A Man's a Man

Cornelius ("Connie") Charlton was the eighth and biggest of Mrs. Van Charlton's 17 babies--he weighed 15 lbs. 8 oz. at birth--and he was a good boy from the time he could toddle. Unlike many other U.S. parents, the Charltons never thought for a moment that he would grow up to be President. The Charltons are Negroes.

Negroes or not, they had great hopes for Connie. When he was 15, he stood 6 ft. tall and weighed 180 lbs. He never touched liquor, tobacco or profanity; he was honest, liked to cook, did well in his schoolwork and yearned to be a soldier.

"Mom, tell 'em a little tale," he begged. "Tell 'em I'm old enough to join the Army." His mother made him wait until he was 17, but she was delighted. Connie's father, a thin, patient man, had toiled as a West Virginia coal miner for 38 years, and then, seeking opportunity, had moved the family to the noisy streets of The Bronx. All he had found were part-time jobs as a porter and sexton. In Mrs. Charlton's mind, soldiering would be a fine career. When Connie finished his freshman year in high school and enlisted in the Army, his mother kissed him goodbye as she had kissed his three brothers who served in World War II, and a fourth who enlisted after V-J day.

The Third Day. News of Connie came to the Charltons intermittently. He served as an enlisted clerk at Aberdeen Proving Ground. He was transferred to Okinawa. Last year, when he was 21, he wrote proudly that he was with the 25th Infantry Division in Korea--and a sergeant. He had raised a mustache "befitting his position." Then the Charltons got word that Connie had been killed.

Connie died on June 2, 1951, near Chipo, Korea, at the summit of a heavily defended hill which his company had been attacking without success for two days. When his platoon leader was wounded on the third day, Connie took over. The assault party was pinned down by intense fire from automatic weapons in fortified emplacements above them. Connie crept forward, knocked out the first two positions with hand grenades, and organized a new assault. He was badly wounded. The platoon was driven back by a hail of explosives. Undaunted, he regrouped his men and led them forward once more. They were driven back again.

Crest of the Hill. Bleeding profusely from the chest, he saw to the removal of other wounded men, and rallied the survivors. They fought to the crest. But there was an enemy emplacement hidden on the reverse slope of the hill. He charged it alone and was again hit by a grenade. But before he died, he "raked the position with devastating fire which eliminated it and routed the defenders."

Last week, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Sergeant Cornelius H. Charlton was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. "The death of my boy," said his father, "distinctly makes a liar out of Paul Robeson and others who have said the Negro will not fight for our country. Those. . . who have felt that the Negro is a second-class citizen must know in their hearts that it isn't so."

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