, “Why didn't you tell me?” he gave me a blank look. I don't think he remembered it until I brought it up, and that triggered his memory. He didn't recollect very much, but he confirmed that Eddie had had some relationship with the National Guard. The military was obviously important in Eddie's life, but neither Buddha nor Redd recalled their father talking very much about his experiences. They remembered him as a quiet, reserved man who loved to read. He enjoyed the outdoor life as well, and for a time after the war the family lived on a farm near Tacoma, Washington. Buddha recalled that his father demanded respect and disciplined behavior from his sons. But no details about Eddie's time in the National Guard were forthcoming.

As Jordan lived in Alexandria, Virginia, I invited him to the interment ceremony at Arlington. I could talk to him there about his military experiences with my father-in-law. Maybe Eddie's time in the National Guard had something to do with his not being allowed to reenlist.

 

T
he process of transferring Eddie's body was terribly complicated. California has fairly difficult requirements for exhuming a body. For example, the state requires that the old casket be destroyed and the remains transferred to
a new casket for transport to the new grave site. All of this has to be done in a manner prescribed by the state—and it was not cheap.

I had contacted the Twelfth Armored Division Association after reading about them in
The Hellcats.
Through them I met Andrew Nix, a black veteran who had served in the Seventeenth Armored Infantry Battalion with the Twelfth Armored Division. He never met Eddie, but he was there at the front where Eddie had served. Initially, Nix had been with an all-black port battalion assigned to loading and unloading ships. When the call for combat volunteers came, he became one of the 2,221 black servicemen accepted for combat duty. Nix won a Combat Infantry Badge for his service. Upon returning home he became a funeral director in Philadelphia. I explained our problem with Eddie's reburial, and Andrew Nix immediately came to our assistance. “Don't worry. I'll take care of the casket,” he said. “I'll get him a Bates casket, the best.”

Mr. Nix went into high gear. He made some phone calls and set things up. He arranged for Latney Funeral Home to pick up the casket when it arrived in Washington. As it turned, out Mr. Nix had a good friend, Thomas Higginbotham, who was the deputy director at Arlington National Cemetery. Not only did Higginbotham help with setting up the reinterment ceremony, but he also made available a reception room for the guests, where we could celebrate Eddie's triumphant reburial. This was an enormous help because the number of people who could be
admitted to the Medal of Honor ceremony was severely limited, but I could invite many more to the reception at Arlington.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, I was working with the Angelus Funeral Home people to make the arrangements for a community tribute to Sergeant Carter and to ensure that the remains got to Washington in time for the reinterment. The Medal of Honor ceremony was set for Monday, January 13, and the reinterment would be the following day. The big community send-off in Los Angeles was set for Saturday, January 11.

People came from all over for the community celebration. What was most moving for me was to see all the veterans, many of them quite elderly, who attended. There was row after row of them. They were wearing their old uniforms, some of them bedecked with ribbons and medals, and some sporting berets. Among them were representatives of the 761st Tank Battalion, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Buffalo Soldiers Association, Women in the Military Service, the Chappie James Post of the American Legion, the Hispanic American Airborne Association, the Inglewood Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Jackie Robinson Post No. 252. Many of them wept openly with joy and sadness—joy that Eddie was finally getting the Medal of Honor, which honored them as well, and sadness that he was not there to know it.

The ceremony was almost over when suddenly in came State Senator Dianne Watson. She bolted through the doors and came up front and took the mike. She had heard about Sergeant Carter, she said, and she wanted to honor him by having a “Sergeant Carter Day” at the state capitol in Sacramento, with a ceremony in the Assembly chambers and the family present to receive the state's recognition of him as a hero. I was surprised and, at first, doubtful. But she proved to be true to her word, and the very next month she did sponsor a series of events honoring Sergeant Carter at the state capitol.

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Following the community ceremony at Angelus Funeral Home, we went outside into a sunny day and the
veterans gave a traditional twenty-one-gun salute. The honor guard, members of the Jackie Robinson Post, then loaded the casket into the waiting hearse and slowly drove away. We had done it. We had reintroduced Eddie to his community. We had let people know that many years ago one of their heroes had been taken away from them, but he was back now and he was being recognized by the White House as a hero to the whole nation.

T
he presentation ceremony at the White House would be exciting, but the events leading up to it were very stressful. We had to ship the body to Arlington on Friday, have the community memorial in Los Angeles on Saturday, and then get the whole family, including Mildred, ready to go to Washington for Monday's ceremony at the White House and the reinternment on Tuesday.

