[Posted Oct. 31, 2007]

NSU Series Part 5:

The Men Behind The Pershing Rifles

By Gary Ruegsegger
Special To The New Journal and Guide

      “I was always fighting  some kind of battle.  Some of them might have just been in my head, but some of them needed fighting,” said Rev. James Edwards III.
       The 1969 Norfolk State graduate and Vietnam veteran is a man on a mission.  He wants to build a memorial at Norfolk State to honor the Spartans “who have given their lives for their country on the battlefield.”

 NSU Grad. James Edwards III and his grandson Winfield James Edwards visit the graves of Civil War veterans at West Point Cemetary.

       Today Edwards is the pastor of Chesapeake’s New Rose of Sharon Missionary Baptist Church.  Half a lifetime ago, he was a platoon leader in Southeast Asia.
       A member of the elite Norfolk State Pershing Rifles, Edwards was among the first 17 students to sign up for a new four-year ROTC program in 1964. 
       Earlier ROTC students had to finish their last two years at Virginia State College to earn their lieutenant’s bars.
 
       The first military training at the college began with a quartermaster’s school during World War II.  Attorney J. Eugene Diggs, a member of the Founders Group, coordinated the war effort in the African American community.
       The Norfolk State ROTC program started in 1948 with Capt. Virgil Young as “the organizing commanding officer in charge.”  The college was then housed at the old St. Vincent de Paul facility.

     Elijah Braxton was one of Capt. Young’s first recruits. The cadets drilled on an old playground off Landon Street.  Braxton finally earned his commission at Virginia State and soon headed for the Korean War. 
     “I was sent to Japan for the biological warfare school.  In the middle of the two-week program, they signed the ceasefire,” he said. 
      “I still had to go to Korea, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been earlier.  They flew me straight to the war.  When it came time to come home, they put me on a slow boat,” said the retired postal supervisor.
        Lt. Col. Alfred Barnes, one of Rev. Edward’s ROTC instructors at NSC, also served in Korea.  He came home with seven citations including the Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Purple Heart and the Korean Presidential Citation.
       Lt. Col. Barnes was killed during an enemy rocket and mortar attack in Vietnam on May 12, 1969.  When Edwards learned of his death, he sent his mother a postcard saying, “It’s really getting close to home now.”  The colonel’s son Alfred Barnes Jr., a Marine private, died in Vietnam on Aug. 18, 1969.
     Just seven months earlier, eight Norfolk State cadets earned their commissions—Albert Williams, Kenneth Norman, Olah Moore, Marty Miller, Robert Gray, Otis Elam, Lawrence Carr and James Edwards III.
     Clarestine Davis Edwards pinned lieutenant’s bars on her son James’ broad shoulders.  Before long, he’d be in Vietnam.
     Lt. Marty Miller is now Norfolk State’s athletic director.  The university’s baseball complex bears his name.  Three of the cadets later became ministers.

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