Willie Hazelrig, a WWII veteran who served with the Montford Marines, the first black Marine unit, talks about his experiences during the war. Saturday, Hazelrig will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor, from the Marine Corps and will receive a letter from the president recognizing his service.
Willie Hazelrig, a WWII veteran who served with the Montford Marines, the first black Marine unit, holds up a picture of himself from the war.LAFAYETTE, Ga. – When Willie Haslerig was drafted on May 20, 1945, he’d never heard of the U.S. Marines.
Today his brothers-in-arms will honor him for being among the first black men to enter the military branch’s ranks.
As World War II raged overseas in the 1940s, Haslerig worked on his father’s farm near Chickamauga, Ga. A young black man in the pre-Civil Rights era South, he had seen his family home burn in a racially-motivated attack, he said.
The borders of the segregated world where Haslerig lived didn’t end at the Mason-Dixon line. Until an order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, the Marine Corps was an all-white force that didn’t want blacks.
The first wave of black men recruited or drafted into the Marines became known as the Montford Point Marines, named for their segregated boot camp in North Carolina.