Percy Ricks wears his Signal Corps uniform in this undated photo. The uniform is in an exhibit at the Signal Corps Museum at Fort Gordon. SPECIAL

He found out the Army didn't want him.

''They said they had enough (blacks)," said Mr. Ricks, 81, an Augustan who now lives at the Georgia War Veterans Nursing Home, where he is battling Parkinson's disease.

Despite the inauspicious start, Mr. Ricks would become one of the first blacks to command troops in a still-segregated Army.

As a young man in Adrian, Ga., Mr. Ricks had big plans. He wanted to go to Morehouse College and study business administration.

He knew he probably would be going to war, though, so he and a couple of buddies decided they would volunteer before they were drafted.

They packed their bags and drove to the nearest recruitment office in Macon, where they were turned away.

''So we packed our bags and came back home," he said.

Not for long, however.

''A short time later, we were drafted."

That was in August 1942. Mr. Ricks, who was the valedictorian of his high school class, soon found himself driving trucks in California, relocating Japanese-Americans from their homes to internment camps.

Within 11 months, the 22-year-old became one of the youngest first sergeants in the Army and became the commander of a black unit, in the 8th Army Air Corps in Africa in 1943.

In the segregated Army, black soldiers were assigned to service and support duties such as driving trucks and cooking. Few were allowed to fight.

In Africa, Mr. Ricks was in charge of a gasoline transport unit, and although they weren't on the front lines fighting, ''we were shot at many times," he said.

''We had seen airplanes shot down in midday," he said.

Mr. Ricks said he and the other soldiers in his unit were serious about their jobs. One night, the visibility was nearly zero as they tried to move 5-ton trucks through a smoke-filled area. The men made a human chain alongside the road to guide the drivers to safety.

After 30 months in Africa and Italy, he boarded a ship for home.

On the ship, Mr. Ricks struck up a conversation with a master sergeant who told him he should be recognized for his leadership.

''On the boat I went out and I tried to get the best job I could," he said of his conversation.

Mr. Ricks returned and was stationed in New Jersey, but in 1946 his life and the Army changed forever. Special Order 118 put him in charge of the first integrated unit at the Army Pictorial Center in Long Island, N.Y.

Percy Ricks: Veteran was the first black enlisted man to lead a racially mixed unit. ANNETTE M. DROWLETTE/STAFF

He is said to be the first black noncommissioned officer to command a racially mixed unit.

Army segregation would not end for two more years, when President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 creating the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The last all-black unit was abolished Sept. 30, 1948.

''They sent me there to integrate the unit. At that time, I didn't know what to do," he said.

Despite the early uneasiness, Mr. Ricks has many good memories of the Army Pictorial Center, where training films for the Department of the Army were made.

''It was a good experience. I couldn't have had it better," he said.

His wife, Mildred, still cries, however, when she thinks about those years and what she knows her husband endured.

The Rickses met in New York.

''She lived in the Bronx, but she was from McCormick, South Carolina," he said with a laugh.

Although he didn't talk about it much, she said she knows that because blacks and whites were forced to work together in those days, racial tensions lingered.

Mrs. Ricks describes her husband as a gentle and loving man who knows ''how to get along with people."

That ability changed some attitudes.

Larry L. King, who has written a number of books and plays, including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, was one of the men who served under Mr. Ricks.

In his book Confessions of a White Racist, Mr. King writes about Mr. Ricks' command and described him as a man who ''carried himself with careful dignity."

Mr. Ricks has an autographed copy of the book and the author's phone number tucked away in his belongings.

Despite the recognition, Mr. Ricks says he doesn't know what all the fuss is about.

''It surprises me," he said.

LEADER'S TRIBUTE

Retired 1st Sgt. Percy Ricks is still remembered for being one of the first to command black and white troops and for his work for the Army Pictorial Center in Long Island, N.Y., as a soldier and later in civil service.

An exhibit containing his Army uniform at the Signal Corps Museum at Fort Gordon is a permanent testament to those years.

Reach Charmain Z. Brackett at (803) 441-6927 or czbrackett@hotmail.com.