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Veterans Day program at VFW will honor black servicemen
YOUNGSTOWN — Donald Lockett VFW Post 6488 will honor several black servicemen during its Veterans Day program including Thomas D. Poole, killed in action in Vietnam, who has brothers and sisters living in Youngstown.
The post’s program is at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the post home, 2065 Coitsville-Hubbard Road (state Route 616).
Poole, an Army Spec. 4th Class, grew up and was inducted into the Army in Alabama. He was killed Feb. 12, 1968, while on a search-and-destroy mission in Quan Huong Tra Province, Vietnam. For his heroism, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Poole’s unit, Co. A, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, was hit by heavy mortar, recoilless rifle and small-arms fire from a North Vietnamese Army force hiding in the woods at the edge of a rice paddy.
Poole, a rifleman, ran about 100 meters across the open rice paddy, came upon three enemy troops in a bunker and killed them. His company was ordered to retreat, and as Poole moved back across the rice paddy to rejoin his unit, he came upon a wounded member of his unit lying exposed to enemy fire. He was fatally wounded when he knelt down to help the injured soldier.
His brother Jimma McWilson, of Youngstown, who grew up with Poole in rural Alabama, also served in Vietnam as a Navy corpsman with the Marine Corps.
“He [Poole] was a good kid, a good young man and a good soldier who lost his life trying to save a fellow soldier,” McWilson said.
Two of Poole’s sisters, Josephine McWilson and Ella Louise Rice, also live in Youngstown.
The main speaker for the program is Navy Rear Admiral Julius S. Caesar, Reserve deputy commander and commander of Navy Installations Command.
The highly decorated Caesar was born in Radford, Va., and raised in Cleveland. He enlisted in the Navy Reserve as a seaman recruit in 1972, attended the U.S. Naval Academy Preparatory School, and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1977.
During his career, Caesar had a variety of top-level assignments. In his civilian occupation, he is a senior vice president with Science Applications International Corp., McLean, Va.
Herman Adams is chairman of the Veterans Day event, sponsored by the post and its ladies auxiliary. Lloyd Mims is post commander, and Sandra Graves is auxiliary president.
The program continues the post’s tradition of honoring black service members to “educate and inspire the next generation to enlist, defend and protect their country in spite of obstacles that may be put in their way,” Adams said.
Caesar will be introduced by Judge Robert Milich of Youngstown Municipal Court, a retired Air Force colonel. Paintings by local artist Ray Simon will be presented to Caesar and members of the Poole family.
alcorn@vindy.com
RECOGNITION
Black military personnel
Other individuals and groups to be recognized during the Veterans Day program at Donald Lockett VFW Post 6488, Youngstown, are:
Doris “Dorie” Miller: A Navy cook, Miller was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic actions as a crew member of the battleship USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. When the attack occurred, his battle station, an anti-aircraft battery, was destroyed. He went on deck and was assigned to carry wounded sailors to safe places. Then he was ordered to the bridge to aid the fatally wounded captain of the ship. After that, he manned a 50- caliber anti-aircraft machine gun until he ran out of ammunition. In 1943, he was assigned to the USS Liscome Bay, which was torpedoed and sunk in the Gilbert Islands. Miller was declared dead Nov. 25, 1944. In 1973, a Knox Class frigate, the USS Miller, was named and commissioned in his honor.
The Golden 13: In 1944, the 13 became the first black men commissioned as Naval officers. When they scored higher on the Officer Candidate School test than their white counterparts, Pentagon officials required them to retake the test. They did and scored the highest again.
Port Chicago 50: Fifty black men, known as the Port Chicago 50, were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison after refusing to load munitions at Port Chicago Naval Magazine, Calif., because of continuing unsafe conditions after an explosion that killed 320 sailors and civilians and injured 390. The case of the 50 gained publicity and became an impetus for the Navy to begin to desegregate its forces in 1946.
Alonzo Swan: On Oct. 29, 1944, a Japanese kamikaze plane attacked the carrier USS Intrepid in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines. Swan, a 19-year-old deck gunner, and other black men in his crew stayed at their position and damaged the plane’s left wing and tail, diverting it from the flight deck. The plane hit their position, killing nine of the sailors. Swan, badly burned, was back at his gun station within a month. The commander of the Intrepid promised Swan the Navy Cross, but instead Swan and five other black gunners were awarded citations, later downgraded to Bronze Stars. A court ruling in December 1992 forced the Navy to give Swan the Navy Cross, which he received Nov. 3, 1993, aboard the Intrepid, by then a museum docked in New York City. Swan was 68.
Source: Herman Adams, Donald Lockett VFW Post 6488