If Captain Finis Austin was arguably the most interesting man in the 93rd, Company A Top Kick Ashel J. Honesty was one of the most important. In a way that only Army veterans can truly understand, a company commander commands, but his first sergeant runs the company.
ASHEL J. HONESTY WW1. Honesty CollectionFood, clothing, shelter, morale, religious faith, —you name it–comes to a soldier—or doesn’t–at the sufferance of the sergeant who controls his life. Honesty intimidated even the junior officers of the regiment, as Mortimer Squires cheerfully admitted 70 years after the fact.
Born in Fleming Ohio in 1896, Honesty enlisted in the Army in 1918 and served briefly with the Allied Expeditionary Force. When World War I came to an end he was discharged and his service in 1918 lasted only a few months.
We know but little about Honesty’s life. His father was a public school teacher and his mother a housewife. We know that from Census data. His WWI era draft card lists him as an unmarried farmer in Fleming. And military records note his discharge from the AEF in July 1919.
The 1920 census found him in Taylor County, West Virginia, working as a miner. Given the turbulent and colorful history of the West Virginia coal mines in the early decades of the 20th century, it’s safe to assume that 22 year old Honesty lived a an interesting life there. And, for a young black man, it had to have been a very difficult one.
It’s understandable that the 1930 census found him back in the Army. Thirty one years old by then, he was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Marion, Indiana. Ten years later, the 1940 census has him at Fort Benning in the 24th Infantry Division—a corporal.
The next time he turns up in the historical record, just two years later, he’s the First Sergeant of Company A of the 93rd. It’s not hard to figure out the jump from corporal to regimental Top Kick. The Army exploded in size during those years and manpower shortages forced the Corps of Engineers in particular to form and expand black regiments. A soldier with Honesty’s experience would have been pure gold.