I Was a Buffalo Soldier The Story of Nolan Self

My full name is Nolan Self. I was born the first day of September, 1918. My dad was Brack Self, that's all they ever knew Dad as, Brack. My mama was named Joanna. We were raised to work. My daddy was a farmer in Leesville and he believed in working and he was a hard worker. Wherever dad was, that's where I was. In fact, he always called me sweet boy in the knee nine. What that means I don't know, but my dad, I was crazy about my daddy and he was crazy about his baby boy. 

He was a real man he when he was a young man. He drank that whiskey and ride his horse and go through the town and shoot the town up. My family had five boys and six girls. Eleven of us. Well, Mom had to do most of the raising and she, she made us cool. While I was going, but see, we were so cool. Our dad left us early. I remember coming on one day. I came in through the back door. Mama was  this touches me. I came in through the back door. Mama was out on the front porch in the swing, she heard me and she said, "Nolan, there's some biscuits in the oven. Picked the last of the collard greens. They are sitting on the stove, but I didn't have no fat to put in them Nolan, so I cooked them with love." That tore me up. I quit school and she didn't have to tell me to quit. I quit. 

Roosevelt had started the CCC Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was a forerunner, United States Army. Roosevelt was a far-seeing man. He knew that Hitler was raising sand at that time and we were gonna have to tangle with him and so, he started the CCC. There was no bridges, no roads and those trees he saw was eroded. Roosevelt fixed all that. He told us that he wanted every man to work because there was no work, everybody was a hobo. Trains was running but full of men going from state to state, ruthless. I'm gonna stop this, I'm gonna start the CCC and put everybody to work. But he told you when he hired you, he said, "I'm gonna pay you a dollar a day in a month to me only has 30 days you get $30 at the end of the month but you can only keep five of them dollars. The 25 is going on mom and dad. I'm gonna see to that." 

We were glad to do that. At the same time Roosevelt was building barracks in camps because he knew we don't need them later on. I stayed in the CCC for two terms, so I stayed the two years that I was allotted and I had to go back home to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They sent me back home and my mama and my two sisters, they were the only ones there, needed me and I could see what condition they were living in. I went right back down to the CCC headquarters and begged the lady to let me go back for one more term. Over power that she let me go back in for another two years. For the sake of my sisters and my mama she agreed with me because I begged her on my knees almost. 

When I came out of the CCC it was 1940 so I was old enough then to fight to be a soldier. Well, I never thought about the United States Army. I hadn't even thought of that really, but the Buffalo Soldiers, they got a tremendous history. My mother held a letter, she said, Nolan you have a letter from the President. When I opened the letter he told me, he said, "I want you Nolan Self to be a one of my soldiers. He greeted me a full course of the letter did, but he told me "I want you to take a physical, and he told me where I'd have to go to get the physical, and if you pass the physical, I want you to report to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and become a member of the 10th Calvary and be one of my soldiers." Then when I told my mama she started crying and said "Oh Nolan, they can't, what you mean, going to the army." I said, "Mama don't cry." I said, "It's a good thing for you and the girls. I said, "Mama you gonna get a check if I pass the physical." She don't understand that, "Don't take my baby boy, no, no, no, no." 

A lot of the guys were taking balls of soap and making a pill out of it and swallowing it and drink a lot of water to make the blood pressure go up. They don't want to go into the army. I'm, I told him, I said, "I wanted nothing to do with that. I want to pass this physical." I passed and then Roosevelt got the word that I had passed. He not only took me, he took 400 blacks out of Pine Bluff, Arkansas on the Missouri Pacific train and took us all the way to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I've never been away from home in my life. Pine Bluff is a pretty good place to live. We never had any troubles there, never, and so I went into the Army at Fort Leavenworth. Ain't nobody going act up there that?s got good sense. The officers were kind. They were hand-picked. You just didn't become an officer in the 10th cavalry or the ninth cavalry. 

I had a good time when I was in the service. The best thing I can remember is you eat like you wanted to. I was a youngster then, what they called a private, buck private. But the army was a salvation to me and my family. I was glad to be a soldier. I loved horses. In the army, I had a beaut. I had two horses in fact. In the service when you're in the horse Calvary they assign you two horses. You have a spare because you know we were warned might break a leg or it might get sick. Anything could happen cuz they have sick call every morning, ten o'clock. It's just like they did for us soldiers. 

