THE VOICE
A NEGRO WEEKLY
“Dedicated to the promotion of
the cultural, social and spiritual
life of a great people”
Rev. Melvin L. Shakespeare
Publisher and Owner
2225 S Street Phone 5-6491
If no answer call 5-7508
Rubie W. Shakespeare
Advertising & Business Manager
Mrs. Joe Green
Circulation Mgr.
Dorothy Green
Reporter
Rev. Trago T. McWilliams, Sr,
Special Writer
Joseph V. Casmer
Special Writer
Member of the Assoc. Negro Press
Subscription rate $2.00 per year
10c per copy
Soldiers' Dream
By Lynnwood Parker
As a former infantry officer in
the army, I had the unique ex
* perience of commanding both
White and Negro troops. In the
lines to follow I shall try to tell
you some of the things he learn
ed. I cannot honestly say that he
learned very much, I do know he
has changed very little.
He may have learned that a
man’s color, which didn’t mean
anything on the front line, means
something in South Carolina,
where a former soldier’s eyes
were gouged out by a policeman’s
club because he was guilty of be
ing born black.
Maybe after fighting “to make
the world safe for democracy” he
thought it should be practiced in
his own back yard—maybe that is
why he took things in his own
hands in Athens, Tennessee. . •
Maybe he cannot understand
why a country which can capture
the atom to make atom bombs
and level hundreds of miles for
airfields, cannot capture the free
spirit of its people and level slums
or build houses for veterans, who
do not have a place to live.
He learned how to pitch a tent,
sleep on the ground, kill a man.
He learned that men have the
same desires and feel the same
agony and pain when wounded;
that every man is alike though
each man is different. He learn
ed the ache of loneliness and the
pain of exhaustion. From the
ve*y beginning he wanted to go
home.
He may have been white or
black or yellow, if he was on the
front line it didn’t make much
difference because a soldier on
the front line was so dirty you
couldn’t tell his color anyway.
Sometimes he prayed to get hit
(but not killed) so that he could
go to the hospital—home. He may
not have fought at all. He may
have cooked in an Officer Candi
date School mess in Georgia or
mewed the lawns in Fort Crook
or Fort Omaha; still wanting to
go home.
Daily routine work often bored
him; the roar of big guns often
scared him; bravery was a matter
of the soul.
He may have been young, like
24 year-old Henry (Hank) Mc
Williams,- who landed at Nor
mandy and traveled all the coun
tries of Europe. Or maybe he
wasn’t so young, like Bud Turner,
44 year-old, who said: “Every
where the army sends me the
place looks like Nebraska.”
He may be a memory in the
photograph book that ever keeps
him alive, or he may be beneath
that rusty dogtag on the cross of
wood marking an historic battle.
It may be that he came through
alright—that nothing ever hap
pened to him. He may have even
[ wondered why he was in the
army. John Hanly, an Air Corps
man said: “Darn it, I always
wanted to take a poke at that
Hitler guy.”
He was a part of an army that
left its bomb craters on the con
tinents of the world, a hundred
islands of the sea. Together, with
the allies, he saved the world and
hoped he’d never have to repeat
the performance.
j He had learned the ache of
loneliness and the pain of exhaus
tion. He had learned how to pitch
a tent, sleep on the ground, kill a
man.
Having learned all this, if he
pulled through all right, he came
home and took off his uniform
and started life anew—again.
When he hears statements like
“A third world war is not immin
ent but inevitable,” a cool feeling
comes over him. He may feel
like my 1st sergeant, John Bibbs,
who said: “I served in the last
war. I’m serving in this war. I
want to go home and stay there.”
-o
Births
[ .
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Kimbrough
have announced the birth of a
u son, Keith Rodger, born at St.
1 Elizabeth Hospital Friday, No
vember 22.
; —°—
L
1 Life is not so short but that
■ there is always time enough for
[ courtesy .-^Emerson
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