The book provides a historical perspective of the 1.2 million African American service members' experiences on the unit and personal level serving in a segregated U.S. military and for an American society that denied them equal opportunity and basic civil rights. African Americans served in every military branch (Army, Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps). Besides serving in segregated units, they were assigned menial tasks, provided inferior training and resources, denied opportunities to serve in combat units, and faced racism despite fighting for liberty, justice, and freedom abroad while being denied those platitudes at home. Basically, they battled for liberty and freedom on two fronts. home and abroad.
I wanted to tell a story of service and experience that has not been ignored by American history books, news media, and the entertainment industry. I wanted to tell the story of African Americans fighting on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, on the islands of the Pacific against imperial Japan, and during the desperate days of the Battle of the Bulge. And, how they also had to face and battle the hypocrisy, racist beliefs, and attitudes of a military that operated segregated combat and support forces to deliver on FDR's four freedoms.
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