Episode 5: Cajun National Guard (Part I)

In Episode 5, we chronicle the Cajuns of the Louisiana National Guard. The 2nd Battalion of the 156th Inf. Reg. (31st Dixie Division) consisted of several companies of guardsmen from the bayou country. Nearly all of them grew up speaking French as their first language. This entire unit spent more than 2 years training together before being shipped overseas as combat military police units. The history of this Cajun Guard unit is particularly unique, as it represented the largest French-speaking American infantry unit within the US military during World War II. In this first of a two-part series, you will hear voices of several of these veterans from New Iberia, Jeanerette, Lafayette, and Breaux Bridge and how they kept their culture and French-language in tact through the first years of the war.