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At long last, respect

Congress awards the Tuskegee Airmen its most prestigious honor.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush saluted the Tuskegee Airmen on Thursday, six decades after they completed their World War II mission and returned home to a country that discriminated against them because they were black.

"Even the Nazis asked why African-American men would fight for a country that treated them so unfairly," Bush told the group of legendary black aviators, who received a Congressional Gold Medal, 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 Europe and the other took place in the hearts and minds of our citizens," he said.

Bush then saluted the airmen, saying he offered the gesture to "help atone for all the unreturned salutes and unforgivable indignities" they endured.

"We are so overjoyed," said Roscoe Brown Jr., after he and five other Tuskegee Airmen accepted the medal on behalf of the group. "We are so proud today, and I think America is proud today."

Bush, members of Congress and other dignitaries joined some 300 airmen, widows and other relatives in the sun-splashed Capitol Rotunda for the ceremony recognizing the Tuskegee Airmen - some of them walking with the aid of canes, others being pushed in wheelchairs - for their long-ago heroism.

"It's never too late for your country to say that you've done a great job for us," retired Col. Elmer D. Jones, 89, of Arlington, Va., said this week.

Retired Lt. Col. Walter L. McCreary, shot from the sky during a mission in October 1944 and held prisoner for nine months in Germany, said it hurt that the group's accomplishments had not been honored years earlier.

"We took it in stride. It's a recognition long overdue," said McCreary, 89, of Burke, Va.

The Tuskegee Airmen were recruited into an Army Air Corps program that trained blacks to fly and maintain combat aircraft. President Roosevelt had overruled his top generals and ordered that such a program be created.

But even after they were admitted, many commanders continued to believe the Tuskegee Airmen didn't have the smarts, courage and patriotism to do what was being asked of them.

Nearly 1,000 fighter pilots trained as a segregated unit at an air base in Tuskegee, Ala. Not allowed to practice or fight with their white counterparts, the Tuskegee Airmen 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 throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, escorting bomber aircraft on missions and protecting them from the enemy. Dozens died in the fighting; others were held as prisoners of war.

[Last modified March 30, 2007, 01:37:58]