Desegregation offers lessons for gay troops debate
In this Oct., 27, 2010 photo, Thomas J. Woods, 78, holds his graduation photo from the Marine Corps in 1951 in his home in Fayetteville, Ga. The stories of Woods and other black veterans who served among the military's first desegregated units during the Korean War offer an iconic history lesson amid the debate over whether gays should be allowed to serve openly in uniform. (AP Photo/David Goldman)SAVANNAH, Ga.—Thomas J. Woods joined the military after graduating from an all-black high school in 1950, when Jim Crow laws forced him to the back of buses and Savannah shop clerks would greet him with a surly, "What you want, boy?"
But in Marine Corps boot camp and then the front lines of the Korean War, the 18-year old saw the rigid color barriers of civilian life smashed in front of him as the military followed a mandate to end segregation of its ranks. That major social change, carried out in wartime, has echoes in today's debate about whether to end a ban on gays serving openly.
On his first day of training, as the only black recruit among 42, Woods was stunned when an instructor ordered his platoon to treat him as an equal. They all wore green, the instructor barked, and they'd all bleed red.
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