Black D-Day Vets Celebrate Pres. Obama's Trip to Normandy

African-American D-Day veterans celebrate Barack Obama's trip to Normandy
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Published: 9:00AM BST 06 Jun 2009
The Telegraph (UK)

John Noble Roberts received the Purple Heart, awarded to all injured servicemen, but felt there was little recognition for the role played by African-Americans in Normandy Photo: JEFF RAYNER

They have long been the forgotten heroes of D-Day, the African American military personnel who stormed ashore and risked their lives for a country that still treated them as second-class citizens.

Their faces were missing from the Hollywood films that heaped glory on US forces and and their stories were missing from the books, exhibitions and museums that commemorated the Normandy landings.

But with President Barack Obama, the country’s first African American commander-in-chief, in France for the 65th anniversary celebrations of D-Day on Saturday, black veterans of the segregated US army believe their role is finally being acknowledged.

“Where we were in The Longest Day or Saving Private Ryan?” asked Charles Sprowl, 87, referring to two of the best-known films about the events of June 6, 1944. “Where we were we in the history books?” The former corporal in the 490th Port Battalion, who dodged German bullets and rockets as he carried supplies ashore on Utah beach that day, believes that oversight is belatedly being put right.

“I think people are finally realising that there were African Americans there too and how important we were in the operation, but it’s been a long time, too long.”

For Mr Sprowl, who has lived his whole life in Dalston, Georgia, the biggest shock of his wartime service was not the carnage on the beaches of Normandy but his experience in the months before the invasion when he was stationed in Maghull, Merseyside.

“We would go in to Liverpool and we were treated like normal people,” he said. “There was no segregation and we could go where we wanted and do what we wanted. We went dancing in the Grafton Ballroom and shopping on Whitechapel like everyone else.

“My time in England was the first time I had really felt free in my life. And I wondered why another country was treating us better than our own country, better than the country we were fighting for.”

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48 Democrats, 1 Independent, and 7 Republicans Vote to Change Iraq War Policy

It would have been a minor change. But Sen. Jim Webb's amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill called for giving US troops one year of "dwell" time for every year in the war zone.

Currently, stop-loss requirements can force troops to stay as long as 15 months and reduces the period of rest between war zone duty.

There is no doubt that this Bush administration policy, fueled by the failure to recruit new people to fight a war in Iraq, is seriously harming troops in much larger numbers than Pentagon casualty reports indicate.

Between 2001 and the first half of 2007, about 180,000 veterans have filed disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs. 180,000.

Publicized Pentagon casualty reports suggest that only 32,000 people have been killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though less public statistics put the total number of people medically evacuated at about 65,000.

So Webb's amendment is about giving troops some time to heal.

Those who still carry water for the Bush administration (such as this blogger) have called Webb's troop readiness amendment "dangerous."

They are afraid that a humane and medically sound treatment of US troops will force the military to draw down forces in Iraq.

Regardless of the Republicans' cynical, and one should say typical, repulsion for the people who actually do the dying in the wars they have started, the Webb amendment was seen as the first of four legislative efforts to come up in the next several days that will require the Bush administration to change its war policy.

That 7 Republicans voted for it suggests they are feeling enormous pressure from their constituents to stop the unquestioning support for the war in Iraq they have so far displayed.

They have started to actually understand what the fact that more than 7 in 10 Americans who support withdrawing from Iraq in the next 9 months means for their future job prospects.

This amendment was a tiny step. But 56 votes is very close to the 60 needed to end Republican filibusters. It is closer to the 67 needed to override Bush vetoes.

The 7 Republicans did not include Sens. Richard Lugar (IN) and George Voinovich (OH), who led a small tidal wave of Republicans breaking with Bush over the war (including Sens. Olympia Snowe and John Warner) over the last two weeks or so.

The 7 also did not include Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) who has broken with Bush and his party on a number of issues, and has even sharply criticized the administration's abuse of civil liberties and for scandals over the firing of US attorneys. Specter may still be smarting from the Pennsylvania Bushies' effort to dump him in the 2004 Republican primary.

But only 3 Republicans of these questionable 10 have publicly announced they will vote for an amendment that would order a troop withdrawal beginning within 120 days of passage offered by Sens. Carl Levin and Jack Reed (RI).

So perhaps all of this "breaking with Bush" is little more than a stunt to give voters the impression that their Senators aren't the Bush clones their voting records will bear out.