HIGH
PROPORTION OF BLACK SOLDIERS SENT TO VIETNAM
By Evelyn Sell
The war in Vietnam has laid especially heavy burdens on black people in the United States. The bare statistics on Negroes ordered to go to Vietnam and Negroes killed in action testify to the fact that Afro-Americans are playing a role in the war far out of proportion to their percentage in the American population as a whole.
The Defense Department has released figures which show that 18.3% of Americans killed in Vietnam since 1961 were black soldiers; 23.5% of army enlisted men killed in 1965 were black; 14.8% of the American soldiers in Vietnam are black; 16.3% of Americans drafted are black. Measure those figures against the fact that Afro-Americans make up about 11% of the U.S. population. Another significant figure to be measured against the percentage of black men in uniforms and in graves is the fact that only 3. am of the army's officers are black.
Michigan's two Negro congressmen, John Conyers and Charles Diggs Jr., have pointed to statistics that show that 50% of the front-line combatants in Vietnam are black.
In April of this year the draft rules were "toughened up," causing a drop in Negro draft figures to 10.8%. However, in October an "easing up" was announced in order to bring more men into the armed forces. It was found that too many men were being deferred because they had failed the mental tests. Lowering the standards on the mental tests meant 40,000 more men available for service -- and of that number, 33% would be Negro. Because the mental tests measure educational training rather than basic intelligence, the lowered standards affect Negroes more than any other section of the population.
A survey coauthored by Mrs. Caryl Conner, the editor of American Education, a journal of the U.S. Office of Education, showed that the rate of failure on mental tests among Negroes across the country was 67.5%. This compares with a failure rate of 18.8% among non-Negroes. The survey stated that a close correlation was found between the gulf in performance between Negroes and whites and the quality of education given to both races. Significantly, the rejection rates were highest in the South which is still notorious for its separate and unequal educational facilities. In South Carolina, for example, 85.6% of the Negroes taking the army examination failed.
Segregation and discrimination in the U.S. educational system is literally a life and death matter for black Americans. Jack Moskowitz, deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil rights, explained why so many Negroes end up in the front ranks: "Because they have second class educations. They have neither the skills nor the education to qualify then for ‘work in ‘technical or special fields. °
He added ‘that a major factor behind the disproportionately high péticentage of Negro draftees is that more Negro youths are high school dropouts and unemployed; and, therefore, cannot claim draft deferments for reasons of college studies or employment in essential occupations. :
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell from New York pointed out another way in | which inferior educational facilities for Negroes affect their service in the armed forces. Powell blasted the national deferment tests administered to college students this year and predicted that "an excessively disproportionate number of those failing [and thus made eligible for the draft] would be black students. -- because. of inferior educational opportunities. ' ; .
Lack of technical skills and - training is one reason why” an excessive number of Negroes end up in'the front lines in Vietnam. Additional reasons were cited in a July 24 New York Timés Magazine article. Victor ‘Hall; a‘Ssix-year veteran was quoted as saying: © "There's a common reason why Négroes volunteer for the service and then re-enlist. The units in Vietnam, where those’ guys are dying, are almost all volunteer ‘units, ‘Like the airborne. That means they ‘asked to go there, or at least they asked to be put in a -combat outfit and they wound up there: They did that for the Same reason I did it and for the same reason most of the Negroes here did it. They did it because you get incentive pay in the airborne and the promotions are-better in a combat unit.
_ "There* s'a dire: “need for money in| most: Negro ‘cases. ~ = oat
“Another veteran’ interviewed ‘was Pvt. Lee- Ward Jackson. With only one more “year to complete in~high school; he was forced: to go to work-to support his divorced,--ill
mother. "I was going to high school at night to finish up," Jackson explained, "and I only had three months to go when I was drafted last December. They said night school wasn't good enough for a student deferment. I wanted to go to Grambling College. All I ever wanted to do was to teach. Then when I got into the Army I found out there was $55 a month extra for being a paratrooper, and so I volunteered for the jump school. The one reason I did it was for my mother. That was the main reason. I went for the extra money, but I didn't know what I was getting into. I nearly quit the first time I had to jump, put I just kept it in my mind why I was doing it."
After citing a number of such interviews, the Times reporter summarizes: "There are, then, many reasons for the disproportion of Negroes in the Army. Fewer Negro parents can afford to send their children to college and so the draft law's preferential treatment for students militates against young Negroes. There are fewer and poorer job opportunities in civilian life for Negroes and so proportionately more enlist. Once trained by the service, whites can be sure of obtaining jobs with their service-acquired skills, while Negroes are uncertain that they can obtain jobs commensurate with their training.
"Once Negroes are in the service, their economically deprived backgrounds continue to influence their choices. As noted, they are more likely to be attracted by the $55 a month extra paid to airborne troops..."
Stokely Carmichael, one of the most eloquent black spokesmen against the war, points out: "A mercenary is a hired killer and I think that when this country says to black youths...their only chance to a decent living is when you join the army...It's saying to that black man his only chance to a decent life is to become a hired killer."
Carmichael represents an increasingly articulate section of black militants who are opposed to the war in Vietnam. This black opposition had been blunted during the earlier stages of the antiwar movement because of the overwhelming problems of the dayto-day struggle against racism and because of the paralyzing effects of political alliances with the Democratic party and the Kennedy-—Johnson administrations. During the past year, however, civil-rights militants have made giant steps towards independence from the capitalist power structure and towards a clearer understanding of the fact that opposition to the war in Vietnam is an integral. part of their struggle against racism at home.
MONTREAL