Redd and Karen came, and I invited Fred Scott, former husband of Mildred's daughter, Iris. Mildred, Buddha, our teenagers Corey and Santalia, and I were accompanied by a protocol officer, Captain Nguyen, who had flown with us from Los Angeles. When we arrived at the White House there were Secret Service people everywhere. I gave the kids a stern look. “Be on your best behavior,” I hissed. “Don't do anything. Don't go anywhere.” They responded with looks of angelic innocence, which worried me even more.

The ceremony was held in the East Room. It was packed with cabinet members, senators and members of
Congress, military brass, and family members and friends. The dignitaries included Secretary of Defense William Perry, Secretary Jesse Brown of the Veterans Administration, General Colin Powell, and General John Shalikashvili of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We stood as the ceremony began with a military band playing “God Bless America.” The Medal of Honor recipients were escorted onto the stage and then President Clinton entered as the band played “Hail to the Chief.” Was I excited! Standing just a few feet away was the President of the United States, and my husband, who had been whisked away earlier, was on the stage with him.

President Clinton spoke about the significance of the occasion and the men being honored. “Fifty-two years ago on an August day,” he said, “Harry Truman stood where I stand now and awarded twenty-eight Medals of Honor to veterans of World War II in the largest such ceremony ever held.” President Truman, he continued, said those recipients were a great cross-section of the United States. “But that day something was missing….No African American who deserved the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II received it. Today we fill the gap in that picture and give a group of heroes who also loved peace but adapted themselves to war the tribute that has always been their due.”

A gap in U.S. history
was
being filled—too late, unfortunately, for the men who died, but not too late for the succeeding generations of Americans to learn something.

In addition to Sergeant Carter, the President awarded the Medal of Honor to six men, only one of whom, Vernon J. Baker, was still living. Family members were to receive the awards for the deceased men. All but one of the seven, Ruben Rivers, had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Rivers was awarded a Silver Star, the third-highest award for valor.

These seven men are among “the bravest of the brave,” the President said. “Each of them distinguished himself with extraordinary valor, in the famous words, ‘at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty.'”

Staff Sergeant Ruben Williams served with the famous all-black 761st Tank Battalion, the Black Panthers. In November 1944, his tank hit a mine while advancing toward the town of Guebling in France. Severely wounded in the leg, Sergeant Rivers refused medical treatment and instead took command of another tank. He continued fighting for three more days while repeatedly refusing morphine or evacuation. “I see 'em, we'll fight 'em,” he radioed in as his tank advanced on enemy positions. While providing cover fire to other tanks that had come under attack, his tank was hit. Sergeant Rivers was killed and his crew wounded. He was recommended for a Medal of Honor by his commanding officer, but no action was taken at the time.

As he was leading a task force in France in December 1944, First Lieutenant Charles L. Thomas's scout car was hit by intense enemy fire, and he suffered multiple
wounds. Despite the severity of his injuries, Lieutenant Thomas directed the emplacement of antitank guns, which began to effectively return fire. He then thoroughly briefed a junior officer on enemy gun positions and the general situation before allowing himself to be evacuated for medical care.

While acting as lead scout in an action to secure a vital bridgehead near Lippoldsberg, Germany, in April 1945, Private First Class Willy James was the first to draw enemy fire. He was pinned down for more than an hour. He studied the enemy's positions in detail, and eventually managed to get back to his unit, where he used the information he had obtained to help plan a counterattack. He then volunteered to lead the charge against the enemy and point out targets. While going to the aid of his fatally wounded platoon leader, Private James was killed by a German machine gunner.

In March 1943, Private George Watson was aboard a ship near New Guinea that was repeatedly attacked by enemy bombers. When the ship started sinking and had to be abandoned, Private Watson, instead of saving himself, stayed in the water and helped pull several soldiers who could not swim to a life raft. Exhausted by his exertion, he was pulled down by the suction of the sinking ship and drowned.

When advancing German troops stormed into the Italian village of Sommocolinia and drove out the American forces in December 1944, First Lieutenant John R.
Fox volunteered to remain with an observation post force on the second floor of a house near the town. He directed defensive artillery fire in an effort to stop the enemy advance. As the Germans came closer and closer and finally entered the house from which he was watching the German advance, Lieutenant Fox directed that U.S. artillery target his own position. “There are more of them than there are of us,” he said. When U.S. troops recaptured the town, Lieutenant Fox's body was found among some one hundred dead German soldiers.

“Edward Carter,” the President said, “was crossing an open field in Germany when he was wounded five times. But Staff Sergeant Carter continued to advance, and when eight enemy tried to capture him, he killed six, took two prisoner, and brought them back for interrogation. In the face of overwhelming danger [he] never wavered.” President Clinton also noted that Sergeant Carter repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, requested combat duty. “When his request was finally granted it was at the cost of his sergeant's stripes, because an African American was not allowed to command white troops. Today these injustices are behind us.”

