April 23, 2012
As Kents Store resident Frank Brown looks at old photographs and memorabilia, he remembers the day he arrived at Montford Point camp in Jacksonville, NC.
It was 1943 and he was only 18 years old. This was at a time when things were segregated based on color, which meant he couldn't serve his country with his fellow white Marines.
So, for three years Brown was part of Montford Point, a part of the United States Marine Corps reserved only for African Americans.
“I was willing to go and fight. I wasn't thinking about dying,” he said.
Nearly 20,000 Marines trained, went to war and some even died for our freedom. Seventy years later, President Barack Obama will officially honor the nearly 200 Marines still living at a celebration at the White House.
Brown is one of them receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. "It makes you feel real great that you are somebody. That you sacrificed for your country and it is now being rewarded for it," he said.
Brown will head to Washington in May for the ceremony. He says he will add this medal to his collection of plaques and certificates from his days as a Marine.
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