Civil Rights Movement and Marine Force Recon in Vietnam Research Paper

Civil Rights Movement and Marine Force Recon in Vietnam - Research Paper Example Most of them joined the marine forces at eighteen. Into the training, they carried along all the prejudices they had experienced in their earlier life. In such critical times, training played a great role in transforming these individuals into a unified marine force reconnaissance. As this essay brings out, racial relations in the marine were not good at the time and many African Americans had to face these setbacks. 1962 was the year when the then American president granted equal opportunity to people from all races to join the American forces. The African Americans were facing challenges because of their color (Shaw and Donelly 70). In many sectors of the marine forces, discrimination existed and the status of African Americans was bad. Race was a key barrier for them and they lacked easy access to opportunities compared to the whites. These are the reasons why the president saw the essence of a committee that would investigate into the issue. Increased segregation existed in the marine forces. The investigation of the matter was taking place in the 1960’s when a high racial tension existed in America (Shaw and Donelly 82). At the same time, the situation in Vietnam was worsening. At the time, joining the marine force was voluntary and individuals taking up the responsibility understood the risk involved. Due to the rising racial tension, civil rights movements rose up to champion for t he rights of black marines. The African American marines lacked equal opportunities in promotions, job assignments, and military justice. In addition, it was evident that the organization and involving of blacks in public events had a lot of racial influence. There were different camps of the marines in different regions. The camps at Vietnam reported incidences that resulted from the existing racial indifferences. The white-black relations were falling apart in the 1960’s. The blacks who had been the subject of discrimination for a long time now stood up in