Customer Reviews

Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War

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The book is an excellent overview of the issues facing African Americans in Viet Nam. Westheider views the racism facing African Americans in the military at that time as being the result of both personal racism, primarily from a military heavily populated by whites from the southern US, and institutional racism, both deliberate and unintentional, from the military hierarchy. Westheider shows an interesting evolution of the attitude that African Americans toward the military. Before the Viet Nam war, African Americans held a generally positive attitude about the military and viewed the military as less racist than society in general. By the end of the war, African Americans viewed the military as more racist than society in general and suspected that the military was, in fact, a tool used by society to persecute African-Americans. He uses a number of statistics to make his case. For example, in 1964, thirty percent of the population of Alabama was African American and yet there was not a single African American on any Draft Board in Alabama. There is information on racial violence in the military, racially motivated "fragging" of officers and political and ethnic oriented organizations in the military. The book is an excellent overview and is a good introduction to the subject. I enjoyed the book but I finished the book thinking that there is much more of this story to be told

I really LOVED this book because the author interviewed me and placed me in it with photos on me on 2two of the pages in the book :o)