Honoring Sergeant Carter (9 page)

As he had done during his previous tour of duty, Eddie wrote faithfully to Mildred. By the end of October he was writing about plans for Mildred and the children to come to Virginia. He had investigated and found apartments suitable for the family. The weather was agreeable, and the cost of living was low. “We can live a darn sight cheaper than we could ever live in California,” he wrote on October 28. “Virginia,” he told Mildred, “is 90 percent better than Georgia. You haven't anything to fear.”

Eddie had good reason for thinking so positively about his new life at Camp Lee. As a winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, he was held in high regard as a war hero. His experience and skills as a combat veteran were valued. At Camp Lee, Eddie hoped to find the success that had eluded him in Los Angeles. “The officers seem to think that I am an expert soldier. So I might as well stay where I am well thought of. I can make good here.”

He promised to send Mildred some money to help her with the move to Virginia. The plan was for her to come there around January 10, after Eddie had arranged for a temporary apartment. Eddie said that the commanding general had promised to make available a three-bedroom apartment on the post in the late spring of 1947 as their permanent home. Eddie was overjoyed.

But instead, Eddie found himself on a train headed to California. The Army had other plans for him. Eddie was right in thinking that he was highly regarded by his immediate superiors. Those who worked directly with him
always held him in high regard and considered him an outstanding soldier.

After the war the government made plans to reorganize state-level National Guards as federally recognized National Guard units capable of serving as trained reserves for the regular Army. In the view of military planners, the experience of World War II underscored the need for highly trained reserves that could be rapidly deployed in case of total war. Planners noted that the key to meeting this critical need was to select an elite group of expert soldiers from the regular Army to be detailed as instructors of the citizen-soldiers in state National Guard units, whose readiness for active duty would be certified by a federal recognition board. Because of his previous experience and outstanding war record, Eddie was handpicked by his officers at Camp Lee to join this elite group of instructors.

But a national controversy erupted over the plans of some states, including Connecticut and California, to form new racially segregated National Guard units. Civil rights groups, especially local branches of the NAACP, strongly objected. California state officials responded that segregation was necessary to conform with Army racial policy. At its annual convention in 1947, the NAACP urged the secretary of war to order the integration of National Guard units.

War Department officials replied that the Army had no objections to integration; it was left up to each state to
decide racial policy for Guard units. This was a rather disingenuous statement, since the Army was on record as opposing federal legislation to end racial segregation in the armed forces. Moreover, despite objections from the NAACP, the Army at the end of the war had routinely detached black combat volunteers from the white units in which they served and reassigned them to segregated service units. Nevertheless, the controversy, which was widely reported in the press, prompted the governor of Connecticut to voice his opposition to segregated Guard units. In California, on the other hand, there was no report of intervention by Governor Earl Warren. The state's adjutant general went ahead with plans to form headquarters companies of two battalions of an all-black Sixth Engineer Combat Group of the California National Guard.

 

S
ergeant Carter reported to the adjutant general's office in Sacramento, where he met Sergeant Major Woodfred Jordan, the feisty veteran whom I later encountered at the Medal of Honor ceremony. Woodfred, another Army veteran, was also assigned to train guardsmen. The two were then posted to the National Guard Armory on Exposition Boulevard in the center of black Los Angeles, where the headquarters for the Sixth Engineer Combat Group was to be set up. At the armory, Sergeant Carter met and befriended other black soldiers, including Master
Sergeant Rance Richardson and Sergeant John Pulliams, who were assigned to the Guard.

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From Los Angeles, Sergeant Carter was assigned to work as an instructor and adviser to the 1402d Engineer Combat Battalion at San Bernardino, under the command of Captain Frank W. Cleveland, a black veteran and respected community leader in Los Angeles.

By the summer of 1947, Sergeant Carter was at Camp Roberts in the mountains near San Luis Obispo giving the men their annual two weeks of intensive combat training. He also trained them in handling heavy equipment. Eddie
was a regular presence at the weekly National Guard meetings during the rest of the year as well.

