Another Milestone

     Last Tuesday, Lt. Col. George Hardy died.  He was the last surviving combat pilot from the original Tuskegee airmen.

     He was not the last Tuskegee airman; the program trained almost a thousand pilots -- and thousands of support personnel, everyone from cooks to mechanics, navigators and flight surgeons.  A few remain.  Harshly screened by officers skeptical of their ability, and even more harshly by people who wanted them to succeed, the Tuskegee Airmen established an outstanding record during WW II and afterward.

     Flying is a kind of a geeky activity -- perhaps the most dashing, but it takes an engineering mindset along with keen eyesight, well-honed reflexes and, for a combat pilot, an understanding of tactics and strategy.  Closely related work is even more that way, so it's not a surprise that many Tuskegee Airmen were amateur radio operators, too.  At one time, they held regular "nets," a kind of on-air meeting, on the HF ham bands, and anyone tuning by could listen in to legends chatting about flying, and radio, their families and the usual ham talk.  It was a remarkable thing.

     With every passing year, there are fewer and fewer men and women left with direct memory of the terrible battle to keep freedom and democracy going as a wave of authoritarianism washed over Europe, Asia and the Pacific.  The light almost went out then.  It feels to me like it's flickering now.

     A group of men -- outstanding men -- once stood up to prejudice at home to go fight for the future.  We mustn't let them down.