"Private First Class Reginald 'Malik' Edwards, Phoenix, Louisiana" / 377

Among other projects and professional experiences, Wallace Terry's civil rights reporting and work as a war correspondent for Time Magazine during the Vietnam War era has influenced his understanding of racism. He continues to work for USA Today, The Washington Post, and Parade Magazine, and has appeared on CNN, CBC, C-Span, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Nation Public Radio, and many other journalism and talk news venues as a commentator, special contributor, news correspondent, producer, creator, news analyst, narrator, and editor. Terry also wrote the only documentary recording from the Vietnam fields of battle, Guess Who's Coming Home. His work continues to aid in the battle to end racism in the military and sports (http://users.rcn.com/dcterry/wresume.htm).

In Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), Terry threads 20 soldier's experiences in postwar America (http://www.users.interport.net/~dcterry/wresume.htm). This is interesting because black soldiers in Vietnam relate a similar yet different kind of war that they came home to. As Terry writes in the preface to the book:

Later that year I returned to Vietnam for a two-year assignment that ended when I witnessed the withdrawal of the first American forces in 1969. Black combat fatalities dropped to 14 percent, still proportionately higher than the 11 percent which blacks represented in the American population. But by that same year, a new black soldier had appeared. The war had used up the professionals who found in military service fuller and fairer employment opportunities than blacks could find in civilian society, and who found in uniform a supreme test of their black manhood. Replacing the careerists were black draftees, many just steps removed from marching in the Civil Rights Movement or rioting in the rebellions that swept the urban ghettos from Harlem to Watts. All were filled with a new sense of black pride and purpose. They spoke loudest against the discrimination they encountered on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments. They chose not to overlook the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades. They called for unity among black brothers on the battlefield to protest these indignities and provide mutual support. And they called themselves "Bloods." (xiv)

The critical reading articles in this section are particularly valuable in understanding different dimensions of Terry's work.