Black History Month at center stage of new podcast

American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast co-hosts Mark Seavey, Jeff Daly and Ashley Gorbulja-Maldonado pay tribute to Black veterans as part of Black History Month in this week’s episode.

Among the veterans and stories they highlight:

• Cecil D. Haney, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who served as commander of United States Strategic Command. “For someone as exceptional as Cecil, he believes that more must has to be done, and I agree with him,” Gorbulja-Maldonado says in reference to civil rights.

• Daly brings up a story about German POWs recalling how they were treated better than Blacks at a POW camp in Texas. A German soldier noted that Blacks were expected to pick two to three more cotton than required of the POWs. “You have to see how they lived,” he said after the war. “These people were so exploited.” Emphasizes Daly: “That’s a Nazi talking about the United States of America.”

• Seavey recalls William Harvey Carney, who received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry during the Civil War. Carney, who was born a slave, received the medal for saving the American flag during the Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863. “The kind of courage that it takes to do something like that, knowing that everyone on the other side is shooting at the guy with the flag,” Seavey says. “He’s just special.”

And if you missed the special two-part episode on race relations and law enforcement from Season One, you can go back and listen to the first part here and the second part here.

Check out the new episode on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or the podcast webpage for this week’s Tango Alpha Lima, as well as links to all the previous episodes.