I came into the US Army in the mid ‘60’s, in the middle of our countries social and racial upheavals. My Protestant Irish Grandfather was a real raciest (we suspect he took part of the burning of the Black part of Tulsa OK just after WWI) and a definite anti-Catholic. My parents went to great effort to see that me and my siblings were not like my Grandfather in that aspect.
I was born and raised in S. CA and the only large minority I had contact with were Hispanic.
When I went in, the Army had been dealing with integration (meaning for the most part Black and White soldiers serving together (Hispanic’s, Asian’s, and Native Americans seemed to be more readily accepted)) for nearly 20 years. I’m sure there was still some institutional discrimination remaining but I don’t remember any direct experiences of it. The grandson (I believe) of the WWII Tuskegee Airman, Gen. Benjamin Davis was in my basic training class (along with many other blacks and other minorities), one whole company in my Bn was from Hawaii (National Guard). I’ve read reports from the era that state the military was the least racially discriminating institution in the US.
With the large civil rights movement came, what I can only describe, as reverse discrimination. I saw many, many examples of black soldiers (especially lower ranking soldiers) being blatantly disrespectful and flaunting many rules and regulations. The Officers and NCO’s very rarely reacted, I think they really didn’t know how to and were afraid for their careers (you had no career if your Efficiency Report rated you as “not supporting equal opportunities”, the Army‘s euphemism for race relations). We had frequent, mandatory “race relation” classes and I remember them all as immediately becoming a ***** session for the black soldiers.
In fairness this was the era of the Draft and there were many problems with lower ranking white soldiers as well, but the blacks were much more “in your face” about it. I still think many of the problems they faced (in the Army at this point) they caused themselves.
When MLK was assassinated I was put on a post “quick reaction force” in Germany just in case there was trouble. There were some minor incidents but really nothing to warrant our alarm.
This lasted into the ‘70’s when the draft ended and the Army started recruiting more women. I then saw the same thing happen again, although on a much smaller scale. The seemingly overnight appearance of all these women was new to us “old solders” and anything new in the Army is not usually well received.
It did not take long, however, for the girls to win us over (at least most of us) and female soldiers (like minority soldiers) just became part of the routine. I remember serving with US Soldiers from Korea, Israel, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Yugoslavia, S. America, Egypt, India, and Italy (that I remember) so it is apparent that the US Army is a pretty international force.
About mid way through my career I found there was still some institutional racism in the Army.
As I said my people are from OK and my mothers Grandfather was a full blood Creek Native American.
I was a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of OK and despite providing documented proof of this the Army was very reluctant to allow this to be reflected on my records.
The reason my records didn’t reflect my ancestry was I was drafted in S. CA and, along with hundreds of others, was mass processed. My skin color does not reflect my heritage (I look white) so whoever filled out my forms listed me as Caucasian.
When I tried to find out why I could not get my records changed I was told (unofficially) that the Army had (has?) a quota system in promotions and assignments. If 15% of the Army is black then every attempt is made to promote 15% of eligible black soldiers; the same with other minorities. If I were to be officially listed as Native American I might get preference in promotion and assignments and the Army didn’t want to complicate matters any more than they already were.
The Army has to do this, otherwise the minorities would eventually be squeezed out of promotions by the numbers of whites in uniform.
I was told this by several pretty high level people and was also told the Army would
never admit the policy. The Army will, however, trot out the stat’s at any and every opportunity.
I don’t think this policy ever caused me any real problems, I got promoted and got assignments mostly as expected. They only delay in promotion was me staying far too long in a very low density MOS - meaning the only way to get promoted was for someone to retire or die. I took an opportunity to move to a much larger (and more challenging) career field and things went well for me.
