Once the military desegregated a military career was probably the best, and possibly in some cases, only, real avenue for upward mobility for a lot of black Americans. While the South was particularly bad in that era for civil rights issues, discrimination was pervasive nationwide.
While the casualties suffered might have been proportional to the overall population demographics in the US, those losses in the black community had a different cultural impact, first culling from the ranks of those with the drive and initiative to try and better themselves, and then, with draftees, killing young men at a point when improvements in civil rights provided the possibility that those killed might have been able to pursue civilian avenues of advancement had they lived.
There were those who used the situation to advance political agendas, but they were only able to do so by tapping into a significant sentiment in black culture.
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