I had a horse named Funston. He had a beautiful build, he was wide and that's the kind of a horse I need, cuz at that time, I'm learning. I don't know a whole lot about him and he was a good horse to ride, cause he was one when they say gallop, all you got to do is sit in the saddle cuz he's gonna give you that ride you know. Anyway, but he ran away with me though one day. So we were out riding for pleasure so I could learn how, the different things you need know when you just ride the horse. How to properly handle him and they teach you. If he gets spooked, which he will get, a lot of times and he's gonna start running then. They said never jump from that horse but take up your reins and cut him in a circle because he can't stand that cuddle in his mouth. Well he got to running and he got spooked and took off and I was right along the Kansas River. We were riding that morning, whole bunch of us and the sergeant in charge, he way up in front. He didn't know the horse had done broke out of the ranks and started running away with me and he headed right for the river and I can't swim. 

They teach you to never jump from a horse when he gets spooked and starts, you know, running. Because if your foot should happen to get caught in that stirrup he drag you to death. He was, he was going with me and I said well Lord I can't swim and you had your people to say don't jump but I'm jumping. [Laughs] To this date if I had it all to do over instead of buying a home I'd buy me a farm and have me a horse at least, because I love to ride and at ninety-six people tell me, you can't ride anymore. Oh, but I believe I can. 

I met Joe Louis, went running with him, well not just me, every black who was in the unit that could run, ran with him the one morning. Joe Louis built the conditioning camp at Fort Riley because the government moved the tenth Calvary to Fort Riley, Kansas where the ninth cavalry was at already. So the two units could train together, both black units. So it was a joy to run with Joe. Joe didn't do no work naturally just, just being Joe Louis. He was a fine man though. He was a gentleman, perfect gentleman. In fact he was living in Junction City, he and Marvell, and he knew that the soldiers didn't have nothing for them to do. So, what he did was he contacted Count Basie to come here with his big pretty good band and I'm gonna be responsible for all the young ladies so the soldiers would have someone to dance with and I'll have Basie to play the music, and he could do that. Somebody got the young ladies together. Joe paid for the bill. He paid for the buses and all the girls, Joe brought them in by the bus load. Well, Wilma came to this dance that Joe sponsored in Topeka, Kansas but a friend of hers, I had met her and I thought are we gonna be with her, but she has another fella she was going to be with, and Wilma said she asked her if she would entertain me. 

Wilma: Well I thought he was just about the cutest kid I'd never seen. [Laughs] He was so handsome and he seemed so good. Great manners. My mother just thought that was the best thing that ever happened to that kid because he was from the south. It was a little bit different than the northern boys were.

Nolan: And I found out when we got on the dance floor that she know what to do and Joe Louis even played the drums that night. Well, you know Joe can't play no drums, but that Joe Louis ? the girls just went crazy over Joe Louis. Anyway, well me and Wilma we hit the dance floor and I found out that she was all right and so we began to talk and hold hands, and we just set outside on the front steps and talked a long time. I knew right then, I said that's the girl that I want. I had to go back to camp the next day and they had to go home, naturally that night. 

Wilma: Not long after that he was transferred and sent to Mississippi and I thought well, that's the end of that but, but then we started writing and things progressed. 

Nolan: I remember Normandy, you never forget that. Eisenhower was walking with a big old bullhorn greeting the soldiers and telling them, telling us, brother what a fine thing we were doing for our country, and a whole lot of other things. He was telling us, and I remember these words, to me they were very touching, and I know they must have been touching to others also. He said, ?You guys are doing a great thing. This is your country, which is true. You're doing this for your country, but I want you to know that some of you are going to go in and then some of you won't come back.? When they're loaded us up on an LST to go into the show, there was so many young men floating at that time and we ain't got to the show yet. Rifles are floating, packs were floating, they were dead already, couldn't swim. I couldn't swim and a lot of others I imagine was in the shape I was in, but we didn't have time to be talking. But God Almighty had something in store for me. I don't know how I got ashore but I got ashore.

