He was the first Black officer to lead a Marine Corps infantry company into combat. He later became an Alabama state lawmaker and an assistant secretary of the Air Force.​Gen. Jerome Cooper in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1966, when he was a captain in the Marine Corps. Gary Cooper, a two-star general and the first African American to lead a Marine infantry company in combat, who later became an Alabama state lawmaker, an assistant secretary of the Air Force and an ambassador to Jamaica, died on April 27 at his home in Mobile, Ala. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”A finance major, he joined the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and on graduation was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. But he bristled at that role; he wanted to lead an infantry company.

Source: New York Times May 20, 2024 13:48 UTC