Joseph Conklin LaNier, II was born in Columbus, Mississippi on 25 March 1926. He personally adapted the spelling of his surname to the French method using a capital N. He had studied pharmacy at Xavier University when Professor Peter (Annotator’s Note: the professor’s surname spelling not certain) taught freshmen chemistry. When the professor called roll on the first day of class, he used the French pronunciation of the name. Since that point, LaNier has spelled his name accordingly. LaNier was born on a 30 acre farm that was only partly cultivated. As a small boy, he would follow his father around the farm. Later in life, he asked his parent when events happened. The response from his father would be that the boy was approximately so many years old when it occurred. The difficulty of making a living was a memorable part of his childhood. He learned of this later since he was only three years old when the stock market crashed in 1929. For the most part, there was no money for the vast majority of the people because it was basically an agricultural economy. People grew what they could eat. There was little in the way of cash crops except for some small amounts of cotton. Income was small as a result. The farm had a horse and a wagon but no car. The location was six miles east of Columbus. The family only went to town on Saturdays. The family did not experience hunger because of the crops they grew. Shoes were worn only in the winter so they would last longer. The young LaNier could see what was happening to the family. His father was always out trying to bring in some income. Most all local families included parents who deeply believed in God. The existing social system was total segregation. There were never any social activities between the races in the proximity where LaNier grew up. His parents made sure the children knew how to navigate through the system and not offend anyone. There was only a two block area in town where African-Americans could congregate. It was called Catfish Alley. The name may have been taken from the Porgy and Bess opera. A black person had to say yes sir or no sir and show respect to a white person when they reached the age of majority. While living in the rural area, neighbors were quite a distance from each other so there was limited contact. The main social activities involved church. LaNier attended a one room schoolhouse with a single teacher for all subjects and students. Education was not a high priority. Available time for education was dependent upon when the crops required tending. When the family moved to the county seat in Columbus, things changed. LaNier was in the third grade by then and nine year old. He found that his prior education was no up to the level of the new school he enrolled in. He had to repeat third grade. His parents had never taught him to hate. He knew he had to do things that made him uncomfortable, but he tried not to get angry about it. He attempted to navigate around difficulties. He always had the credo that if you allow yourself to hate, you only hurt yourself. The person being hated cares not if he is disliked. Consequently, the negative feeling only affects the individual doing the hating. LaNier’s mother died when he was 14 years old. He was on his own after that. His father never remarried. LaNier dropped out of school in the sixth grade. His father was not happy with that because he was also a drop-out. He knew that the pathway out of poverty included education. Moving to the city, young LaNier watched himself and navigated through jobs and difficulties. At 17, he returned to school after being away for a year. His father was still having trouble with jobs. LaNier discovered that if he went into the service, he could provide his family with a financial allotment. He chose the Navy for no particular reason. The attack on Pearl Harbor did not have an effect on his thought processes. Patriotism was not part of his life as he grew up. He was almost like a non-person. He did not allow himself to dream about things that seemed out of reach for him.

