TOO LATE, BUT STILL TOO LITTLE?

Better late than never, I suppose.

Still, it took a lifetime; 28 of them, to be exact. Just over a month ago, the Army admitted it was wrong when it court-martialed 28 black soldiers for a riot that ended in the lynching of an Italian prisoner at Seattle’s Fort Lawton in 1944.

The case was beautifully laid out in Jack Hamann’s 2005 book “On American Soil.”

The book caught the attention of Congressman Jim McDermott, who pushed for the review by the Army’s Board for Correction of Military Records.

Hamann, a Queen Anne resident and former CNN correspondent, won several awards for the book. But it’s the reversal that matters. Hearts have been settled, and an entity has chastened itself.

“The Army is unequivocal,” Hamann said, “and that’s rare.”

Hamann and his wife, Leslie, who researched the book, take comfort in the fact that the Army lifted the convictions without any new testimony. The facts were enough.

Unfortunately, all but two of the exonerated soldiers weren’t alive to see the day. After spending their days under the cloud of “dishonorable discharge,” and denied military benefits like civil-service jobs, the GI Bill or care at veterans’ hospitals, they were buried without honors.

How to make amends for an injustice that most soldiers took, literally, to their graves?

Hamann isn’t sure where to begin: “We’re still learning how to react to it,” he said.

The Army is still learning, too — and in the worst way.

Last week, it cut a check to former soldier Samuel Snow, of Florida, for $725 — back pay for what he was denied by being court-martialed. There was no interest earned, no acknowledgment of the years Snow waited for justice.

It was simply the sum withheld from the day of Snow’s conviction — Dec. 18, 1944 — to what would have been his discharge date, March 2, 1946.

Snow is so insulted, he told The New York Times he wasn’t even going to cash the check.

“Good for him,” Hamann said. “This isn’t about the money. They want honor. They want to be made whole.”

The only thing marking the incident now is a stout, whitewashed column bearing the name of the lynched soldier, Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto, who is buried where he died.

Hamann hopes the community will install a memorial at Fort Lawton, not only to finally honor the soldiers, but to teach all who stop about the experience of African Americans in the Army throughout Northwest history. And it should show that we are better people than the white military police, who Hamann believes had a hand in the lynching; and than prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who failed to share evidence that could have exonerated the black soldiers.

There are plans next month for a memorial for Booker Townsell, a Fort Lawton defendant who died in Milwaukee in 1984. It might even be a military-style reburial.

Better late than never. But still, it took a lifetime.

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Nicole Brodeur’s column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She’d love to pay her respects.