Eddie's assignment was both ironic and exciting. The irony was that during the war Eddie had fought side by side with white soldiers and only a year earlier he was working on plans for black and white veterans to work together, but he now found himself assigned by the Army to a segregated National Guard unit. He could not have thought of this as progress. Nevertheless, it was exciting to be training young black men (and other men of color) in an environment where the best that he had to offer would shine. Sergeant Carter was a challenging teacher, a true mentor, and an appealing older brother figure to dozens of young black men. He was an empowering model of dignified, competent, and self-confident manhood. He looked the part as well, with his immaculate, neatly pressed uniform, polished boots, chest emblazoned with medals. From a heroic warrior Eddie remade himself into an inspiring teacher. It gave him enormous satisfaction and pride.

In 1997, I met Neale Henderson when National Guard veterans invited me to speak about Eddie. Henderson was one of the young men Eddie had trained. “It was at Fort MacArthur, just outside of Los Angeles on the coast, that I first met Sergeant Carter when I went for my two weeks' training with the Guard. He gave us our basic training—marching, drilling, M1 rifle training, and so on. Later, at San Luis Obispo, he trained us in the use of heavy equipment. Then, at Camp Roberts, when we were called up for the regular Army, he trained us in how to put up steel treadway bridges, how to build an abutment for the foundation and slope it properly. He taught us to operate bulldozers in road building, and put in gulleys and drainage. He trained us up in the mountains on thirty- and fifty - caliber machine guns, too. He was a hell of a guy. He could do it all. He was a soldier that I wanted to be like, and he taught me how to be a good soldier. With the training that he gave me, I soon made corporal and then sergeant in the Army.

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“Another time at Camp Roberts,” Henderson recalled, “we were laying a mine field, and he was showing us how to do the mapping of a mine field. Afterwards, he showed
us how to breach a mine field with a special torpedo. Three of us were being trained. We put the torpedo in, we pulled the pin, and then we took off running. But this young recruit who was with us went down before we reached safety. When David McCoy and I saw that he was down, we turned and ran back to get him out of danger so he wouldn't get hurt. Sergeant Carter told us we did the right thing.”

Eddie worked with the National Guard for a year and a half. During that time he and the other Army instructors succeeded in expanding the Guard from an undermanned, poorly prepared outfit into a full-fledged, well-trained military organization fully capable of being called up on a moment's notice for regular Army duty. This was a major accomplishment for which the Army instructors were largely responsible. Eddie knew that what they were doing was important and he took pride in their achievement. He had been determined to excel in this assignment, and he did. He was happy and so were his commanding officers. The black Army instructors had turned segregation in the National Guard to their advantage and proved that black officers and instructors could turn out top-notch soldiers and engineers.

Despite the appearance that all was going well, it was while he was serving as an instructor with the National Guard that Eddie discovered he was under surveillance. The men Eddie worked with also became aware of the surveillance. John Pulliams, an Army Air Force man who
was assigned to work as an administrative assistant in the armory on Exposition Boulevard, recalled being questioned by a man from Army intelligence. “I remember
Ebony
magazine had published a big article that talked about Sergeant Carter,” Pulliams said. “Carter was something of a celebrity. I got to know him when we worked at the National Guard Armory. He was a very quiet person, but he was a better soldier than me. One day in 1947 this man from Army intelligence came and asked me about Carter. Was he a communist? I said I never saw anything that indicated he was associated with any communist activity. So I knew they had him under surveillance, and sometimes I saw their cars parked outside.”

Woodfred Jordan recounted an incident he witnessed. “Carter knew he was under some kind of surveillance. Sometimes when we were at [battalion instructor] Richardson's house, Carter would pull aside the curtains and look out the window. ‘Come over here and look at this,' he'd say to us. ‘See that car sitting there,' he'd say, pointing to a car parked on the street with men inside it wearing civilian clothes. ‘They have me under surveillance.' He said they kept track of where he was. One time, he even walked outside and approached them, but they drove away.”

