“Only as a unified force, free from discrimination, racial inequality and prejudice, can we fully demonstrate our core values, and serve as the elite war-fighting organization America requires and expects us to be,” Gen. Officially, the Marine Corps says it cares deeply about diversity. If he does not make it - the results will not be announced for months - his acquaintances say he is likely to leave the Marines. For the fourth time, Colonel Henderson is being deliberated. The commanders directly advise the defense secretary and the president.įor one week beginning Wednesday, the service’s promotion board will meet to consider its next group of generals. Four-star officers sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, oversee an entire branch of the armed services or serve as top officers of a regional command around the world - Centcom, for example, which supervises all American military operations in the Middle East. It is difficult for those outside the armed services to understand the prestige that comes with becoming a four-star general or admiral. The Marine Corps makes exceptions to this only-combat-arms rule when it gives four stars to aviators, including James F. (The pronoun “his” is apt because no woman has made it to four stars in the Marines, either.) Such a leader would have commanded troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, bearing responsibility for the lives of Marines who shed blood in poppy fields, mountain ranges and desolate desert villages. To make it to four stars, a candidate needs combat postings in his background. Bolden Jr., who would go on to command two Space Shuttle missions before becoming the first African-American to lead NASA, received only two stars in the Marines. The rest have received one or two stars, the majority in areas like logistics, aviation and transport, areas from which the Marine Corps does not choose its senior leadership.Ĭharles F. Six African-Americans reached lieutenant general, or three stars. Not one has made it to the top four-star rank, an honor the Marines have bestowed on 72 white men. Since the Marines first admitted African-American troops in 1942, the last military service to do so, only 25 have obtained the rank of general in any form. “And now they continue to hold onto that 1950s vision of who Marines are.”Ĭurrent and former Marine Corps officials point to Colonel Henderson’s personality as an explanation for why he has been passed over, including what they call his tendency to speak his mind - traits that have not disqualified white Marine colonels. Brown, Democrat of Maryland and a former Army helicopter pilot. “It took an act of Congress last year to get them to integrate by gender at the platoon level,” said Representative Anthony G. As the nation reels this summer from protests challenging centuries-long perceptions of race, the Marines - who have long cultivated a reputation as the United States’ strongest fighting force - remain an institution where a handful of white men rule over 185,000 white, African-American, Hispanic and Asian men and women. Proud and fierce in their identity, the Marines have a singular race problem that critics say is rooted in decades of resistance to change.
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