Joseph LaNier joined the United States Navy in February 1944. African-Americans prior to 1942 were not allowed to join the Navy as a seaman. They were allowed to join as a steward’s mate who was a servant for an officer. Alternatively, they could join up as a cook. Dorie Miller did so and, despite no training for combat duty, he managed to shoot down more than one enemy plane during the Pearl Harbor attack [Annotator’s Note: Messman Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller manned anti-aircraft guns and tended wounded on the 7 December 1941 Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He was aboard the battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) during the action.]. After 1942, the restriction was lifted and LaNier would be among the first African-Americans to join the Navy as a seaman. It did not mean much to him at the time. He was not sure of where he was going in life. He was only certain that he wanted to help his father raise his younger sisters [Annotator’s Note: a large portion of LaNier’s seaman pay was allocated to go to his family to help with their financial conditions. LaNier’s father struggled with finding jobs and LaNier’s mother had died when her son was just 14 years of age.]. LaNier went into the military not knowing that the armed services were totally segregated. That discovery would subsequently trigger him to write an article about the conditions he experienced during the two wars in which he served. He found conditions in the military much like that he had witnessed in Mississippi [Annotator’s Note: LaNier had grown up near and in Columbus, Mississippi where segregation was enforced as the social norm.]. As a result, after enlisting, he was not surprised with the segregation policies he encountered in the Navy. LaNier did his basic training in Great Lakes, Illinois. He did not remember having any combat training. His impression was that the service did not really know what to do with them because prior to 1942 they could not join the Navy and as of that point in 1944, they were in the Navy [Annotator’s Note: the new black recruits in the Navy after 1942 could be rated as seaman vice cooks or messmates]. There was no career ladder for them. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, who served in President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, had made the comment that the Navy would remain strictly white. He could be turning over in his grave with the progress made since that statement [Annotator’s Note: Frank Knox died on 28 April 1944.]. The black seamen remained in a segregated unit, but they performed work similar to what they had done in civilian life prior to entry into the service. It was somewhat different for men from the North. LaNier was used to the manual labor he performed while in uniform because that was all he could previously find as a civilian. It was different when he reached Pearl Harbor because he saw natives doing what he had done as a civilian in Mississippi. That was a surprise. After his three months of training in 1944, he returned home on a nine day leave. When he returned to Great Lakes, he was assigned to a commanding officer. The officer announced that he was from Georgia and that he was committed to his unit making a contribution to the war effort. He also said that there were “only two kinds of niggers—a good nigger and a dead nigger.” He also committed that there would be no “dead niggers” in his outfit [Annotator’s Note: these are the offensive words paraphrased by LaNier in his interview.]. LaNier was only 18 years old at the time but some of the older men went to Commander Armstrong [Annotator’s Note: no given name provided] and the officer from Georgia was removed. Another commanding officer was named who had previously been a chief petty officer in the unit. His name was Hanson [Annotator’s Note: spelling not confirmed nor was a given name provided]. Hanson would follow the previous commanding officers around during inspections and assign extra duty to the men for any inspection infractions. He was a small man from Texas and soon got the nickname of Extra Duty Shorty. LaNier did recognize him as a decent person. LaNier was taught to look at a person without judgment according to color. He did not allow himself to hate those offensive people but made objective assessments of them as a person. The offensive statements by the officer from Georgia were made according to the norms that individual understood. After his leave at home, LaNier went back to Great Lakes and then to California for three weeks. He visited San Francisco during that time on liberty. He entered the huge train station which served as his Conrad Hilton [Annotator’s Note: the founder of the Hilton Hotel group] because of his lack of funds. He slept there because a good portion of his pay went back home to help with his family’s needs. This was his first experience with a city that was integrated. He looked for signs that would limit him on where he could go. It was refreshing to not see those restrictions. While he was at home on leave from basic training, he wanted to visit his friends and show off his uniform. He visited the laundry where he had worked before enlistment. He wanted to visit his best friend named Charles Lewis [Annotator’s Note: surname spelling not certain] who was a presser at the laundry. Lewis had taught LaNier how to press. While in the laundry press room, LaNier encountered an unfamiliar white man. LaNier responded “yes” to the man’s question as opposed to “yes sir.” The white man took offense and told LaNier that he should respond to him with “yes sir.” LaNier knew the environment and he knew better but had not remembered. He had gotten used to simply saying “yes” to everyone except officers. The man’s response to LaNier was a natural response according to the way he was raised. San Francisco was different because there were no restrictions on people of color. When LaNier traveled the country by military train, there was no segregation. It was a special chartered train. There were no other passengers on their chartered train. Nevertheless, if a civilian passed the Mason-Dixon Line or traveled south of St. Louis on a regular train, they had to be in a segregated car.

