The first two black Generals were father and son, Gens. Benjamin 0. Davis Sr. and Jr. They became Generals in 1940 and 1957 respectively, and were superb officers, but neither ever commanded a tactical unit in combat as a General.

In July of 1968, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade was involved in a series of very nasty firefights in the Rach Vong area of South Vietnam, in one of which the Brigade commander was wounded. Brigade command passed to the deputy commander, Col. Frederic E. Davison, who thereby became the first black combat Brigade commander. Gen. Creighton Abrams pinned stars on his collar a few weeks later. The General says that he was in the right place at the right time, but the story of how he came to be there is an epic one. To place this in context, in 1968 the two major civil rights acts were less than five years old, many major U.S. cities had never had a black police officer, and Colin Powell was a new Major.

Frederic Ellis Davison was born in segregated Washington, D.C. on Sept. 28, 1917, graduating from Dunbar High School in 1934, and from Howard University in 1938, cum laude. These were the elite black schools of the time, demanding and uncompromising, and the Generalcredits much of his success to their influence. He received his masters degree in 1940. and was commissioned a reserve Second Lieutenant of Infantry in 1939. He would remain a ìmuddy bootsî Infantryman throughout his career. It would be more than 10 years before he could officially command white soldiers.

During World War II, Capt. Davison served in North Africa and throughout the Italian campaign as a rifle company commander with the 366th Infantry Regiment and 371st Infantry Regiment of the 92nd Infantry Division. This fighting in the Appenine Mountains, was as miserable as any in history. A unit would fight for weeks, constantly wet and cold, to clear a ridge line, only to find another, higher ridge line beyond, defended by some of the toughest units in the Wehrmacht. There was a constant wastage of men from wounds, pneumonia, trench foot and exposure. The Generalís memory of the German ìeighty-eightî is particularly vivid still. The 92nd Division was composed of black troops, some black company officers, and white officers of field grade and above. It must be said that the standard of top leadership was appallingly bad. The future General took note, and learned.

After returning home, he attended Howard University Medical School for a year before accepting a regular commission in the now desegregating Army. His assignments for the next two decades were varied, composing the education of a senior officer: Advanced Infantry School, Army War College, a second masters degree, service in the office of the Undersecretary of the Army, together with several intervals of troop command and staff duty. So it was that in 1968, he volunteered for troop duty in Vietnam as a self-described "old Colonel." In due course, the job of deputy commander in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade came open. The Brigade was then commanded by as fine a soldier and man as you could hope to meet, Gen. Robert Forbes, who said, in effect, ìI donít give a damn what color he is if he is a good soldier!î

It was thus that Col. Davison came to be in the right place at the right time. During this time, with Gen. Forbes on leave, the Brigade actually predicted the onset of the Tet Offensive around Saigon. Higher headquarters had differing ideas as to the time and place, but when the Viet Cong struck, the Brigade was waiting for them, chewed them up and spit them out, killing 900 in four days. Many other units were surprised and took heavy casualties. Space does not permit a full account of Gen. Davison's tenure in command, but I can relate what it was like to serve under him.

I was attached to the Brigade in late 1968, a buck sergeant commanding a 73-foot Infantry boat, and was astonished to be treated as a department head. I served under Lt. Col. A.W. Malone, commanding the Fifth Bn. 12th U.S. Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, a soldier and man whom I respect as highly as I do the General. American soldiers know when they are being well or poorly led, and I can affirm that we had complete confidence in our leadership. Rank meant little to us, and color meant nothing. Competence alone counted. Gen. Forbes, Gen. Davison, and Col. Malone never forgot that they had been entrusted with the lives of young Americans. They keenly felt the enormous weight of the knowledge that even if they did their jobs perfectly, young men were still going to die. You could make mistakes in this Brigade; we were a bunch of amateurs stiffened by a very few professionals, but if you were negligent or careless, you were gone.

The General had an area of operations of about 1,000 square kilometers, to be controlled by four rifle Battalions, an Artillery Battalion, and a Troop of Armored Cavalry. He performed to such effect that Gen. Creighton Abrams has stated that he never had to be concerned with that area, which constituted the southern and western defenses of Saigon.

Gen. Davison got his second star and went on to command the Eighth Infantry Division in Germany, and then the Military District of Washington, D.C. before retiring in December, 1974. He has since served for several years as executive assistant to the President of Howard University. The General insists that his later military success was due to the performance of the soldiers of the 199th. The General lives in Washington, D.C. Sadly, his wife of 56 years, Jean Brown Davison, died in 1996. She was a teacher and educational administrator, to all accounts as highly respected in her field as he is in his.

The 199th Light Infantry has a Brigade association, in which Gen. Davison, Gen. Forbes, and Col. Malone are all active, soldiers among soldiers. Should anyone suggest to us that the war was lost, we will reply, "We won our piece of it; sorry about yours."