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News From The Past CNN January 13, 1997

African-American vet receives Medal of Honor

He earned it 52 years ago

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With quiet dignity, former 2nd Lt. Vernon Baker of the 370th Infantry Regiment accepted the Medal of Honor, and the nation's silent apology.

Baker, 77, of St. Maries, Idaho, was one of seven African- American soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor on Monday for World War II valor, an achievement ignored for decades by the once-segregated Army.

Baker was the only veteran still living to accept the honor, the military's highest award for bravery in battle, in person. Relatives of the others attended in their place.

"They helped America to become more worthy of them and more true to its ideals," President Clinton said at the White House ceremony.

Baker said the moment took him back to April 1945, when he destroyed four German machine gun nests killed nine enemy soldiers with a gun and hand grenades. He thought of the other black men who died around him as they awaited reinforcements that never came.

"This day will vindicate those men and make things right," Baker said in a CNN interview.

Baker received a standing ovation as he entered the East Room before a crowd that included Defense Secretary William Perry, retired Gen. Colin Powell and Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili.

More than 1.2 million African-Americans served in World War II, most performing menial support tasks in a segregated army. Despite numerous battlefield decorations, no blacks who served in that war had been awarded the Medal of Honor.

Medals were awarded posthumously to:

• Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr. of Los Angeles;

• 1st Lt. John R. Fox of Cincinnati;

• Pfc. Willy F. James Jr. of Kansas City, Missouri;

• 1st Lt. Charles L. Thomas of Detroit;

• Pvt. George Watson of Birmingham, Alabama; and

• Staff Sgt. Ruben Rivers of Hotulka, Oklahoma.

Fox, James, Rivers and Watson were killed in action. Carter died in 1963 and Thomas died in 1980.

Baker said he would have liked to share the moment with the others honored.

"No, I still don't feel like a hero. I just feel I was a soldier and I did my job, and I think I was rewarded for it," Baker said after the ceremony.

Baker is a modest man, and it was not the pomp and ceremony that touched him most. It was the fact that, at long last, his country righted a historical wrong for black soldiers.

"It has a conscience, and it's clearing its conscience, thank God."

 

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