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Youngstown VFW to honor black veterans and sheriff
YOUNGSTOWN
Veterans of Foreign Wars Donald Lockett Post 6488 and its Ladies Auxiliary are continuing their Veterans Day tradition of recognizing black American military service by paying tribute Friday to World War II black soldiers who helped build the Burma Road.
Post 6488 and its Ladies Auxiliary will also pay tribute to Mahoning County Sheriff Randall A. “Duke” Wellington, a member of the Army Military Police in Korea. Wellington, who holds a bachelor of arts degree in law enforcement from Youngstown State University, served 41 years with the Youngstown Police Department in many positions including 14 years as chief of police.
Post 6488’s Veterans Day program begins at 11 a.m. at the Post Home at 2065 Coitsville-Hubbard Road.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jonathan L. Williams, senior enlisted advisor for the Ohio Army National Guard’s 437th Military Police Battalion, is the keynote speaker.
Williams will be introduced by Municipal Judge Robert Milich, a retired Air Force colonel, and will be recognized by several local elected officials and Sandra Smith-Graves, president of the Ladies Auxiliary, and Ronnell Carter, Post 6488 commander.
Williams, a 1989 graduate of North Bloomfield High School, holds a bachelor of arts degree in business and organizations management from Malone University in Canton. He enlisted in the military in 1989 and has a combined 22 years’ service on active duty, Army Reserve and the Ohio Army National Guard.
Williams, who has numerous military decorations, including the Bronze Star and Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq Service medals, is employed by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. He lives in South Amherst.
Black soldiers in all-black units represented some 60 percent of the 15,000 American troops assigned to build the Ledo Road after Japanese forces had cut off the Burma Road between China and Burma over which supplies were sent to China. The Ledo Road ran 271 miles from Ledo on the India-Burma border to a junction on the old Burma Road.
The first and only official recognition the Burma Road African-American soldiers received was during the 2004 Defense Department’s African-American History Month observance at Florida A&M University, said Herman Adams, cochairman of the Post 6488 Veterans Day program with Earl McAlway and Katherine Williams.