The government's interest in black personnel in the California National Guard was not new. In 1944, according to an FBI report I found in the National Archives on alleged foreign-inspired agitation among blacks in Los Angeles, the FBI had at least one informant reporting on
black California state Guard units. The informant, identified only as T-1, seemed especially interested in any weapons in possession of the all-black Seventh Battalion. “The officers of this [unit] wear side arms. The men carry rifles and machine guns,” the report stated. “Informant T-1 advised that some of the officers take their side arms home; however, they are requested to unload them. They are required to turn in their machine guns and rifles at the armory before departing after drill.”

The surveillance of Sergeant Carter continued. Eddie wrote later that he was constantly shadowed by two CIC (Army Counterintelligence Corps) agents wherever he went. At one point he was questioned by the agents. They asked about his attendance at the Welcome Home, Joe dinner. Eddie said he attended but he had no idea that the Communist Party was involved with the sponsoring organization.

Then, without warning, in July 1948, Eddie was abruptly removed from the National Guard and transferred to Fort Lewis in Washington state. Eddie said later that he was told by Colonel L. R. Boyd, the senior Army instructor and Eddie's immediate superior officer, that Boyd tried to keep him as an instructor with the Guard, but was rebuffed. General Mark Clark, commander of Sixth Army headquarters at San Francisco's Presidio and the top commander for the regular Army instructors, responded to Boyd's attempt at intervention by stating, “Whenever you are in doubt as to the loyalty of an individual, that individual must suffer.”

F
rom interviews with veterans I had learned much of the story of Eddie's experience in the National Guard, but my efforts to find documentation had been unsuccessful. The regular Army's records were in the National Archives, but not the records of the National Guard. Joe Wilson, a military historian whom I had met, referred me to a citizen-soldiers museum in Sacramento. In the museum's library I found a copy of the biennial report of the adjutant general of the state of California for the period from July 1, 1946, to June 30, 1948, the time frame during which Eddie was an instructor. Browsing through the report I grew excited when I came across a section dealing with the history of the 1401st and 1402d Engineers, battalions in the Sixth Engineer Combat Group with which Eddie had been an instructor.

At the end of the history of these units I found an appendix with lists of names. Jordan's name caught my eye first, then I saw Richardson and Pulliams. Eddie's name must be here somewhere, I thought, but I couldn't
find it. I visited the California State Library and pored over more records, but still I found no mention of Sergeant Carter. It was as though Eddie had never been associated with the California National Guard. Had his name been deliberately purged?

My puzzlement led me to search for clues in Mildred's memorabilia. I had already sorted through everything in her trunk, but there were other boxes that had not been opened. In early March 1998, I once again found myself going through various boxes when I stumbled upon a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union addressed to a Dr. Nicholas Cunningham at an address in New York City. Dated December 9, 1958, the first sentence read: “I have given careful consideration to your letter addressed to Mr. Levy, who is now in private practice, and I have carefully reviewed our files on the Edward Allen Carter case.” When I saw Eddie's name, I stopped cold. I didn't know anyone named Nicholas Cunningham or anything about an ACLU case.

The letter was from Rowland Watts, staff counsel of the ACLU. It read in part:

My mind was spinning as I read this. The references to the War Department and the White House were especially intriguing, and there was also mention of whether Eddie might be permitted to reenlist in the Army. When Buddha came home from work I asked him if he knew anything about an ACLU case. He didn't, but he did remember a person named Cunningham, a young white doctor who was a friend of Mildred's. He said Cunningham and Mildred worked at the same hospital in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and he remembered Cunningham coming to the house to hang out with Mildred and her friends. Eddie knew Cunningham, Buddha said, but they didn't seem to be close.

My guess was that Cunningham had learned about the 1949 ACLU involvement from Mildred and had decided to write to the ACLU about it. He must have given Mildred this letter so she would know the response.

The next day I called the ACLU and arranged to have the seventy-one-page case file sent to me. After reading the file I felt certain that Eddie had not knowingly done anything that could be considered disloyal or subversive. I knew it because he was fighting the Army with everything he had. And they were not giving him any reason or explanation as to why he was denied reenlistment. They refused to give him a hearing and they refused to give him
any explanation. They were stonewalling him. The ACLU, in the person of Herbert Levy, who was then the organization's staff counsel, tried for more than five years to get something out of the Army, but all they got was bureaucratic bluster. Reading that case made me angry, but it also gave me the confidence to press ahead. I was no longer afraid of what I might find.

