Honoring Sergeant Carter by Allene Carter Page A

discipline, and can-do attitude, Eddie quickly gained the respect of the white officers. However, because of the Army’s policy of racial segregation, Eddie and the other black soldiers were to be assigned to a service unit—as cooks, truck drivers, stevedores, engineers—rather than to combat duty.
    After completing basic training Eddie was shipped out to Fort Benning, Georgia, and assigned to 3535th Quartermaster Truck Company. In less than a year he would be promoted to staff sergeant. But if Eddie was shocked by the racism he found in Texas, he was appalled by what he found in Georgia. Both the civilian white population and the Army were bastions of racism. “They don’t treat you at all like soldiers,” he complained. “It’s more like slaves. When this war is over, you’ll see plenty of tough and bitter boys coming home,” he prophesied, with more truth than he could have known.
    Two days later he voiced his anger, bitterness, and despair at the mistreatment of black people, especially black soldiers, by whites. In a letter to Mildred dated January 25, 1942, he wrote:
    â€œAfter I get out of the Army and should [the United States] have another war, I’ll not join the Army. I’ll go to jail before I go. The treatment that they give the Negro in the South is plenty of reason. If that is what we have to fight for, why fight? Fight to save the white man’s money? The Negro is nothing but the cat’s paw. I have every bit of love and respect I ever had for the United States. I know I shouldn’t be telling you these things. But why should the Negro fight for something he will not get? Should we fight for mops, buckets, and brooms, and then be treated as they are treating us? Hell no! We fight, then we should be able to break bread and eat it together with the rest of our white brothers. ‘All men are created equal.’ If so, why can’t we share the spoils?
    â€œThe officers down here tell us that they don’t need niggers in the Army. Then why in the hell don’t they let us go. After all, a mop, bucket, and broom are not worth giving one’s life for. The white man is the lowest animal there is. Nothing is too low or dirty for him to do.” Sensing that his anger might worry Mildred, Eddie added, “I am letting my hate get the best of me. So please overlook my top blowing.”
    Eddie seemed to take a deep breath and then he continued his letter: “The main thing is that I still love you,Mil. Nothing will ever stop me from coming home…. I dreamed of you last night, sweets. I dreamed that we were out boat riding on a beautiful lake. The water was clear as glass. Everything looked beautiful. Even as you do. Nothing will stop my being true.”
    In the steady flow of what he called his “epistles” to Mildred he insisted that he wanted her to come to him and get married. But there was some hesitation—on both sides. Eddie loved Mildred but he was afraid of getting too close to someone for fear of losing her, as he had lost his mother. Mildred stirred tender feelings in him and this had a strong impact on him, but he still had doubts that she would truly want him as her husband. She wasn’t a needy person. She had a secure and full life. As for Mildred, she was captivated by Eddie, but having come through a difficult relationship with her former husband, she was worried about stability and commitment. She also sensed Eddie’s hesitation, but she didn’t know its source. With Eddie now a soldier and far away, she probably worried that they might drift apart, that he might not remain faithful to her.
    Each of them struggled with doubts, but eventually they agreed that Mildred should come to Georgia and they would get married. Mildred joined him in May 1942, and they were married on June 10. Mildred left Iris and Charles with her parents in Los Angeles. Iris suffered with asthma, and Mildred was fearful that