Black in Cincinnati: 'I thank my dad every day'

Greg Battle is president and CEO of the consulting firm Lean Continuous Improvements. He lives in Springdale. My dad was a mechanical engineering major at North Carolina A&T. He was the oldest of four boys. The Monday after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he and three of his brothers quit college and enlisted in the military at Fort Bragg, N.C. After basic training, he was assigned to the Philippines with the rank of corporal. In spite of the fact that he had won the sniper rifle test for accuracy, he was assigned to drive trucks, clean the latrines and bury the dead. He was frustrated. Fate would have it that one day, while driving a group of Australians to the front line, the convoy got stopped in its tracks near a crossroads. My dad and the Australians got out of the truck and walked to the problem area. Hundreds of solders were pinned down by Japanese snipers.