Joseph LaNier exited San Francisco toward Pearl Harbor. Everything that LaNier saw when he went into the Navy was new to him. He had never visited anywhere outside a 15 mile radius of his home prior to enlistment [Annotator’s Note: LaNier had grown up near Columbus, Mississippi.]. All the experiences and places he witnessed in the Navy were new to him. After spending three weeks at Camp Shoemaker, Lieutenant Hanson [Annotator’s Note: spelling not confirmed nor was a given name provided] called the men together and told them that the next day they would be headed to San Francisco to board ships for deployment. LaNier was fascinated. He had never seen an ocean or a ship. They boarded the ship and spent the night in the harbor. He was the first man up on the deck the next morning so he could discover new experiences that were all new to him. As the ship moved from the dock, the water was greenish in color. As they proceeded further, the water became blue. He did not know why and had no one to ask. As the ship went further out to sea, he noticed that San Francisco disappeared. It was going beyond the horizon. He did not realize what was happening and was frightened by the disappearance. He had no idea that the world was round. That was a result of his lack of education in a segregated system. Next, LaNier got seasick. There was nothing in sick bay to help him. He was told that he would get used to the ship’s motion. He could not eat or keep food down until about the third day at sea. The voyage to Pearl Harbor took seven days. He was very pleased to see land again. The trip had not been fun for him. He was fascinated when the ship reached Pearl Harbor. Someone pointed out Diamondhead. The name did not make any sense to him because a diamond was something that appeared on a card. In a recent tour of Pearl Harbor, LaNier asked a guide about the name. The explanation was that from a distance a mineral on the mountain made it appear as a diamond. While on the voyage, LaNier was a passenger on the merchant ship that had been converted to accommodate military personnel. That was the same type of ship which later would transport the men between islands in the Pacific. LaNier subsequently checked to find the name of the vessel for his book, but the name was not available. LaNier was at Pearl Harbor for about eight months after arrival in May 1944. The commanding officer told him that he would be assigned to the Boathouse. That suited LaNier because he felt he would be able to learn about repair of motors which would benefit him after his discharge. Then the officer told him to put on his whites [Annotator’s Note: dress white uniform]. That did not make sense because motor repair is greasy work. Why would he be wearing white? He discovered that small boats ran all day between Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. They ran as needed and not on a schedule. LaNier would operate one of these small ferry boats with another sailor for about four months. He was then transferred to the laundry. Someone had to do the work [Annotator’s Note: LaNier had previous experience as a presser in a laundry back home in Columbus, Mississippi.]. LaNier was asked by his daughter during an interview for his book as to whether he resented never having combat training prior to being sent to Iwo Jima or Okinawa. LaNier responded that he considered whatever he was assigned to do for the Navy as just as important as any other assignment he or any other man had been given. He understands that freedom is not free. Nevertheless, he did resent not receiving any combat training. It felt as if that was a statement regarding the expendability of him and his colleagues in the Navy. There was never anything to confirm that, but it was his feeling after growing up in a segregated environment. The men were taught to fire a carbine but never put under live fire to crawl under obstacles. He did not resent any assignment given to him while he was serving. On Iwo Jima, LaNier was attached to the Carpenter Shop. An officer with a rapid speech pattern came by the shop. The officer used the word “nigger” while speaking with a carpenter. LaNier overheard that word being used and asked for an audience with the officer later. LaNier was 19 years old at the time. There were no black officers, only white officers. LaNier expressed his dissatisfaction to the officer. The officer apologized to LaNier for the use of the term. LaNier wished that he remembered the officer’s name because the acknowledgement meant so much to the young sailor. The officer did not have to grant him an audience because he surely knew what the young man wanted to talk about. Additionally, the officer did not have to express his apology for the use of the term, but he did. It meant much to LaNier and confirmed that he would have missed that opportunity if he had allowed himself to hate. The officer would have just been dismissed as a bad person with no good qualities. The avoidance of hate is a life lesson that LaNier tries to teach young people today. After eight months at Pearl Harbor, his commanding officer, Extra Duty Shorty—who was never officially referred to by that name, called off several names including LaNier’s [Annotator’s Note: the commanding officer had previously been a chief petty officer who followed his commanders around to dispense extra duty when recruits had failed in some aspect of regular inspection. He was a short man so the recruits started referring to him as Extra Duty Shorty. He came to be known as a decent commander following his promotion.]. The singled out men were told that they were to be Seabees [Annotator’s Note: Seabees is a twist on the abbreviation for Construction Battalions—CBs.]. They were assigned to the 23rd Special Seabees. The unit was formed in Pearl Harbor in early January 1945. The commander did not follow them and LaNier regretted that. The unit went to Barber’s Point and then Iroquois Point. After a brief time, they boarded a ship for “destination unknown” which was a popular term at the time.

