The integration of the armed forces was a momentous event in our military and national history; it represented a milestone in the development of the armed forces and the fulfillment of the democratic ideal. The existence of in- tegrated rather than segregated armed forces is an important factor in our military establishment today.

The experiences in World War II and the postwar pressures generated by the civil rights movement compelled all the services- Ar- my, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps -to reexamine their traditional prac- tices of segregation. While there were differences in the ways that the services moved toward integration, all were subject to the same demands, fears, and pre- judices and had the same need to use their resources in a more rational and economical way. All of them reached the same conclusion: tradidonal attitudes toward minorities must give way t:o democratic concepts of civil rights