SgtMaj Edgar R Huff

[USMCRET6391]

Edgar R. Huff enlisted in the Marine Corps in June 1942, and underwent training at the new Montford Point Camp.

He reported for duty at a time when the Montford Point operation desperately needed forceful and intelligent African Americans, with or without previous military experience, to take over from the white non-commissioned officers of the Special Enlisted Staff.

He attended drill instructor's course, served briefly as an assistant to two white drill instructors, took over a platoon of his own, and soon assumed responsibility for all the DIs at Montford Point. He made Platoon Sergeant in September 1943, Gunnery Sergeant in November of that year, an din June 1944 became First Sergeant of a malaria control detachment at Montford Point.

He went overseas six months later as the First Sergeant of the 5th Depot Company, served on Saipan, saw combat on Okinawa, and took part in the occupation of North China.

Discharged from the Marine Corps when the war ended, he spent a few months as a civilian and re-enlisted. He saw service in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The first black Marine to complete 30 years of regular service retired on September 28, 1972. To quote Sergeant Major Huff, "I wanted to be a Marine because I had always heard that the Marine Corps was the toughest outfit going, and I felt that I was the toughest going, and I wanted to be a member of the best organization."

His military life spanned the dark years of segregation and the gradual advance toward integration to the present climate of human awareness. When he ended his active duty years, he summed up a varied and honored career with a simple oft-repeated statement: "The Marine Corps has been good to me and I feel I have been good to the Marine Corps." There can be no better yardstick by which to evaluate the worth of the Corps to black Marines and their worth in return than that philosophy, for good measure received, good measure given.