Joseph LaNier had no training or explanation concerning how to perform as a Seabee [Annotator’s Note: Seabee is a twist on the abbreviation for Construction Battalions—CB.] as he went from island to island. He was at Eniwetok which was a part of the Marshall Islands. The ship also made it to Saipan, Tinian and Guam, but LaNier did not get off the ship. It was not until Iwo Jima that he finally got off the ship. While the ship was anchored offshore, the Executive Officer came down in the hold to advise the men not to pick up anything they saw on the beach that they might consider to be a souvenir. Things of interest could be booby trapped. That was the only advice he received. When he went ashore, he learned he would be a stevedore. That is an individual who offload ships and loads vehicles. There were no supermarkets on the island. Everything had to come by ship to the war zone. Someone had to unload them. Seabees also built airports and roads. LaNier did not realize it at the time but all that he was providing was physical labor. Looking back at it, he resents the fact but on the other hand, it probably saved his life. After all, he was not involved in the invasion of Iwo Jima. He went in after the assault troops. The enemy mowed many of them down. LaNier went ashore on 24 February while the initial assault on Iwo Jima began on 19 February [Annotator’s Note: 1945.]. He was on the island when the iconic flag raising occurred [Annotator’s Note: the Marines raised the flag on top of Mount Suribachi as symbolic of their victorious achievement.]. LaNier did not see the raising, but he was on the beach when it happened. He lived in a foxhole for two months. Instead of the 36 hours planned to take the island, it took 36 days. The invading force had to move inland and take the island with all its tunnels. Roads had to be built to get ammunition to the front. Living in the foxholes and the whole experience was an enjoyable thing for LaNier. He really learned about war having been a part of it. Iwo Jima did not make any particular impression on LaNier when he first saw the island. He has since returned to the island and circled it in an airplane. It was impressive to him then. He was disappointed to hear that the island was returned to Japan. It had cost so many lives during the war. Then he thought about the logistical support of the island in its faraway location, and he better understood the decision. In 1945, Iwo Jima was a barren piece of land that had been bombarded unmercifully. The island now is like any other piece of land. That was a big difference from when he was initially there. Also, generals were saluting him when he got off the plane. That was certainly different than 1945. There is only one time per year that Americans are allowed on the island by Japan because it is a memorial to the battle. Marine General “Howling Wolf” Smith [Annotator’s Note: General Holland M. Smith was the Marine Corps commander on Iwo Jima.] did not agree with the plan to invade Iwo Jima. Tunnels were everywhere. Flamethrowers had to be used against the enemy on the tunnel openings. Mount Suribachi was like a hotel with tunnels and rooms throughout. There was a Japanese huge artillery piece that was hidden in the mountain on a track that would enable it to shoot from both sides of the mountain. All the American firepower could never silence it. LaNier carried a carbine and a .45, but he never fired at anyone. When he moved up from the foxholes on the beach to a location with permanent tents, there was an Army camp next to his position. He observed an individual approaching the camp from the beach. There was a submachine gun emplacement on the corner of the camp. Two men serviced the gun. One fed the bullets into the gun while the other man operated it. The two gunners sat up on the platform with their weapon and awaited the individual approaching the camp. When he was within 50 yards, they mowed him down. LaNier watched as it happened. During the time when he was in the foxhole, he noticed a group of individuals standing in a circle around something. He went to see what was happening. It was a Japanese individual who had been starved out of the mountain because of lack of supplies. As he approached the Marine lines, he was shot in the head. It was crazy to LaNier. When he reconsidered that the enemy would fake their surrender to approach a crowd of Americans only to blow them up with a hidden grenade, he better understood why that had happened. The incident still gave him a hard time. Most military personnel would admit that unless they were in the heat of battle, they would have a difficult time shooting one person. It is different if you do not see that person. Those were the two things that were unnerving. The portion