After Eddie was abruptly removed from the instructor group of the National Guard, he was assigned to the Military Police, Provost Detachment in Fort Lewis, Washington. The Provost Detachment was composed of about one hundred men, black and white, a large percentage of whom were combat veterans. Ironically, Eddie soon found himself working on drug cases that involved coordinating with military intelligence, the FBI, and local police in Tacoma. Apparently, the top brass at Fort Lewis did not know he was under suspicion; in any event, they assigned him to tasks as they saw fit. As usual, Eddie went at it with gusto and total commitment. On July 19, 1948, after working on a dangerous drug bust, he wrote to Mildred: “We have been working night and day on a dope case (marijuana). We captured the ring leader and all the small fry. We have been working with the CID [Army criminal investigation division], FBI, and civilian police. Last night I captured four men by myself with no gun play, although for a minute I almost was about to gun them down. I was working by myself, and I guess they thought I must be crazy being on the lone. The people up here gave us a
writeup in the paper. If I can get the paper, I will send it along.”

He was already thinking about having Mildred and the children come join him. He said that he could find an apartment, drive down to Roscoe, a Los Angeles suburb where the family was now living, and bring them all to Washington. Once again strapped for money—he earned $100 a month, almost all of which went to pay family bills—he suggested Mildred ask her aunt for a loan to help them make the move.

Money worries were not all that troubled Eddie and Mildred. Military counterintelligence was still snooping around, to Mildred's dismay. At the end of July he wrote to soothe Mildred: “Please do not let the CIC worry your pretty head. After all, my record is clean and I or you have nothing to fear. To me they seem to be a bunch of crazy loons. It's impossible. As for myself, I don't even attempt to try and understand them…. Regardless of their under-handed methods I will always be loyal and faithful to the United States government and Army. I am first and last an American soldier. And a darn good soldier.”

Although the Counterintelligence Corps was still worrisome, Eddie was winning praise from the base commander. “General Colins, the post commander, told all of the soldiers, both white and colored, that I was the only damn man that dressed, marched, and looked like a soldier,” Eddie boasted to Mildred in August.

Interestingly, in this letter Eddie also mentioned that
General Mark Clark, the Sixth Army commander, was coming to Fort Lewis. Remembering how Mildred loved parades, he wrote with boyish glee that he wished Mildred could be there to see the show they would be putting on for the occasion. He assured her she would get her fill of parades once she moved to Washington. Of course, General Clark was the man who had expressed doubts about Eddie's loyalty when Eddie's commander in the National Guard protested his removal.

Perhaps Eddie had decided to forget the general's remark. He may have thought that he could leave his troubles in California. Things were going well for him at Fort Lewis. After only one month his skills as an instructor were recognized. “As of tomorrow,” he wrote Mildred on August 13, 1948, “I will start training military police recruits. That means I will not have to pull town patrol.”

Eddie's feelings for Mildred remained as strong as ever. “Darling, I love you so darn much that it frightens the hell out of myself,” he told her in the same letter. “We have been a long time together, Mil. Let's grow old together. Okay darling? Okay. You will always be my girl.”

Mildred was not only Eddie's great love, she was also his teacher. She showed him that love could be constant, no matter how much physical separation there might be between them. In a letter dated September 7, he wrote: “Each time we are forced apart only verifies my great need and love for you. These few years that we have been together [have] gradually softened this flint heart of mine. I have
always been so afraid of love. You have given me your love so unselfishly—your love is what I need forever…. Please love me always darling. I need the two of you. I need you and I need love. And I promise to love also, to be so very much more thoughtful than I have been…. Let us always stay man and wife. Let us always continue to be lovers.”

