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The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
#11
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
When asked about desegregating the US Armed Forces General Marshall, head of the Army, said "Wartime is not the time to conduct social experiments in the military." Given the sheer redneckery of the general public, of which the military was a microcosm, it would have been rather ugly.
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#12
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:46 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: When asked about desegregating the US Armed Forces General Marshall, head of the Army, said "Wartime is not the time to conduct social experiments in the military." Given the sheer redneckery of the general public, of which the military was a microcosm, it would have been rather ugly.

People are senselessly dying at the time anyway, who's gonna notice a small bump in the body count? Why isn't wartime a good time?
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#13
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:48 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 6:46 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: When asked about desegregating the US Armed Forces General Marshall, head of the Army, said "Wartime is not the time to conduct social experiments in the military." Given the sheer redneckery of the general public, of which the military was a microcosm, it would have been rather ugly.

People are senselessly dying at the time anyway, who's gonna notice a small bump in the body count?  Why isn't wartime a good time?

There's an old saying, "When people expect the worst they usually get it." If one lived through the '50s and '60s the lynchings, house burnings, riots and full tilt battles are a painful memory. George Catlett Marshall was worried about an impairment of the fighting forces, no justice.
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#14
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:53 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 6:48 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: People are senselessly dying at the time anyway, who's gonna notice a small bump in the body count?  Why isn't wartime a good time?

There's an old saying, "When people expect the worst they usually get it." If one lived through the '50s and '60s the lynchings, house burnings, riots and full tilt battles are a painful memory. George Catlett Marshall was worried about an impairment of the fighting forces, no justice.

The status quo is always advocated on the basis that maintaining it is better than not. How is wartime any different?
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#15
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:55 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 6:53 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: There's an old saying, "When people expect the worst they usually get it." If one lived through the '50s and '60s the lynchings, house burnings, riots and full tilt battles are a painful memory. George Catlett Marshall was worried about an impairment of the fighting forces, no justice.

The status quo is always advocated on the basis that maintaining it is better than not.  How is wartime any different?

Guns, bombs, bullets, napalm, poison gas, etc. I'm not saying Marshall was right, but I do see his point. And Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948, IIRC.
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#16
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:58 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 6:55 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: The status quo is always advocated on the basis that maintaining it is better than not.  How is wartime any different?

Guns, bombs, bullets, napalm, poison gas, etc. I'm not saying Marshall was right, but I do see his point. And Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948, IIRC.

All of those factors played themselves out in Vietnam, yet I'd not be inclined to attribute our failure to such tensions.
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#17
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 7:13 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 6:58 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Guns, bombs, bullets, napalm, poison gas, etc. I'm not saying Marshall was right, but I do see his point. And Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948, IIRC.

All of those factors played themselves out in Vietnam, yet I'd not be inclined to attribute our failure to such tensions.

And you weren't a sixty-something conservative fighting a world war in Vietnam. 

I went to boot camp in 1969. Half the company was Midwest farm boys. The other half was recruited from Harlem. They bunked us alphabetically and we had more important things to do than argue about race, we were trying too hard to make our Company Commander, MMC(SS) H. K. Wiggins, happy.
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#18
RE: The Tuskegee "Red Tails" of WW2
(July 25, 2018 at 6:10 pm)Brian37 Wrote:
(July 25, 2018 at 3:51 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: I'm trying to dissuade Brain of the notion that the red tails of the red tails squadron was some kind of racist thing. I don't believe it was.

Ok, but it was still a segregated military. Even in the documentary I saw, the actual members said they faced tons of skepticism that blacks could fight, and regardless it America was very racist back then.

You could argue the leadership that set that squadron up might not have cared if it were desegregated, but because of the climate of the time, just like any other section the military in general was still segregated.

Yes, the US military in WWII was segregated. Yes, the members of the Tuskegee Airmen were discriminated against by their own government, but the distinctive paint scheme on their aircraft wasn't part of that. That was something all white crewed air groups did too. It's something navy air wings still do.

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