Army sergeant Monroe, who turned 89 in April, was introduced to the tall, suavely mustachioed leader of the Free French Forces in a commandeered Normandy farmhouse a week or so after D-Day. Monroe’s unit had hit the beach a few days earlier.
“There were still bullets flying from remaining German positions,” Monroe told me when I met him last November. “The guy piloting the LST said, ‘When I let that gate down, you better whip your asses on out of there.’ We jumped into four feet of water and started running. You had to hurry your behind before the German 88s and artillery got you, and they were pretty accurate.”
Arduously, the soldiers fought their way off the beach. Moving inland, the trees bore strange fruit—Army Rangers still dangling in their parachutes, shot during their descent. “No time to cut them down yet,” Monroe said.
At the farmhouse, Monroe was selected to meet de Gaulle because the young noncom spoke French—“part of the fine education I received at Montclair High School,” he said proudly. He and the general exchanged pleasantries. In telling me this, Monroe did an impression of de Gaulle’s speech and bearing that vividly brought to mind old newsreel clips of the French leader. “I was honored and charmed by the general’s genuine pleasure in meeting me,” he said. “That was a memory for a lifetime.”
No less important to him is the memory of “the extraordinary kindness” shown him one night sometime later by a French family. “The wife went out in the dark and off to another farm to get me some eggs and bread and other things to eat, because they had nothing at home,” he said, looking me straight in the eye as if to make sure I got the significance.
I did, in general terms, but it took time before I really understood. This chance meeting of ours had come about because I was walking down the street in downtown Montclair doing some Sunday chores. As usual, I had my camera with me, and, as usual, I was like a hungry bird, eyeing everything in sight. Coming to a corner, I noticed a decal on the windshield of a parked, late-model American car. It said, “World War II Veteran.” Dangling from the rearview mirror was a handicapped tag.
I was thinking about whether I could get both the decal and the tag in one picture—there aren’t many WWII veterans left, and they probably are not in the best of health—when the car suddenly beeped. I turned around and saw an elderly gentleman, nattily dressed, walking toward me with a hitch in his step, holding a car remote. He was one in a stream of people leaving the black church on the corner. I thought he might be suspicious of my interest in his car, but he greeted me warmly, and soon we were engaged in a remarkable conversation that went on for hours, first at the curb, then, at my invitation, in a nearby tea salon.
Monroe has a husky but gentle voice, and speaks with impeccable diction. “I’m a Mulligan stew—I have Irish, English, Madagascar, Algonquin, and Cherokee blood,” he told me, speaking of his boyhood in a prewar Montclair where all but one of the movie theaters were segregated. (“The Bellevue, you didn’t even think of going there, not in those days.”) He and his second wife, Mary Frances, have been married more than 40 years. Monroe has a son and a daughter from a brief first marriage. For the last 35 years and counting, he has worked as an independent life insurance salesman.
We talked about a lot of things: the power of religious faith, Monroe’s distrust of the FDA and of financier George Soros, his disgust with Wall Street, and his love of music—which runs from Aida to the famous Bill Monroe, known as the father of bluegrass.
He told me about the game he and his grandfather played “when I was a little bit of a fellow. There were very few automobiles on the road back then, mostly Fords and Chevys.” The two would challenge each other “to identify the make of the car from the sound before it came into view.” He also described the fine points of plastering and bricklaying, his first vocation. But what made the deepest impression were the Normandy stories and three others that took place while he was in uniform.
After graduating from Montclair High School in 1940 or ’41, he doesn’t remember which, Monroe worked as a construction laborer and plasterer’s apprentice until he entered the Army in May 1943. His skill at typing, acquired in high school, and his sharp intelligence qualified him to serve as a supply clerk and later as an Army company administrator. After preliminary training at Fort Dix, he and his unit, all black soldiers, were sent to Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Setting down his cup of tea, Monroe described their arrival at the camp, suddenly taking on the persona of a tough-as-nails drill sergeant.
“I guess you know you are in the South now,” he intoned, glaring at me. “We have military and civilian buses going into and out of this camp. You will take your appropriate seat in the back of the bus. If you give us any trouble, you will be prosecuted by both the military and the civilian authorities.” Returning to his normal tone, Monroe said, “You can imagine how this little black boy had to feel. That night I fell asleep crying in my bunk.”
Later, when Monroe was stationed at Camp Claiborne in Louisiana, he obtained a pass to visit home. “I was standing in the segregated part of the train station when in came two black MPs, who shouted, ‘What are you guys doing in here? Get out on the platform! We’ll tell you when you can come in and ask for your ticket.’ They said the stationmaster didn’t want to see us inside the building, not even in the segregated part. Can you imagine that? These two black MPs had been so thoroughly brainwashed, they thought they were white.”
The third story took place in Washington, D.C., after the war. By then, Monroe had participated in the Battle of the Bulge and served in the Pacific Theater. His route home took him to Hawaii, San Francisco (in January, with only their lightweight Pacific uniforms to wear until overcoats could be issued), and then to the nation’s capital. Waiting in the station for his train home, still in his crisp sergeant’s uniform, he decided to get his boots shined and took a seat in one of the elevated chairs. “The black bootblack was running around, nervous, and I saw some white fellows off to the side whispering and pointing,” Monroe related. “The bootblack finally came over after talking with them and said, ‘I…I…I…I can’t shine your shoes, sir, if you’re up there. But if you stand down here, I can shine them.’
“A lightbulb turned on in my head, and I said, ‘Never mind,’ and walked out.”
I was taking this in when Monroe continued. “I traveled three-quarters of the way around the world, and everywhere I went I was treated with respect—outside the United States,” he said. “You can imagine, perhaps, that I must have a certain degree of hatred. But I have succeeded in removing that.”
How? I asked. “Two religious ladies I knew, who did not know each other, each told me, ‘You can’t carry hatred around in your heart.’ They both said it would bring on detrimental things. So I took this information to God and I put it in God’s hands. Since that day I have strived diligently to not let hatred get into my heart or my mind.”
“When did that happen?” I asked, figuring it must have been a long time ago.
“That was in 1996,” Monroe said.
I was stunned. “You carried hatred in your heart all those years?”
“I’m afraid so,” he admitted. “That’s an awful burden, isn’t it?”
“It’s hard to imagine you that way.”
“I didn’t carry it around like a stick on my shoulder, ready to pick a fight,” he explained. “I don’t believe my personality was adversely affected, because I was friendly with just about every single body I came across. But it helped me visualize potential trouble, and it acted like a shield.”
Our conversation wasn’t all heavy. We spoke a week after the presidential election, and Monroe was elated. I caught up with him again in early April. He was still upbeat despite the enormous challenges facing President Obama and the nation.
“I didn’t really care for Palin,” he said. “She seemed to be, to use a blunt term, a smart-ass. But Obama—I believe, as Ray Charles said, ‘We got the right one, baby.’”
Eric Levin is senior editor of New Jersey Monthly. His photo blog, Plain Sight, appears daily at njmonthly.com.