Shnay: Local Montford Point Marine honored

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Possum the cat will be remembered. | Supplied Photo

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Updated: February 23, 2012 8:05AM

On June 25, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an order barring federal agencies from refusing employment on the basis of race, creed, color or national origin. That order covered all the Armed Forces, including the U.S. Marine Corps, which, from the time of its inception in 1794, had been a “whites only” organization.

It took nearly a year before the first African-American volunteers were recruited into the Marines. They were trained at Camp Montford Point in North Carolina, and were completely segregated from their white counterparts at nearby Camp Lejeune. For seven years, more than 20,000 men were trained at Montford Point. Railroad tracks and 200 years of discrimination separated the two bases. Unless accompanied by a white person, a Montford Point Marine was not allowed inside Camp Lejeune. Indignities abounded, yet these black Marines persevered. All this ended in 1948 when, during an election year, President Truman issued an Executive Order that effectively desegregated the military.

Park Forest’s Ed Fizer was one of the first to enlist and we’ve told his story in this space. But that was before the Montford Point Marines were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor for distinguished achievement. Last month Ed was duly honored by the Park Forest Board of Trustees for service to his country. Those Marines have never been eulogized in song, story or film, yet today the Corps’ 1st Marine Division is commanded by a black Major General.

The Corps has been a proud military organization and has a long and distinguished history of service to this country. If you scratch a Marine he (or she) will bleed red, white and blue. “Semper fidelis” (always faithful) is more than a Marine Corps slogan, it is a way of life.

So “Semper fi” Marines and “Semper fi” Ed Fizer and his fellow Montford Point Marines. Of those 20,000, little more than 1,000 are still alive.

And it only took us 70 years to honor these men.

Possum

Cats don’t have nine lives. Possum, a long-tailed 3-year-old yellow cat rescued from a feral life, was still on his second or third lifetime when his time ran out.

Possum did not return to his home on Lakewood Drive on Christmas night, so the family owned by the animal went out looking for him. They found the battered cat, much worse for wear, near the front door. It had been hit by something, or someone had hit the animal. Possum was on his last legs. The vet shook her head. Blunt force trauma, she said. Perhaps a club, possibly a foot struck what surely was a fatal blow. I’m sorry, she said.

Possum did not last the day.

Now let us get one thing straight. I am not, nor have ever been, a lover of cats. They have existences independent of their two-legged keepers. They do not accept things easily, especially humans. At times cats don’t come when called, they don’t listen and they often play with their food. In that respect they are like our children.

If Possum couldn’t get out of the way of two cars passing each other on that dark night, we can say it was just a sad accident. But if it was the result of an intentional act — a deliberate kick or swing of a bludgeon — it wounds the soul. And because what happened to Possum took place the day it did, it seems even more hurtful.

If it was an intended act of violence, it is to be hoped that one day the person who killed a cat will understand the significance of what was done. We always live in hope.

Jerry Shnay is a citizen journalist and can be reached at jerryshnay@gmail.com.