Calvin Shepherd survived World War II. He's shaken hands with a senator. And, he's lived into his 90s.
But Shepherd acknowledged he was surprised by the attention he got Thursday while talking to an auditorium full of elementary school students via Skype.
Wearing his red Marine Corps league jacket and hat, Shepherd beamed as he told his story about becoming one of the first black men to fight in war as part of the Montford Point Marines.
"I'm a little bit embarrassed by all the attention I'm getting at this late date," said Shepherd, whose face was projected on a big screen from his home outside Detroit to an auditorium filled with over 200 Valley View Elementary School students in La Crescenta. "I am also humbled and pleased."
The students got a valuable history lesson the day before Veterans Day, asking Shepherd questions during the nearly 30-minute assembly — why he went into the Marines, where he served and why he wanted to risk his life for his country.
His answer to that last one?
"It's the only country I have. I'd do it again, if I had to."
Among the students was Shepherd's great grandson, Jesse Cooper, 10.
"I was really excited," Jesse said. "It meant a lot. There was one question that hit me, 'What challenges did he face during the war?' I thought, 'ooh that's a good question.'
"He persevered and worked hard and went past it."
Jesse's mother and Calvin's granddaughter, Nicci Amberg, hopes the students took away an understanding about race in the military and in America.
"To the kids, the idea of segregation is so foreign, that for them to hear somebody living was excluded from something just because of their color is just astounding to them," she said.
Shepherd grew up in Tennessee. As a kid, he daydreamed about fighting in a war. When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, a then lanky 16-year-old Shepherd couldn't wait to sign up, despite the misgivings of his parents who had witnessed the carnage from soldiers returning home after World War I two decades earlier.
"It sounded glamorous as a 16 year old," Shepherd said. "Just the thrill of a uniform, even war itself sounded thrilling. You get a movie version. That's what you have in mind."
At age 18 in 1943, Shepherd was drafted.
Instead of the Army, he chose to go into the Marines, and became one of thousands of African American men who became part of a desegregated Marine Corps. He was among about 20,000 men between 1942 and 1949 who trained at the segregated Montford Point Camp, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
"Everyone said they wanted to go into the Army," he said. "I was like, 'I am going to be a fighting Marine.'"
Most of his fighting was in the Marianas in 1944. He was assigned to an anti-aircraft gun with a Naval gun crew on a boat and survived several assaults by the Japanese. The fighting against the Axis was hard enough, but the Montford Point Marines also had to endure discrimination from fellow soldiers and sailors, even after the island was secured.
"We were actually fighting two wars," he said.
After the war, Shepherd settled in Michigan, met his wife, and raised four sons and a daughter. He worked for the same company for 31 years, first as a handyman, later as a chemical technician.
His wife, Prynsetta, died in 1995 and he's been a bachelor ever since.
He never spoke much about the war until several years ago, after President Obama and Congress awarded the Montford Point Marines the Congressional Gold Medal.
Today, Shepherd's uniform sits in a display case at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia. When he's not ogling trains at his local railroad club, he's Skyping and Facebooking with his family.
He had this advice for the kids during Thursday's presentation.
"Whatever you attempt to do," he said. "Do the very best that you can."
