The story i told was true and meant to point out that bravery or loyalty to country and fellow soldiers is not hindered by color or creed. One that serves never questions the color of the man in the foxhole with him.
To another question my uncle and most of his childhood friends enlisted together in the US Army as Calvarymen. They were permitted at that time, as in all branches of service, to request and in most cases be granted the right to serve together. This practice was severly limited after the loss of the "Sullivan Brothers" all aboard the same ship during WWII.
My uncle, his brother in law,and two 1st cousins were all assigned to the 1st Calvary Division, 5th Regiment. They served all as machine gunners my uncle was a sargent as well as his brother in law. They were each in charge of one .50 cal along with two .30 cal machine guns with the cousins serving as gunners under each. They went to Ft. Sam Houston Texas for boot camp together, were assigned their horses and then were shipped with their horses by train to California. Yes, they were sent to war as a horseback Calvary Unit the same as it was in the Civil War. They were put aboard ship their horses aboard another and were shipped to Austrailia for 6 months training. I can not remember if the horses never arrived in Austrailia or after the training there they were taken from them.
He said the mules and pack horses were taken to the Phillipines with them but their personal mounts were never seen again.
A further comment about the Units being permitted to be manned by childhood buddys, brothers and other relatives..my uncle as well as the others that I talked to stated that they felt it was the best thing for the service. Men that had grown up together, some direct kin, had already bonded together and had loyalties to one another. They had all commented to me that the worst fear they had was that they would show cowardice in the battle and their own would live to tell about it. They seemed to all have this vivid memory that they would never let their own flesh and blood or family friend face death alone.
I have talke to many servicemen of all wars since WWI and they all had that common thought of the ones that they had bonded closely with. They only time you start seeing any difference is with replacements, men that just showed up and the men did not know. They did not want to know them as the pain was too much if they were killed.
In Nam one of the biggest mistakes we made was the 1 year rotation, it left a big hole in the bonding time of the soldiers in the field. Not always but it made it very difficult for the soldiers to be willing to die for a guy that just arrived and they themselves were rotating out in a month or two.
I have talked to many that really did not like the 1 year rotation they felt it should have been six months. For comparison my uncle as all others were in for the duration of the war. Also, being wounded did not send you home nor did a death in the family. During the war my uncle was twice wounded by grenades, after digging out the shapnel on both occasions they gave him a few days and back to the front lines he went. His mother died, my grandmother, he said a Captian sent a runner to his position to tell him the bad news. When the fight for an airport was over he requested leave to go home and it was refused.
He never forgave the Army for that, however, it is understood by him. The father of a friend of mine was in the Marines during WWII he served in virtually every campain wounded three seperate times the last on Iwo Jima. He entered service just after Pearl Harbor and was discharged in December 1945.
It is not talked about, just how much sacrifice was required of all during WWII. One can not belittle a man who served a year and had several engagements with the enemy. However, when placed along the records of the old men you see today that served in one battle after another for 3 to 5 years they have no complaint.
