Why do so few Black officers lead combat units?
When Beagle's great grandfather Walter Beagles walked through the gates at Fort Jackson in 1918, he entered a segregated Army that relegated Black soldiers to labor units.
Walter Beagles served in a segregated Army.
BEAGLE FAMILY, HANDOUT FOR USA TODAY
"They weren't thought to be smart enough to be in combat arms," Beagle said.
It was 30 years before the armed services integrated. Even 100 years later, commanders such as Milford Beagle are few and far between.
A system that didn't afford opportunity to Black and minority officers in combat units explains part of the problem. After integration, the military was slow to accept minority officers. There's also the matter of choice.
Parents, clergy, coaches, even soldiers often discourage aspiring minority officers from joining combat units, Beagle said. Heavy casualties among African Americans, particularly early in the Vietnam War, and the prospect of better post-military employment options made noncombat units such as logistics a preferred choice.
Casualty statistics from Vietnam show how those perceptions formed, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. In 1966, Blacks accounted for 22.4% of all troops killed in action in 1966 while making up 18% of the Army and about 17% of the Marine Corps. By the end of the war, Black war deaths had dropped to 12.4% of the total. But the perception persisted.
"To this day, you still may have influencers from the Vietnam era,” Beagle said.
The relatively few Black officers who rose through the ranks in the 1980s and 1990s often saw few minority officers as role models to encourage them. There is evidence of systemic racism in the military's criminal justice system. This spring, the Air Force acknowledged that young enlisted Black airmen were twice as likely to face punishment as their white counterparts.
Interpersonal racism is also an issue. A study published in 2016 in the peer-reviewed journal Sage found that white military veterans expressed more “virulent attitudes” toward African Americans relative to their civilian counterparts.
Many Black troops do succeed but not without overcoming obstacles.
Lt. Gen. Gary Brito was one of three Black ROTC students at Penn State University in the mid-1980s. Brito recalled that his fondness for the outdoors and interest in leading soldiers meshed well with infantry.
"Was going to do four years and get out," he said. "Turned into 10, turned into 20. Still love what I do. That’s what inspired me."
Brito, the Army's top personnel officer, does not recall overt racism blocking his ascent but allowed that his path was "a little more challenging than for others." He adopted, he said, the attitude that "any obstacle can be breached."
Retired Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard graduated from West Point in 1981 and said he was actively discouraged from climbing the ranks of armor, his career field. As a young officer in the 1990s, he was assigned to recruiting command, a move that would have limited his career options.
"I said, 'This is crap," Pittard said. "'This is bull crap.'"
Instead of recruiting, Pittard chose to enroll in the School for Advanced Military Studies at the Army's Command and General Staff College. He knew he'd find a combat assignment after graduation. The experience taught him that unless the Army encourages minority officers and offers them challenging assignments, diversity in its senior ranks will be left to chance.
“If you keep making assignments by accident and not on purpose, you’re going to get the same kind of by-accident results that we see now,” Pittard said.