Combat Multipliers: African-American Soldiers in Four Wars

This study by Lieutenant Colonel Krewasky A. Salter represents a
dedicated effort to draw attention to African-American units and service
members over four major wars covering some 170 years. His background
in military history and African-American history, along with his numerous
professional research, publications, and teaching experiences in both civilian
and military institutions, makes him imminently qualified to undertake
this project. As a battalion command selectee, Salter has had a remarkable
career on the military side as well. He is, therefore, uniquely qualified as
a soldier-scholar. Salter has indeed maintained a rock-solid professional
reputation in both arenas.
Salter was motivated for the right reasons to undertake this venture. It
was not intended to cover all aspects of African-American contributions
to the freedom of our great nation but to offer a stimulus for more individual
and collective examination of the untold and unwritten accounts of
African-Americans in combat in the continental United States and overseas.
The intent was not only to attract the students of military history but
to provide a broad examination of the facts that would equally attract the
casual student of history as well as those who consider themselves professional
historians, regardless of their ethnic background.
This study presents a forum for an intellectual discourse on African-
American contributions to the development of America. It will definitely
be a great addition to the previously published works by the U.S. Army
Command and General Staff College (CGSC) Combat Studies Institute
(CSI) and will surely fill an important void in its catalog. The manner in
which Lieutenant Colonel Salter imparts the study’s results allows readers
to make their own conclusions about the benefit of African-Americans
to the successes of each battle or campaign experience and to determine
if indeed they truly enhanced the outcome of the wars. Additionally, for
the sake of African-Americans, it satisfies some of the omissions from
previous historians and gives a better picture of the many Americans who
fought continuously and boldly for the United States of America. For the
sake of all Americans, especially professional soldiers, it offers insight
into an often-overlooked aspect of our American military heritage.