Wilma: I worried about him. I remember D-Day. I was in Toledo with his family and gone out there to visit them. As I go back on the bus, I just dropped off to sleep and just as the distance I'm talking to you, I heard his voice calling my name. I woke, of course, kind of frightened me. When I got home the radio said that D-Day had started, and I just was terrified because I knew he was in Europe. I didn't know what was, you know, you didn't get letters that often and of course they were all censored so that you there wasn't anything in them about what was really going on. Yes, that was, that was the worst time for me. 

Nolan: I went in as everybody does, you go as a buck private, but I knew my background. I knew I wasn't a smart boy. I knew I was a poor boy. I knew I was a black boy, but I thought things would be different when I came back because I fought in five campaigns. I fought in the Argonnes and I fought in central Europe. I also went over into southern Wales. I didn't have to fight but I went over there to fight. I came out naturally when the war was over and I had some good things happen to me. I was able somehow to become a first seargent. Now the first seargent is the highest rank, a black or white, who as an enlisted man, could reach that day. I served for over 20 years and when I got out I didn't know what I was gonna do because they don't need no first sergeant's out here. They need them in the Army, Navy, Marines. And I told my wife, I said, ?Honey, ?I don't know what I'm gonna do. I got this big family and I ain't no First Sergeant anymore.? It was, there was very little work you could do, nobody to hire you or wanted to hire you rather as a rule. 

I was lucky enough to get a job with my city. On the tail end of a garbage truck. So I told my wife, I said, "Honey, I'm working, I got a job but I don't want to work on the back end of a garbage truck. I'm gonna quit it." That girl told me, "Don't quit it. The Lord has something for you." That's the word she used. I continued to work but I sure didn't like it. I wanted to quit. "So what would you do honey, you got a big family. Family was growing." She said, "I don't know," excuse me, she said, "the Lord has something for you Nolan." So I took the job and I worked for about two months on the back end of the truck picking up people's garbage and emptied it. One day I went to work as usual and all the trucks have radio in them so that headquarters can talk the truck. The radio came on and said, "Have Nolan Self report to the Daily Union newspaper office." And he, the driver, looked at me and said, "Nolan, what have you done." I said, "I ain't done nothing. What they want me for?" 

I walked in and see the manager who said, "Nolan this is so and so and so and so." He tapped me on the shoulder and said, "We had you come up here Nolan because we have decided that you are the new superintendent of the Sanitation Department for this city." I almost fainted but I was so thankful and I took the job and I held the job for 17 straight years until I went to California with my wife. 

Wilma: First of all, when I took my vows, to death till we die, I meant that because our vows were to God. So we just worked things out one way or the other and it's been a wonderful marriage. I had some beautiful kids that have been wonderful. They truly, truly worry about their mother. I used to pray that I want to have a girl, but God knows best and I'm so thankful what I had the boys, cause they're very close to me. And my husband was so good at being a first sergeant that it all boiled down to the family. All he had to do was look at them. Then they really snapped and just and I'll just say they didn't give us a lot of troubles or a lot of sleepless nights. We've got a lot of memories and a lot experiences and that's only happened because I married Nolan and he was understanding enough to allow me to express myself. 

Nolan: The Lord has been good to me, Lord's been good to me. I have to go to church on Sunday because I hold this to my God. 

Wilma: Know the Lord and then let him run things for you. Everyone's gonna have some kind of a problem and you can't do it by yourself. 

Nolan: I think every man should go to war. It will discipline them and they need that discipline. 

Wilma: War is inevitable, we know that and I very believe from just experiences with with my children, that every young man and young woman spend two years in the service. It's good training, it's a good mixture of different cultures. Because they have to work as teams and in the service they have to be concerned about their fellow soldier. 

Nolan: Early to bed, early to rise. Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. 

Wilma: Learn to work hard. You?ve got to know how to work. You can't get through this life taking for granted that you're supposed to have it soft and easy. I don't care what kind of work it is but good honorable work and to be honest and trust God to do the rest. 

Nolan: I worked hard. I worked hard but I was the type of guy I'd do any kind of work that man gonna pay me some money. If it don't get but a dollar, that's a dollar I didn't have, and I do the job but whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your heart.