Word: airmen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...soul-dead not to marvel at the trajectory my life had followed, from an rotc second lieutenant out of ccny to the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. armed forces; from advising a few hundred men in the jungles of Vietnam to responsibility for over 2 million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines; from growing up with tough kids in the South Bronx to association with leaders from all over the world. My only regret was that I could not do it all over again...
Hooray for the television movie the Tuskegee Airmen, about World War II's all-black fighter squadron [HISTORY, Aug. 28]! I was a top turret gunner on a B-17 bomber in Italy in 1944, and the troops always felt good when we saw the P-51s flown by those men. They stayed with us over the target, even through flak. At our base in Foggia, Italy, we thrilled to hear the roar of a P-51 "buzzing" our tents and to see its red nose appear above the olive trees. I am now copying my diary of the missions...
...Serb headquarters in Pale. The besieged residents of Sarajevo, who have long felt abandoned by the West, shouted with joy from their balconies as they listened to the bombs fall near by. The only NATO casualty: a French Mirage, shot down by Serb gunners; the fate of the two airmen, who were seen ejecting from the jet, is unknown...
...other obstacle, notes USAir pilot Philip Garland, is a lack of role models: "Many times on a flight, I'm not just the captain, I'm the only black on the plane. " Despite the inspiration of the Tuskegee airmen, the airline industry still has a long...
When the war ended in 1945, none of the 992 Tuskegee Airmen was able to get a job in commercial aviation. And even today, less than 1% of the approximately 71,000 pilots nationwide are African Americans. "It has been a struggle all the way," said Perry Jones, a former Air Force flyer and Delta captain who heads the Organization of Black Airline Pilots. "We had more black pilots in 1942 than we do today." Few jobs offer as much glamour as an airline pilot's or pay so well--up to $180,000 a year at a major airline...