Brotherhood in Combat: How African Americans Found Equality in Korea and Vietnam

Using a wealth of oral histories from black and white soldiers and marines who served in one or both conflicts, Jeremy P. Maxwell explores racial tension --- pervasive in rear units, but relatively rare on the front lines. His work reveals that in initially proving their worth to their white brethren on the battlefield, African Americans changed the prevailing attitudes of those ranking officials who could bring about changes in policy. Brotherhood in Combat also illustrates the schism over attitudes toward civil-military relations that developed between blacks who had entered the service prior to Vietnam and those who were drafted and thus brought revolutionary ideas from the continental United States to the war zone. More important, Maxwell demonstrates how even at the height of civil rights unrest at home, black and white soldiers found a sense of brotherhood in the jungles of Vietnam. (Barnes and Noble)