A Just War?

One of the most striking things I read in this section of Inside Out was about the black soldiers in the war and their treatment. Bernstein was talking about the after affects of the war on him and on his friend Justin, and he gave a little detail about Justin’s experiences in the war. Justin got into trouble because he did not want to shoot any black soldier that crossed the road towards the white regiment. It was such a baffling concept to me that in the middle of the war, when America could be on friendly terms with countries that they otherwise would call enemies, they were still willing to shoot American soldiers because of the color of their skin. Men were dying and the troops were even in need of volunteers for certain regiments because of the fatality rate, but soldiers were still supposed to kill a fellow American if they crossed the road.

I guess I just don’t understand why men who either volunteered to join the war, or even if they were drafted they were still there for their country, were told that they could not be a part of the war effort in the same way as the white men. There is just an extreme disconnect between the treatment of soldiers who were all there for the same reasons but had different color skin. It just seems like that should be something that should not matter in war when men are dying. I am glad that Bernstein was able to write about issues of discrimination and segregation and that he was not censored in this respect. It’s amazing that he and the other writers in Yank could write about these things without being censored. Before Bernstein talks about Justin’s war story, he says, “We had the nature of war on our side, an antifascist war, a just war,” but I fail to see how this can correlate to the minorities in the war. Yes, “the enemy of our enemy was our friend,” but this obviously did not relate to everyone in the war, and it is sad that men fighting for their country could be killed by their fellow countrymen because of something like crossing the road.