Page A7
A p ril 4. 2007
Fighter Pilots Earn Highest Honor
Recognition
long overdue
(AP) - Congress and President
Bush saluted the Tuskegee Airmen
six decades after they com pleted
their World War II mission and re­
turned home to a country that dis­
crim inated against them because
they were black.
“ Even the Nazis asked why A fri­
can American men would fight fo ra
country that treated them so un­
fairly," President Bush told the group
of legendary black aviators, who
received a Congressional Gold Medal
Thursday — the most prestigious
Congress has to offer.
“These men in our presence felt a
special sense of urgency. They were
fighting two wars. One was in Eu­
rope and the other took place in the
hearts and minds o f our citizens.”
Bush then saluted the airmen, say­
ing he wanted to offer the gesture to
“help atone for all the unreturned
salutes and unforgivable indignities”
they endured.
Bush, members o f Congress and
other dignitaries joined some 300
airm en, widows and other relatives
for the ceremony in the Capitol Ro­
tunda.
H o u rs a h e a d o f the e v e n t,
Tuskegee Airmen — some walking
with the aid of canes, others pushed
in wheelchairs — Hooded Capitol
hallways on their way to being rec­
ognized for their long-ago heroism.
“ It's never too late for your coun­
try to say that you've done a great
job for us," Ret. Col. Elmer D. Jones,
89, o f Arlington, Va., said in an
interview this week. Jones was a
maintenance officer during the war.
Ret. Lt. Col. W alter L. M cCreary,
who was shot from the sky during a
Tuskegee Airmen Robert Lawrence of Santa Fe, N.M. (left) and Walter Fiedler of St. Louis appear in Washington. D.C.
for the awarding o f the Congressional Gold Medal.
Cadets at the
Basic and Ad­
vanced Flying
School for Negro
Air Corps Cadets
stand at attention
in this January
1942 photo at the
Tuskegee Institute
in Tuskegee, Ala.
mission in O ctober 1944 and held
prisoner for nine months in G er­
many, said it hurt that the group's
accom plishments had not been hon­
ored years earlier.
"W e took it in stride. It’s recogni­
tion long overdue," said M cCreary,
also 89, of Burke, Va.
House Majority Whip JimClyburn.
D-S.C.. the highest-ranking black
m em b e r o f C o n g re s s , e c h o e d
M cC reary's sentiment. Many of the
Tuskegee Airmen also trained at
Walterboro Army Airfield in his con­
gressional district.
"People are now beginning to
come to grips with our history,"
Clyburn said Thursday in an inter­
view. "Our history is what it is. It's
never going to change."
The Tuskegee Airmen were re­
cruited into an Army Air Corps pro­
gram that trained blacks to fly and
maintain combat aircraft. President
Roosevelt had overruled his top gen­
erals and ordered that such a pro­
gram be created.
But even after they were adm it­
ted. many comm anders continued to
believe the Tuskegee Airmen didn't
have the smarts, courage and pa­
triotism to do what was being asked
of them.
Nearly 1,000 fighter pi lots trained
as a segregated unit at a Tuskegee,
Ala., air base.
Not allowed to practice or fight
with their white counterparts, the
T uskegee A irm en distinguished
themselves from the rest by painting
the tails of their airplanes red. which
led to them becoming known as the
“ Red Tails."
Hundreds saw combat through­
out Europe, the M editerranean and
North Africa, escorting bomber air­
craft on m issions and protecting
them from the enemy. Dozens died
in the fighting; others were held
prisoners of war.
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