The liberals claimed blacks were overrepresented in Vietnam and took a disproportionate number of casualties. This was propaganda and a myth the news media chose not to correct. African-American participation in Vietnam was in almost exact proportion to their percentage of the U.S. general population.
Now, if numbers of blacks drop, the Left will say the Pentagon is discouraging their participation in order to build an “Aryan” army.
“. . . (blacks) say mistrust of the Bush administration is adding to the problem. . .”
No American president was ever more mistrusted by the U.S. military—from the Pentagon down to the most junior rifleman—than Bill Clinton.
AMEN... thats why I left in 94
No doubt true. However, the article refers to mistrust of the President among blacks, not among the military.
I used to work with someone, a liberal who is now retired and lives in California. He would send me e-mails about this matter, many e-mails. I asked him to stop since I didn’t send him political messages. He said “The truth hurts!” and “Once you are on my list, you can’t get off.” He was serious. I blocked his account. :-)
The basis for the whole myth about blacks dying in greater proportions in Vietnam originated in the fact that when the initial Army combat units were deployed to Vietnam in the mid sixties, black soldiers WERE over represented in the elite airborne and airmobile units. Racial identity politics had not yet so throughly insinuated itself amongst black youth, and they had disproportionately volunteered for the airborne and airmobile units, for the jump pay of course, but mostly for the pride of membership in the Army’s fighting elite, which historically had been often denied them. That is the reason that I joined and went to jump and Ranger school . These units took the brunt of the initial combat, the highest casualties, and it was only natural that blacks took an uneven number of them in 1965. By the end of the war, this imbalance had leveled out, but owing to the anti-war MSM press bias, they were not interested in correcting it. The MSM and the anti war left used the kernel of truth in the lie to radicalize the black comunitte againmst the war effort
My enlistment was up in '95, and when my retention NCOIC did the obligatory interview, he asked me if he could do anything to keep me in.
I said unless you can get that worthless POS out of the white house, I'll pretend you didn't even ask that question.