Pioneering World War II Veteran Reflects On Race, Military Service

A pioneering black paratrooper who helped integrate the U.S. Army in the 1940s was in central Wisconsin for Veterans Week, reflecting on America’s racist past and speaking out against racism

Joe Murchison is one of the last surviving members of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, better known as the Triple Nickles. The 84-year-old told hundreds of students in the village of Edgar how his unit integrated the Army before President Harry Truman made it official.

“Some of them were shocked,” he said. “They had never heard of a situation where people could not go into the front end of a restaurant and have a meal, or drink from a particular water fountain.”

Murchison had to ride on the back of the bus, and couldn’t dine with white soldiers even as he trained alongside them.

“We ran 10 miles before breakfast,” he said. “We made 25 mile forced marches at night.”

Joe Murchison wears a medallion of three buffalo nickels, which stands for the Triple Nickles, and refers back to the buffalo soldiers of the 19th century.

“The buffalo soldiers were given the name ‘buffalo soldiers’ because the Indians said they had hair like the hide of a buffalo. That was a compliment,” said Murchison.

Murchison said one of the greatest moments of his life was seeing a black man elected commander-in-chief, but that he’s bitter about the way President Barack Obama has been treated.

“I’m going to make a statement: It’s racism. He’s being treated like a black man. That’s why he has so much problems. I think right now that this country feels that it should be controlled by only old white men,” said Murchison.

That said, Murchison doesn’t want you to call him an African-American: “I am all American,” he said. “Africa- American sets me out into a different category altogether.”

Joe Murchison was in central Wisconsin through the student lecture series “A Walk In Their Shoes.”