of the island where LaNier was located during the battle was like a desert, but upon his subsequent return, he saw that it was highly vegetated. That was a big difference. While on Iwo Jima, LaNier worked ashore on unloading ships, in the carpenter shop and in food service. He was six feet tall so there might have been some consideration that he might not survive for a long duration unloading ships. Although he never experienced enemy fire, he did have a situation of friendly fire one time. Some of the soldiers would go together and combine their efforts on a foxhole so that there were multiple rooms. It was a case of American ingenuity. On one occasion while LaNier was in one of the rooms, an individual was sitting across from him cleaning his carbine. After it was reassembled, the man pulled the trigger and it fired. The round passed just underneath LaNier. LaNier just froze. That man did not mean to shoot at him but he could have killed him. That was the only close call that LaNier experienced.

Joseph LaNier had a close call on Okinawa while driving a truck. The LST [Annotator’s Note: LST—landing ship, tank] was like a Higgins Boat [Annotator’s Note: LCVP—landing craft, vehicle, personnel largely built by Higgins Industries of New Orleans thus called Higgins Boats] in that it could come right up to the shore and lower its ramp. The truck would enter the LST and be loaded up and then driven off to its destination. The work had to be done at night during blackout. There was reflective material on the front of his truck to prevent friendly forces from running into his vehicle. LaNier was awaiting his turn to be loaded. While he was waiting, a voice called out “Joe” and got his attention. The voice asked directions to a specific beach nearby and LaNier gave it to him. As it turned out, the voice was that of a Japanese soldier who spoke perfect English. The enemy even had on American uniforms. The Japanese soldier and his unit were captured while advancing on the beach that had been asked about. They could have shot LaNier, but they did not. It was the third close call [Annotator’s Note: LaNier had two other close calls while on Iwo Jima previously.]. In another incident, LaNier was transporting ammunition up to the front line. He had not scouted the road before approaching a Y in the road. He took the left side where there was supposed to be a sentry. The sentry was not there. When bullets began to fly over his truck, he decided to back out of that fire zone as fast as he could. As he retreated, he spotted the sentry and asked why he did not warn him of the danger. The sentry responded that he figured LaNier would find out when he got there. That was a prime example of American humor. LaNier understood and laughed about it. The Marines were in different camps from him. They left after Iwo Jima was secure. LaNier’s duties were to transport goods from the ships that were being unloaded. It seemed as if any ship voyage LaNier took always seemed to take 30 days because of the avoidance of submarines. LaNier always wanted to drive a truck. On the way from Iwo Jima to Okinawa, he and the other passengers took it easy. They washed their clothes off the side of the ship. He told his family about that cleaning method, and they did not believe his story. Upon arrival at Okinawa, the island was pretty secure. It was late August or early September. The war with Japan ended while he was in Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: August 1945]. LaNier transported food between camps on the east and west side of the island. There were few black officers while he was in training. Some ensigns were promoted and sent to the training schools to provide role models. LaNier met some of them. One was named Gravely [Annotator’s Note: Samuel Lee Gravely]. He would later become an admiral. When asked why there were not more black admirals, Gravely replied that they had not been in business that long since it took 27 years to make that promotion level. LaNier came in contact with a chaplain named Rainwater [Annotator’s Note: no given name provided] who was a young man. The chaplain tried to read scripture to the black men but LaNier told him that he better start working with some fire and brimstone if he wanted to reach the black men. The young chaplain took that to heart and came back with much more energy. For the most part, the Navy did not know what to do with the black sailors. LaNier would be assigned to an officer’s quarters to assist him until he left the island on 5 December 1945. When the end of the war with Japan came, LaNier was happy. Other than that, he does not remember any special feelings. There was no special meeting called to pass the word of the victory. The men just passed the word among themselves.