A few days later, on September 10, Eddie signed a lease with the Housing Authority of Tacoma for a three-bedroom apartment on Portland Avenue. Later he arranged for thirty-four items of household furniture, including a refrigerator, washing machine, two beds, two bicycles, a violin case, and several trunks, footlockers, and cartons of goods to be shipped to him at the military police station at Fort Lewis.

Eddie was tremendously excited about having his family join him. He requested a furlough so that he could return to Los Angeles to help with the move. He had more good news to report. In a letter dated September 24, he wrote, “I was ordered off the field today and told that I was to be the commanding general's bodyguard for Sunday. I believe that I have written before telling you that twice the general has picked me out as a soldier's soldier. I am considered to be the best-dressed soldier in the Military Police and the Second Infantry Division. I am well respected here on the post. I really believe that I will win out in the end. After all, you believe in me. So I couldn't very well let my sweetheart down, could I?” Eddie enjoyed the attention he was getting, which he regarded as
reflecting his dedication as a soldier. He also understood the value of making a positive impression. “I have loads of equipment to take care of. Plenty of leather and brass to keep polished. I spend about one and a half to two hours a day just on the care of equipment…. Now my dear, I must prepare for tomorrow morning's inspection. I couldn't let my unit down or my commander.”

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By the spring of 1949, Eddie had settled his family in Tacoma and he was engaged in training infantry soldiers much as he had done in the California National Guard. Now promoted to sergeant first class and assigned to L
Company, Ninth Infantry Regiment, he was a platoon sergeant. As part of their training, thousands of soldiers from Fort Lewis were sent to the Yakima Firing Center, located in a remote, dusty, mountainous area, for two weeks of training exercises. The hazards of training ranged from avoiding rattlesnakes to demolition of unexploded artillery shells.

As the base artillery division returned to Fort Lewis from Yakima maneuvers in early May 1949, some 3,200 men of the Ninth Infantry arrived at Yakima to start two weeks of intensive field training. Reporting on these events in its Friday, May 13, issue, the base newspaper
The Flame-Spearhead
noted that the Ninth Infantry was one of the oldest regiments in the Army, having fought in the wars against the Indians before the Civil War.

In the same issue of the newspaper was a laudatory story on Sergeant Carter. The headline on the article declared, “Soldiering Natural Thing to Sgt. Who Served with Three Armies,” and below it was a photo of an unsmiling Sergeant Carter in dress uniform looking at a swastika-emblazoned Nazi German flag. “A veteran of three armies and winner of the Distinguished Service Cross,” the piece began, “the Ninth Infantry hails Sergeant Edward A. Carter as its most decorated Negro soldier.”

The article summarized Eddie's background and his combat experiences in Asia and Europe. “Carter's war wounds have all healed now,” the article ended. “Strangely
enough the DSC winner isn't ready to quit yet. After fighting Japs, Spaniards and Jerries, he still remains in the Army. He plans to retire in about eleven years.” This was the first disclosure I had found that Eddie intended to reenlist and pursue a career in the Army.

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Interestingly, in the very same issue of
The Flame-Spearhead,
there was also a brief article announcing that an inspection team from the Sixth Army had arrived at Fort Lewis on May 8. “The inspection, conducted semiannu
ally, includes an inspection of the General Reserve Units at Fort Lewis, Yakima, and Fort Worden,” the article said. “The team is composed of four inspection groups: training, intelligence, administrative and logistics.”

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Since the Sixth Army commander was General Mark Clark, who had questioned Eddie's loyalty, and given that Army counterintelligence was still actively interested in Eddie's doings, it's clear with hindsight that this wasn't an
ideal time for Eddie to announce his intention of reenlisting. But Eddie thought things were looking up.

 

I
n the fall of 1949, when his second tour of duty ended, Eddie found that he was not going to be welcomed back with open arms. The story of his dismissal was revealed in a seven-page letter dated December 5, 1949, that Eddie wrote to Herbert Levy of the ACLU asking for help.

Eddie must have left this meeting feeling great anger and confusion. The Fort Lewis officers apparently wanted
Eddie to know that this was not their doing, but that fact provided little consolation.