The seventh and only living Medal of Honor recipient was First Lieutenant Vernon Baker. In April 1945, Lieutenant Baker was a platoon leader in the all-black Ninety-second Infantry Division fighting in Italy. Baker led his platoon in an advance up a hill toward a German stronghold. With his M1 rifle Baker killed two Germans in a
bunker and another German who had thrown a hand grenade that failed to explode. Continuing to advance into a canyon alone, Baker used a grenade to blast open the hidden entrance of a German dugout. Dashing inside, he killed two more Germans. When Baker's white commanding officer left to get reinforcements (which never came), Baker rallied his troops to continue fighting. In all, Baker wiped out three enemy machine-gun nests, an observer post, and a dugout.

Now seventy-seven years old, his eyes filled with tears, Vernon Baker stepped forward to have the Medal of Honor placed around his neck by the President. Clinton said he was very moved upon reading about Vernon Baker's creed in life in a newspaper. “He was asked how he bore up under the lack of respect and dignity and honor after all these years. And he said, ‘Give respect before you expect it, treat people the way you want to be treated, remember the mission, set the example, keep going.' These are words for all of us.”

“Today,” the President continued, “America is profoundly thankful for the patriotism and the nobility of these men, and for the example they set, which helped us to find the way to become a more just, more free nation. They helped America to become more worthy of them and more true to its ideals.”

I valued the President's remarks, but I could not help but recall that U.S. government agencies were actively spying on black civil rights activists as potential subversives in the years following World War II. The struggle for
black freedom was not applauded by all, and the injustices of the past were not entirely behind us.

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After a photo session with the President, we were taken to the Hall of Heroes. There they unveiled pictures of the seven new black Medal of Honor winners. What began just over eight months ago with a phone call from
Gloria Long had finally come to this moving conclusion. And while no ghosts from Eddie's past blighted the day, I still had unanswered questions. Why had this distinguished soldier not been allowed back into the Army? Why was the family silent about what had happened to him? I pondered these questions as we prepared for the burial at Arlington the next day.

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T
uesday was beautiful but cold as Eddie's casket was placed on a horse-drawn caisson with an honor guard
escorting it. The family rode in cars that followed the caisson to the grave site.

It was all very solemn and impressive. A formation of fighter planes flew over to honor Eddie; an honor guard fired its rifles to salute him. The chaplain read some appropriate lines of scripture as we sat there. But for me it was an emotional letdown. Gloria Long had asked if some of the media could be invited to the reinterment. Not realizing how stressful the media's presence would be, I had said yes. Cameras were flashing in our faces, and the press was everywhere. We hadn't had time to deal with our emotions alone, and as a family we didn't have the time to absorb this moment. Still, despite the media, I felt Eddie's presence as I sat there. I wanted to say to him, “This is where you should be. This is what you deserve. This is where you should have been all along.”

A reception for all the guests followed the burial ceremony. Vernon Baker was there along with Andrew Nix and other veterans from the Twelfth Armored Division. This was when I met Russell Blair, who had been one of Eddie's white commanding officers. A soft-spoken man from Texas, Blair seemed sincerely pleased that Eddie had finally gotten the Medal of Honor. He told me how impressed he was with Eddie. “He was a real soldier,” Blair said. “He soldiered twenty-four hours a day. He was one of the best soldiers I've ever seen.”

And there was Woodfred Jordan, the irate soldier who told me about Eddie's involvement in the National Guard.
A slight, skinny man who roared like he was six-foot-six, he loved to talk and immediately launched into stories about his days in the National Guard, and how he and Eddie and another soldier named Rance Richardson used to play cards at night. I pulled him aside and said, “Mr. Jordan, we'll talk about all the things you guys used to do later. Right now I want to show you something.” I showed him some of the photographs I had found in Mildred's trunk. “That's me!” he shouted. And it was. “That's Richardson,” he said pointing to another figure. The photos were of the National Guard units he and Eddie and Richardson had trained after the war. Jordan went on to say that his wife and Richardson's wife were twin sisters. He told me that Eddie and Mildred used to socialize with the four of them in Los Angeles. They often went over to Richardson's house to play cards. “Yeah,” he said. “Carter smoked a cigar and he seemed to be on top of the world. And they were watching him. He knew they were watching him.”

“Who was watching him, and why?” I asked. Jordan suddenly became cagey. He didn't know, he said.

As I listened to Jordan I realized that every time a piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place it also raised more questions. Perhaps we had accomplished a mission in coming to Washington, but our journey—my journey—was far from over.