Dick Trail

Opinion

Black Man and Robin

Saturday, February 23, 2008

This is Black History Month, not a really big deal in Southwest Nebraska. Remembering though engenders great pride in how the U.S. Military led the way toward integration of the U.S. of A. It was 1948 when President Harry Truman issued an edict that hence forth the military services would truly consider all men as equals.

Sure there was resistance and turbulence in implementing his executive order but integrate they did.

It was nearly a decade later that LBJ signed the better known Civil Rights Act following much marching and turbulence protest in the civilian sector.

Throughout the public had a shining example to follow, their military, which had already gotten it right.

I went off to the Air Force Academy in 1955 to find all 306 of my classmates having white faces. Not counting, of course, the brown complexions of the cadets from Hawaii. The majority of our training and academic personnel were commissioned officers and blacks weren't part of that group either.

The exclusion of blacks was probably not by design; it was just at that time there was only a miniscule pool of qualified black candidates from which to draw.

Note I don't do hyphenated American anything. I call them by their preferred name of Black, German, Irish, or simply fellow Americans. Why even raise the issue? On census and other government forms I always mark human where it asks race.

My first association with black peers came late in 1959 when I went off to Air Force pilot training in way south Texas.

Two black aviation students, both products of ROTC from east coast colleges, showed up at Moore Air Base, just south of McCook, Texas. Both were accepted into the student pilot fraternity as we had considerably more important things to worry about than the color of anybody's skin.

Then training shut down for a two week Christmas break and most of us made our way home to celebrate with family. My two black 2nd Lieutenant bachelor friends headed east car-pooling with a tall white guy named Lt. Wayne Park.

Wayne was from Delaware, as I remember, and was probably one of the smartest, well-refined men that I have ever encountered. The three driving somewhere through East Texas stopped for dinner ("supper" in redneck country).

Wayne said the three, clean cut young men dressed in civilian clothes, walked into the restaurant and seated themselves at a table.

In short order the owner came to the table and quietly informed the threesome that they could not be served. The two black men understood and quietly prepared to leave the establishment. Not Wayne Park, who stood and loudly exclaimed that these two were Air Force Officers and they would be served.

That didn't go well, and the three, seeing they were outnumbered by hostile East Texans prudently left for friendlier but darker-complected surroundings.

When Wayne returned and related his traveling experiences, it came home to me what the Civil Rights rhubarb was all about.

Raised in the benign racial atmosphere of McCook, Neb., I was not too subtly taught that blacks were in all ways inferior. Wayne and his two buddies vividly brought home to my heart that it was better to accept a person for personal accomplishment not color of skin or some other dumb concept.

Throughout my career I was fortunate to serve with all sorts of competent persons black, white, brown, yellow and probably some other colors. We have friends of great variety living in mixed marriages producing children as my son says with "hybrid vigor."

Probably my greatest hero from the Vietnam War era was Col. (later General) Chappie James, legendary F-4 fighter pilot. Chappie was Vice Wing at Korat teamed with Wing Commander Robin Olds. Chappie himself called the team "Blackman and Robin" and we all loved him for it. I know that several times he refueled behind my tanker, loaded for bear, on his way north!

In later years Chappie toured hundreds of high schools speaking to the kids, especially the black youth, and telling them that they could earn their way to success and he was the perfect example. Contrast that with Nebraska's Ernie whose constant harangue is that all the problems suffered by poor people are the fault of white men who conspire to keep them down.

Think also of Gen. Colin Powell, probably one the most respected men in America today, who rose to his great success through military service. And today we now have an Irish lad, Barack O'Bama a front runner aspiring to be president of the United States. Is this a great country or what?

That is the way I see it.