These values now guide our work here in Maryland. Our lives and the lives of our fellow soldiers were transformed by the values the military instilled in us. These experiences were only possible in an integrated military. We learned that diversity is our strength. We developed deep bonds with people whose experiences were vastly different from our own and came to love one another as family. Soon, though, the demands of surviving in combat began to make our differences seem trivial relative to the challenges we faced. The people in our units hailed from different parts of the country, representing every race, religion, and political ideology. We needed the people we led to believe in us - and we needed them to believe in each other.Īt the beginning, we were challenged to overcome our differences with those in our units. Through our deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, we came to understand that trust was key to survival in combat. The military was our pathway to a quality education that opened doors that we never even knew existed as teenagers.
We know this because we’ve experienced the transformative power of service personally, and we want to encourage more Americans to serve.īoth of us were raised by single Black mothers who sacrificed a great deal for our futures. Service - and serving on diverse teams - builds stronger citizens, communities, and countries. As two Black Army veterans who serve, respectively, as Maryland’s Governor and Secretary of Veterans Affairs, we believe state and national leaders should honor Truman’s legacy by creating more opportunities for people to engage in public service hand-in-hand with their fellow Americans. At long last, a nation founded on the idea that “all men are created equal” decreed “equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country’s defense.”Įxecutive Order 9981 sent a clear message that Black service members were equal enough to fight and die alongside their white counterparts in war. Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. Seventy-five years ago, President Harry S.
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