More than 16 million Americans answered the call to arms in World War II. Of those, 600,000 were the few, the proud, the Marines.
Then there were the Chosen Few, men such as metro Detroiters Calvin Moore, Robert Hassler, Earl Hood, William Cook, Edsel Stallings, Norfflette Mersier and about 20,000 other Montford Point Marines.
After years of discrimination, mistreatment and near invisibility postwar, these African-American Marines of World War II are on the verge of getting the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian honor.
It's about time, too, said Hassler, 86, who lied about his age to enlist 70 years ago. "It's always bothered me -- every year for Black History Month, they talk about the Tuskegee Airmen," Hassler said. "Nobody knows about the Montford Point Marines."
A Congressional Gold Medal could change that....
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
