CGM Award to Montford Point Marine

| August 7, 2019

CGM

A Montford Point Marine has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

The full story is here:  https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2019/08/06/94-year-old-montford-point-marine-veteran-awarded-congressional-gold-medal/

From the article:  President Harry Truman would eventually desegregate the military in 1948.

In 2011, then-President Barack Obama signed legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Montford Point Marines.

But to date, less than 2,000 of the out of nearly 20,000 African American Marines who went trough recruit training at Montford Point from 1942 to 1949 have been identified and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, according to Joe Geeter, a spokesman for the National Montford Point Marine Association. – article

The history of the Montford Point Marines is here:     https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2019/01/13/historic-south-side-chicago-montford-point-marine-chapter-faces-closure-in-funding-crisis/

They are slowly slipping away from us, as age and time lengthen the distance from World War II and their service.

Category: Historical, Marine Corps

18 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
JacktheJarhead

Not to pick nits, shouldn’t the title read Congressional Gold Medal? I read the article and it did not mention the CMoH.

Graybeard

More coffee.

Lthrnck1775

The photo is still CMH..

11B-Mailclerk

I would suggest replacing the MoH pic on the main page with the MM-CGM image at the top of this page.

Thunderstixx

One of the best things to have happened to our Military and America as a whole was when Truman desegregated the entire Military.
Those Marines and all the other Black American troops fought three wars as America fought two wars, one in the Atlantic/European Theatre and one in the Pacific Theatre.
That action began the watershed that made it acceptable to be a full red blooded American despite the color of your skin.
That action, although fought against by diehard racists even after it happened, brought the races together to work as a team instead of against each other first.
Truman did a couple of things that changed the course of the country and the world forever. By dropping the Atomic Ordnance 74 years ago yesterday and 74 years ago on Friday he assured the victory against Japan and demonstrated to the world the absolute destruction associated with them and that probably saved the world from a further use of those warheads.
We came close a couple of times on the use of them, but thankfully we didn’t suffer the consequences.

JacktheJarhead

Here it is:

comment image

If that link doesn’t work, I have the .jpg

AW1Ed

Heh. Besides a thick skin and sense of humor, another trait of a good Admin here is flexibility.

AW1Ed

Updated, Ex.

5th/77th FA

“Never toss out old equipment.” Good to know that I may be kept around for a little longer.

Got to agree 100% with what my man Thnderstixx posted on Truman’s actions. From the Revolutionary War up thru the Never Ending War on Terror, the Black Service Members have shown that they could fight and die as well as anyone else. The Buffalo Soldiers of the Indian Wars (sic) were not called that because of their wooly hair so much as their fierceness in a fight. Many of the combat commanders in the World Wars discovered that not all blacks wanted to be in the “fo fawty fo” double clutching muther truckin transportation corps.

Too bad it took all this time to get this done. Most of them boys have passed on by now. Getting an earned award posthumously ain’t quite the same.

Sandman

One of my co-worker’s father was a Montford Point Marine. I had the opportunity to see this hero’s records. He fought along side Chesty Puller during the Battle of Palalui, then island hopped around the Pacific liberating smaller islands till he ended up in Guam after the 2nd time it was taken from Japan. At one point he was considered MIA and a notice went out to his wife, till he made it to Guam and could be accurately accounted for. It was awesome reading his records that included the ships he was on, his units, and the fact that he entered and exited the Marines at Montford Point.