a cold and hostile land somewhere east of Eden" (31).
Drafted into the army just three weeks following his eighteenth birthday, Ralph David Abernathy boarded a bus and soon discovered "a sign which read WELCOME TO COLUMBUS, GA. For the first time in my life, I had crossed a state line!" (36). Abernathy's army experience was served in a time when the military was still almost completely segregated. What few black officers there were found it difficult even to be saluted by white soldiers of inferior rank (40-41).
Having been promoted to platoon sergeant following basic training, Abernathy and his men are transported to Le Havre, France, just in time for the end of the war in Europe. After being "trucked from one devastated city to another," the sight of casualties had its effect on him:
I thank God that I have been spared--not merely from death but from the necessity of confronting the enemy and either participating in his destruction or else refusing to kill another human being and as a consequence risking death myself. I have by now concluded that
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