Dear Editor-

The obituary of J. Cameron Wade, who was among the first African American soldiers to integrate WWII Army combat units, recalled my local upbringing as a child. My mother was a French war bride of WWII, romanced and proposed to by my active duty father following their introduction during the war at a Red Cross-sponsored dance in a recently liberated Paris. One of my mother's single-most vivid memories of her maiden trip from France to the U.S. was her first sight of Washington, DC as she began her new life here after the war. Exiting her train from New York City at Union Station, she was struck with sheer delight and amazement at the beautiful summertime sight of the Station's snow-white marble fountain actively awash with the contrastingly beautiful black bodies of local children playing joyfully in and out of the refreshing water. 

What puzzled and pained her to learn afterwards was the meanness and enmity exhibited here in Washington, DC by many local whites to the local blacks. This experience was completely foreign to her, having come from a lifetime in Paris. The wholly cosmopolitan city of Paris at the time held a large population of black students from the various African colonies of France who were considered and treated no differently than any other citizens of the Republic.

I grew up in a household with a maid, Mrs. Rosa Bethea, an African American of South Carolina descent, who helped at the house regularly but because of our French-expatrioted mother she was never accorded the condescending and demeaning treatment reflected in the recent film "The Help". Instead Rosa was considered our second mother and acknowledged as such by the entire family, receiving from the hearts of us all the dignity and deference that was her due in that loving role. The sad story was that of her husband, Mr. Jesse Bethea. Like Mr. Cameron Wade, Jesse Bethea also served in the U.S. Army during WWII.

The obituary of Mr. Wade notes that though "In basic training he won awards for marksmanship, yet he was assigned a job as a truck driver. A similar fate awaited many other black troops, who were often relegated to supporting roles in supply, transportation, or food service units". Or as in the case of Jesse Bethea, being assigned the graves detail which job involved gathering up the combat dead, often literally piece-by-piece, and then seeing to their proper burial. The emotional burden of this macabre assignment took its toll on Jesse, and his unfortunate response to the psychological ordeal of his wartime service was a slide down the slippery slope of alcoholism. His progressive decline from the condition cost him his marriage, his sanity, and ultimately his life.

Like Mr. Wade, Jesse Bethea was never offered much in the way of gratitude from his nation for his wartime service, and though it might have helped him there were no health benefits at the time from the VA to help him cope and overcome the stress of his wartime experience.

It is worth noting then that for Cameron Wade, Jesse Bethea, and many other similar veterans that our oft-lauded American Exceptionalism (and the way that blacks were treated at the time here as opposed to say in France) is not always a positive feature of our historic legacy. But today is better in that regard than yesterday, and there is promised hope for continued progress in tomorrow.