Joseph LaNier did not know what he would do after the service. He was reserve and not regular Army. Consequently, his discharge would come six months after the end of the conflict. He was given the opportunity to reenlist. He was told he could chose where he would serve. He wanted to go to France because of his French last name. The Army did not have any openings in France so LaNier decided not to reenlist. When LaNier learned of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he decided to utilize the benefit. It covered school tuition and books and paid 90 dollars per month for every month of military service. He thought someone would have to be stupid to pass up that offer. He had to return to pick up some high school requirements. His mentor suggested that he not go to school at his location because he would have difficulty getting into pharmacy school. He went away to school and had enough time in the service such that the G.I. Bill covered through his first semester in his sophomore year. While he was in Okinawa, LaNier experienced his first typhoon. He did not anticipate the devastation. The winds were so strong that you could lean into it and it was like leaning on a wall. It was interesting to him. LaNier returned home on a ship that arrived at Portland, Oregon. He did not know that a large ship could go that far inland. He spent three weeks in Portland getting shots and other things. When he received liberty, he went to the Royal Palm Café. The waitress took his order. He wanted a bowl of buttermilk and cornbread. Being out of the United States for two years, he really appreciated that. He did not want to be on a train on Christmas day. He told the waitress that, and she and her husband took him in for Christmas. The husband was a drummer. LaNier regrets not being able to remember their names. He never got back in touch with them. The day after New Years, he took a train to Denver. He had a three hour layover there. He went to a drug store and ordered an ice cream cone. There was a white clerk about his age behind the counter. He did not know if he could sit at the counter. He had not been in a civilian non-segregated environment like that before except for a brief time in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: before his overseas deployment]. The waitress sensed his concern and offered him a seat. That incident made up LaNier’s mind that he would return to Denver to live. LaNier makes the point to others that a simple act of kindness can change the life of someone else. It took nine years, but he returned to live in Denver. He subsequently remained in Denver. After he finished his ice cream, he walked outside and there was a machine washing the streets. He had been in big, dirty cities but had never seen a city where the streets were washed. It made a positive impact on him. Denver would be a decent place to live. After he returned home [Annotator’s Note: to Columbus, Mississippi], LaNier was restless. There were decisions about the future that he had not yet made. He was discharged at Middleton, Tennessee after a ten day leave. He started a job at a firm which made cinderblocks. The work ate up his hands. He decided to go back to school. He enrolled in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It was about 45 miles from Memphis. The segregationist system was still in place. He had considered enrollment at Howard University in Washington, but there was no pharmacy school. In reviewing a Crisis magazine by Dr. E. B. DuBois, LaNier found an advertisement for a pharmacy school and applied for entry. He subsequently received his degree in 1952. At Mississippi Industrial College at Holly Springs, LaNier attended school year round to finish. It was not an accredited college, but there was a good high school. Most of the teachers had a degree or they were working to achieve one. There was a homecoming parade downtown. LaNier decided to wear his uniform. He decided on the spur of the moment to go over to the courthouse to register to vote. The response from the clerk was “niggers don’t vote here” [Annotator’s Note: direct quote from LaNier]. He turned around and left. LaNier tells people that the clerk was actually being kind. The response could have been much worse in 1946 [Annotator’s Note: LaNier smiles at the irony as he tells the story]. That was something he had not planned. He felt assured that he would not be turned down while wearing his uniform. That was his experience upon returning home.

