On left, Montford Point Marine MSgt Willie (Matt) Miller resides
in Metro Atlanta and is a member of the Montford Point Marine
Association, Atlanta Chapter #5. On right, Private First Class John
Atcherson Meyers, 93, is one of four original Montford Point Marines
living in Metro Atlanta. Meyers is also involved with Atlanta Chapter #5.
(Photos courtesy of National Montford Point Marine Association Atlanta
Chapter)
Real Hero Report | February 2020 | 21
has his second lieutenant’s bars pinned on by his wife. He is Frederick
C. Branch of Charlotte, NC.” November 1945. (Photo courtesy of the
National Archives)
National Montford Point Marine Association
The National Montford Point Marine Association was founded
in 1965 after more than 400 Marines gathered for a reunion in
the strong bonds of friendship born from shared adversities and to
devote ourselves to the furtherance of these accomplishments to
ensure more peaceful times.”
The association has chapters all across the country who focus
their time and energy on preserving history and helping others in
need.
The Montford Point Marine Association maintains archives,
as well as the Montford Point Marines Museum in Jacksonville,
North Carolina. The museum is at Camp Gilbert H. Johnson,
where Montford Point Camp once stood and it houses the largest
number of artifacts of African American Marines from the 1940’s
Q & A with Ambassador (Sergeant) Theodore Roosevelt
Britton, Jr. & Corporal James Pack
Why did you choose the Marine Corps?
Ambassador Britton: I am a snob with a superiority complex,
and it didn’t come easy laughter. I come out of South Carolina
and I was rustic. Coming from South Carolina to New York, I
was ten years old and they put me back three years on the basis
that children from the South were not as smart as those from up
north. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to tell the world that I am
different.
By the time I reached high school, a gentleman, who had three
degrees from Princeton and a doctorate from Columbia, took
me under his wing and wanted me to become a gentleman and a
scholar. For the next three and a half years, before I went into the
Marine Corps, that was his constant thing to me every day. So by
the time I went into the Marine Corps, no one was above me, and
no one was below me.
When I went down for induction in the Marine Corps, I was
offered the Army and the Navy. I really had thought about going
into the Air Corps, but for some reason when I was offered the
Army and the Navy, I said “neither.” That was symbolic of my
snobbery. You don’t tell me what you are going to give me, I am
going to tell you what I will take. I told them that I wanted the
Marine Corps and was told that it was too late. We stood there
until the Sergeant said that he would go and see what he could do.
He came back and said, “You’re in.”
Corporal Pack: When I got out of high school, I worked in
a steel mill until I got drafted. I had a brother in the Navy and
another brother in the Army. Me and another fella, who also had
let’s join the Marines – they are the baddest people around.
What are some of your earliest memories as a Marine?
Ambassador Britton:
that some of us would get punished; in fact, I knew that all of
us would get punished. But in no case would the drill instructor
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