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Army veteran Cecile Burgoyne, 97, reflects Sunday on her military service from her Lewiston home. Burgoyne joined the Army at 22, after working overnight shifts at the mill following her high school graduation in Lewiston. She completed basic training at Fort Lee, Virginia and was later assigned to a clerical pool at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Her experience in the 1950s introduced her to the realities of racial segregation, where she forged close friendships with Black recruits despite the restrictive social environment.
At Fort Knox, maintaining her friendships meant navigating strict policies limiting interracial interactions. She and Millie, a fellow recruit she met in basic training, had to go into stores separately when shopping together in town. Decades later, Burgoyne and Millie still keep in touch, calling each other by their old Army nicknames, “Frenchy” and “Millie.”  Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Andree Kehn is a staff photographer who has lived in Lewiston for the past three years and has been a Greenwood resident for 20 years, on and off. She has worked full time for the Sun Journal since 2015....

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