Honors for First Black TopGuns from WWII

For a younger generation, the name Tuskegee may not mean all that much. But for people at least my age – 51 – it stands for much. It is the Alabama town where Booker T. Washington founded a school now known as Tuskegee University. It is where the federal government shamelessly abused Black men in an experiment observing the effects of syphilis while withholding medical care.

But it is also where a unit of young Black airmen formed what became known as The Tuskegee Airmen. That President Roosevelt (with the prodding of Eleanor Roosevelt among others) permitted the airmen to be trained to fight in World War II was itself a milestone, but the record amassed by those fighter pilots and their support team was even more historic.

At long last, they are receiving their due – those who are still alive, that is. Each day, as with all WWII vets, their numbers decline. But a few days ago 300 of them and their family members – coming from New York, Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Georgia and Florida, among others states – were honored at the US Capitol with the rarely given Congressional Gold Medal.

"To my heroes, so many of you have said thank you," Rep. Charles Rangel told them during a ceremony that included Congressional leaders and President Bush. "It doesn't work that way. We cannot say enough thank-yous to you." Rangel, from Harlem, and Sen. Carl Levin, from Michigan, sponsored a bill to award the airmen with the medal, first presented in 1776 – to George Washington.

Bush told them: "I would like to offer a gesture to help atone for all the unreturned salutes and unforgivable indignities. And so, on behalf of the office I hold, and a country that honors you, I salute you for the service to the United States of America." He actually pulled off a pretty crisp military salute.

We should all salute them -- as well as the contributions many of them went on to make to their communities in civic affairs, in politics, in business, in education.