Editing A Soldier's Story (section)

==Plot==
In 1944 during [[World War II]], Vernon Waters, a [[master sergeant]] in a company of Black soldiers, is shot to death with a [[.45 caliber pistol]] outside Fort Neal, a segregated [[United States Army|Army]] base in [[Louisiana]]. Captain Richard Davenport, a Black officer from the [[Judge Advocate General's Corps]], is sent to investigate. Most assume Waters was killed by the local [[Ku Klux Klan]], but others are doubtful.

Even Captain Taylor, the only White officer who wants the killers prosecuted, is uncooperative and patronizing, fearing a Black officer will have little success. Davenport soon discovers that whenever the Klan murders Black soldiers, they strip them of their military insignia, whereas the body of Sgt. Waters was found wearing an intact uniform.

Davenport learns that Waters's company was officially part of the 221st Chemical Smoke Generator Battalion. They are kept on the Home Front and assigned menial jobs. Most are former players from the [[Negro baseball league]], grouped to play ball with Waters as manager.

Private James Wilkie, a former sergeant Waters busted for being drunk on duty, describes Waters as a combat veteran who was awarded with the [[Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (France)|Croix de Guerre]] by the [[Third French Republic]] during the [[First World War]]. He also says that Waters was a strict disciplinarian but a fair NCO who got on well with his men, especially baseball pitcher and [[Jazz music|jazz]] musician C.J. Memphis.

Private Peterson reveals Waters's tyrannical nature and his disgust with Black soldiers from the rural South who lacked education, or who spoke in [[Gullah language]]. Peterson also recalls how he beat up Waters when the sergeant berated the men after a winning game. Interviewing other soldiers, Davenport learns that Waters charged Memphis with the murder of a White MP after a search conducted by Wilkie turned up a recently discharged pistol under his bunk. Waters provoked Memphis into hitting him, and while the murder charge was dismissed, he was charged with striking a superior officer.

Davenport next interrogates Memphis's best friend Corporal Bernard Cobb. Cobb recalls visiting Memphis in the [[military prison|brig]], where he told Cobb of a visit in which Waters admitted the planted gun was part of a [[frame-up]]. Waters viewed "[[Gullah Geechee|Geechees]]", as he termed uneducated southern Blacks like Memphis, as an obstacle to [[racial equality]] and the success of the future [[African American upper class]]. Davenport also learns from Cobb that Memphis, who suffered from [[claustrophobia]], hanged himself while awaiting his [[court-martial]]. In protest, the baseball team threw the season's last game. Taylor disbanded the team, and the players were reassigned to the 221st.

Davenport learns that racist White officers Captain Wilcox and Lieutenant Byrd had an altercation with Waters shortly before his death. While being interrogated by Davenport and Taylor at the officer's club, Wilcox and Byrd admit to assaulting a guilt-ridden Waters after he confronted them in a drunken tirade. They admit that they would have killed him, but only men on guard duty are issued .45 ammunition when the unit is on bivouac. Immediately after learning of Waters's murder, both officers turned in their side-arms, and [[Forensic firearm examination|ballistics testing]] cleared them.

Davenport interrogates Wilkie, who admits he planted the gun under Memphis's bunk on Waters's orders. Wilkie also reveals that Waters had told him the real reasons for his hatred of Gullah-speaking southern Blacks like Memphis. While serving with the [[American Expeditionary Forces|AEF]] in [[Third French Republic|France]] during [[World War I]], a Black soldier in Waters's unit had, at the urging of racist White [[Doughboys]], humiliated them all by dressing up and acting like a monkey in front of the French girls at a [[cabaret]]. In retaliation, Waters and his enraged fellow Black Doughboys slit the soldier's throat.

Davenport demands to know why Waters did not also frame Peterson after their fight. Wilkie explains that Waters liked Peterson, as he spoke proper English and stood up for himself. Davenport has Wilkie arrested just as the 221st is about to be shipped out to join the fight overseas.

Realizing Peterson and Smalls were on guard duty the night of the murder and thus had been issued .45 ammunition, Davenport interrogates Smalls. He confesses to watching as Peterson [[fragging|fatally shot]] Waters, claiming it was "justice" for Memphis and for all Black people.

Taylor congratulates Davenport on the arrests of Wilkie, Peterson, and Smalls, admitting that he will have to get used to Negroes being commissioned officers. Meanwhile, the platoon marches in preparation for their deployment to the [[European theatre of World War II|European theater]] of war.