Rivenrock Gardens Cactus Blog… go to www.rivenrock.com for edible cactus

1951, war broke out in Korea… as usual the US was unprepared for the war…. the military had been largely reduced in scale after WWII…. so in the usual way of the US gov’t, they opened enlistment offices and gathered the man y thousands of young men who were volunteering to go to war in a faraway place. My father at 17 was one of those young guys… he had to get his mother’s signature for him to go into the military.

   Since the military was not really ready for them, the training center in San Antonio was overflowing and unable to adequately house the extra thousands of men. So the military opened up a large tent-city on the Parade Grounds, and housed many thousands of men in the long rows of tents. But, it was wintertime, and their clothes stayed damp and moldy, they never had adequate rest and were weakened and more susceptible to illness…. and strike it did… influenza hit the camp and several servicemen died. When a local dignitary heard of this he got Washington to acting quickly.. hastily, barracks in other military posts were opened up… and thousands of servicemen were bussed to other areas to be housed in actual barracks.

   Remember, this was 1951, and Jim Crow was still in force in many of the Southern states. The US military had been integrated just a few years before, but the nation as a whole was still trying to get used to desegregation.  My father grew up on  a small farm with other small farms surrounding it. They all belonged to the local farmers co-op which bought the large equipment all the farms needed, but none could afford. As a group all the local farmers worked helping to plant and harvest on each other’s farms. Some of the local farms were owned by Black folks. They participated in the co-op and the harvests the same as everyone else. Being used to working in the fields with black folks, it wasn’t hard to bunk in the same tent with some also… so he and some other White guys bunked with some Black fellows in  a large tent.

   Back to the bus trip… the bus left San Antonio and travelled north to another base where barracks were promised to them. On the trip they made several stops for food. The bus would stop at a restaurant and they were all given coupons for a meal…. but the restaurants would not allow Black servicemen in (wow…. it’s hard to believe nowadays, but even a serving serviceman was discriminated against if he was Black)…. so my father and one of his White buddies would get a few extra meals using the coupons given them by the Black guys, and he and this other fellow would take the meals outside and they would all eat outdoors (which is what they did when working in the fields).

   I was working on a film called ‘Forgive us our Transgressions’  one time… it was a challenging scene as it involved a lynching, and I played a lyncher…. while mulling these things over with the boom operator ‘Speed’, he turned to me and said “we’ve come a mighty long ways in this country”.  As much racial issues as we still have…. I have to agree.