Memorial to Sgt. Brent Woods

The Albuquerque New Mexico Veterans' Memorial is set in the shadow of the majestic Sandia Mountains, and is dedicated to all the men and women who gave their youth, their hopes and dreams, and all who gave their lives in the name of freedom. We honour their memory.

I decided to blip this memorial to Sgt. Brent Woods, "Buffalo Soldier", Medal of Honor. Born in 1855, Woods was a slave for the first 10 years of his life, until the end of the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment removed the bondage of slavery.

At the age of 18, with few other opportunities open to a former slave, Woods enlisted in the United States Army. Assigned to the all-black Company B of the Ninth Cavalry, he became part of the famed "Buffalo Soldiers."

Color barriers meant little on that day, and one white civilian saved by Woods' despite his arm wound and facing superior numbers of Indians, fought his way to a high ridge where he conducted a one-man war until he forced the Indians to retreat. "If it had not been for him, none of us would have come out of that canyon alive." In due course he received the Medal of Honor for "gallantry clearly beyond the call of duty".