14 Facts About Terry Whitmore

Terry Marvell Whitmore was an American soldier, deserter and actor.

Terry Whitmore wrote about it in Memphis-Nam-Sweden: The Autobiography of a Black American Exile, one of the few memoirs of that war by a Black author, as well as appearing in two documentaries about GI resistance to the war.

Terry Whitmore was born on March 6,1947 and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.

Terry Whitmore felt he would have been drafted anyway, so he voluntarily enlisted which allowed him to stay home for one more Christmas.

Terry Whitmore was promised non-combat duty on a ship, but told an interviewer he had been cheated out of this by the Marines.

Terry Whitmore's memoir describes seeing US troops engaging in atrocities, killing women and children and burning villagers' huts in Quang Tri Province.

Terry Whitmore was transferred to the US military hospital at Cam Ranh Bay where he described being wrapped in bandages from head to foot "like an Egyptian mummy".

Terry Whitmore described the complete destruction of a large unnamed hamlet consisting of a number of smaller unnamed villages composed of unarmed Vietnamese, men, women and children, including their livestock.

Some of what Terry Whitmore described could have been the results of bombs and other earlier activity.

Terry Whitmore married before enlisting and his first child, a daughter, was born while he was overseas.

In 1977, after President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order granting amnesty to draft evaders of the Vietnam War era, Terry Whitmore returned to the US to meet his daughter for the first time, who was being raised by his mother.

Terry Whitmore returned permanently to Memphis in 2001, and died in 2007.

Terry Whitmore was one of the few Black Vietnam War veterans to write a memoir about his experience: Memphis-Nam-Sweden: The Autobiography of a Black American Exile, published in 1971 and republished in 1997.

Terry Whitmore appeared in four Swedish fiction films as an actor: Deserter USA, The Gladiators, Georgia, Georgia, and The Trap.