Talk:Freddie Stowers

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"Buffalo Soldiers"

I have removed the Buffalo Soldiers category because Stowers and his unit were not, strictly speaking, "Buffalo Soldiers." I have included a note about the Buffalo Soldiers service during the war, which was stateside, although they did see action against...Mexico! One important difference, besides their founding dates and lineages, is that the 93rd had black officers, which the Buffalo Soldiers never did (at least not prior to desegregation: Their descendant units did, but they also had white troopers).

Although the information I have found online states that all the officers of the 93rd Division were white, I know that Vertner Tandy, serving in the 369th, was commissioned during the war (and I believe he was a warrant officer before that; the United States did not have Army warrant officers until 1916, so if he was, that would be another difference between the 93rd and the Buffalo regiments, which as far as I know had no warrant officers, black or white). I had thought that there were other black company-grade officers in the 371st, but I may have been mistaken---I will have to do some more research. In any case, the soldiers of the 93rd were not "Buffalo Soldiers." (Not all pre-1948 black soldiers were Buffalo Soldiers---and, since the units had white officers, not all Buffalo Soldiers were black!) Jpbrenna (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is the issue of the 92nd Division having a buffalo emblem, and black soldiers being called "buffalo soldiers" in popular parlance at the time, something which I overlooked until now. Was Lieutenant Jackie Robinson a "Buffalo Soldier?" Yes, because he was initially assigned to a traditional Buffalo unit before he became an officer. Were the other men in his eventual unit, the 761st Tank Battalion "Buffalo Soldiers?" Not the way I have seen the term traditionally used. Where does it start and stop? Was Jehu Grant a Buffalo Soldier? Are we going to call every post-Civil War but pre-1948 integration black soldier a "Buffalo Soldier?" To me, the term belongs to a specific period and type of a unit, and although we should mention later units of African-American soldiers or integrated units adopting the term, should we really put them in the same category? Has this policy been discussed? I hate to nit-pick, but I think there should be a category for all pre-integration units, with a special subcategory for the tradtional Buffalo Soldier cavalry units only.Jpbrenna (talk) 19:33, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]