A much better man

Today I was really educated via a little special done on NBC about this most heroic and amazing man. Vernon is also a black man a black man that endured scorching indignities while serving in the US Army in the 40's. Vernon, along with other guys (dead by that time) got his medal of honor 50years after he was responsible for a mission so deadly, so heroic, so valiant. And to think that this country denied him that honor for 50 years is disgraceful. It was hard to hear of how black soldiers were treated, America went into do battle alongside Europe against the evil Nazis led by Hitler but within the ranks in the same US Army, lived and breathed a very real Nazism. Black soldiers were sent on suicide-like missions, they were abandoned by white generals in battle, not looked on as human beings worthy of respect and it seems like they were almost begrudged for joining the Army. Vernon put up with all this. And for that I've to say, Vernon, you're a better man that I would've ever been. Vernon said something startling too, he said that this was the only country that he has and if he didn't fight it might be taken over by someone else. Well Vernon, maybe you and other blacks might've been treated better had it been taken over. When one hears of how disgusting these heroic men were treated upon their return to the US or how they were treated in the Army, I keep wondering why? Why would you even bother to serve - you couldn't get me to fly a flag for a country, any country that would treat me so dreadful. But Vernon, you're the better man, hate and anger would've claimed me, I would've been bitter and maybe wouldn't even have shown up to get that medal - 50 years later. I guess he said it right, for blacks in America at the time, there was no other country, I guess that's the madness that was fed to them - hey you got no where to go so fall inline and shut up. Didn't they know that there was a whole other world out there, especially in Europe where they wouldn't have been treated like 2nd class citizens. Seeing the footage of the black soldiers in '45 being celebrated by the white township in Italy is startling, considering the only white crowds that might have turned out in the US would've been a lynch mob. So that's why Vernon - the skilled hunter from Wyoming - is a man that should be celebrated and in this Black History month something we as Americans should be all proud about.