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Some of my friends in the neighborhood used those terms, but they were never spoken anywhere near our home. In my family we never even used the word "damn."
My friends in the neighborhood did, however, play a vicious word game called "The Dozens," which centered on each other's mothers. For example, one guy might say, "Your mother is so bowlegged she doesn't have to spread her legs to get on a horse." The other fellow might respond, "Your mother is the horse." Most of us would stand around and laugh, and nobody got into a fight over the game.
Talk in the barracks was much like that. There was a lot of horseplay, and many of the words that were used were coded so that "Mr. Charlie," the White man and the real boss in the army, would not understand.
I was the only college student in the Negro barracks. They began to pick on me. One guy challenges me to a fight only two or three days after our arrival at Fort MacArthur. I was a college boy, and he was a street kid. I was six feet one inch tall, 185 pounds, and had always been a good athlete.
Joe Louis, the "Brown Bomber" and heavyweight champion of the world (above, right), was one of my idols. I used the boxing experience I had gained at Cal and beat the stew out of my opponent until he quit. Afterward, we became friends. The others let me alone after that.
Dear Readers: This a journal entry written by World War II Buffalo Soldier, Ivan J. Houston (1925-2020). The words and recollections of Mr. Houston were transcribed, re-written, and edited by Gordon Cohn into their book, BLACK WARRIORS, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II.
A documentary film, WITH ONE TIED HAND, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II was produced by Pacific Film Foundation and released by SHOUT! Factory on December 6, 2022. Our first entry was posted on December 7, 2022 - 81 years after the fact...
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