Joseph LaNier was 15 years old and working in a nightclub when an incident happened in Columbus [Annotator’s Note: Mississippi—LaNier’s hometown]. A well known acquaintance was working for a meat market. As he walked by, LaNier noticed he was carrying a greasy bag. He inquired what was in the bag and the acquaintance said that it was just a delivery. No one paid any further attention. About three weeks later, LaNier was in a second floor pool hall in Catfish Alley [Annotator’s Note: the two-block, black section of Columbus was referred to by that nickname which LaNier speculated could have come from the Porgy and Bess opera.] A large white man and a black youth came into the pool hall. The two entrants into the pool hall pointed at LaNier, and the white man asked the black youth if LaNier was “the nigger” they were looking for [Annotator’s Note: the words quoted were used by LaNier in the interview.]. LaNier did not know either of the individuals so he felt sure they were not talking about him. Billy Herndon ran the pool hall and told LaNier that he better go with them. LaNier went downstairs and in a car was the acquaintance that they had talked to three weeks earlier. Also in the car were pistols on the seat of the vehicle. LaNier was put in the back seat with the other young men. Before they moved off, the man who LaNier thought was a sheriff asked him if he had gotten any of the money. The interrogator’s name was Gooseby [Annotator’s Note: the surname spelling is uncertain and no given name was provided]. LaNier had no idea of what he was talking about so he said, “no sir.” The boys were driven to an abandoned barn and one of the boys was stripped and tied up and secured. He was beaten. Despite that, he would not give in and acknowledge anything. A plane flew over and the two men thought the flyers above were seeing what was going on and looking upon it with joy. The boy finally said that he would take them to the money. They were gone about an hour. The man who LaNier thought was a sheriff remained with him and the other boy. The other boy told the white man that LaNier had nothing to do with the money. Nevertheless, when the group was back together, LaNier felt he would be next for the beating. He was not. They drove the boys back and let them off. LaNier was admonished that if he actually did have something to do with the missing money, he would pay for it. That was the kind of atrocities that went on during that period of time that LaNier had witnessed. He tells people that we need to be proud of the progress made but there is plenty left to do. LaNier does not hate those people. He was never taught to hate so he does not. His education has been to avoid that. He may not be greatly educated but he has established principles to avoid hatred.

Joseph LaNier tells others to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself. He rose to be vice-president of a major hospital in Denver, Colorado despite not receiving the opportunities that he thought he should have had. He held that elevated position for ten years until he retired. It takes recognition of the opportunities combined with work to get to where one would like to be. Everyone can do that. African-Americans for too long have felt that White-America has an obligation to them. It is the individual’s obligation instead to go out and find the opportunities and use them. It is not easy, but one can do whatever they want to do. The war did not change LaNier. His father was not a religious fanatic, but he was a man of principle. He never used a curse word. When his son graduated, the elder LaNier took all measures to attend the ceremony. LaNier was not aware his father had arrive until he turned his tassel and he spotted him. He was so pleased to see the pride in his father’s face. LaNier was always taught right from wrong. He has kept that over his life. Although he has been angry about things he was powerless to change, he has never been bitter. He is just happy he was not born in Nigeria. It is important to keep institutions like the National WWII Museum going because young people today do not know what life was like during that time. Not even looking back to slavery, the young do not know what was happening in the 1930s and 1940s. Books have not been written from the individual’s personal experience without it being about bashing something or someone. LaNier’s book is about his life and what he accomplished. It makes him realize that only in the United States could that happen. [Annotator’s Note: a casual discussion about the interview process ensues.] LaNier recollects working at a café and asking for a raise and getting fired. He went down the street and received the equivalent pay that he asked for. Despite all that, he still managed not to hate.