The Tuskegee Airmen
Truckee, California
July 6, 2012


Two days ago, we celebrated the 236th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and its proud proclamation that “all men are created equal.” 

In the years that followed, apologists for slavery attempted to rewrite that history, alleging that the Founders didn’t mean exactly what they said in that document – but rather they meant, “all white men are created equal.” 

Lincoln utterly demolished this argument during his debates with Stephen Douglas.  Lincoln correctly held that, as imperfect as the world was when the Founders inherited it, they intended in that document to establish universal principles applicable to all people, all places and all times, and that they founded a government upon those principles that they knew would place the nation upon that course.

Americans of African descent that belonged to the Greatest Generation lived just a single lifespan from emancipation, and dealt every day with the residual attitudes of those times. 

Yet despite the injustices of the day, they could look to that document, they could see the promise it held for the future, and they knew it was worth fighting for and if necessary worth dying for.

The Tuskegee Airmen thus fought for a “double victory.” They knew that by fighting for justice abroad they could also advance justice at home – that by preserving the promise of the Declaration they could ultimately see it fulfilled.

So through the Tuskegee Institute they learned to fly, and went to war for the promise they saw in their country – promise that may have seemed rather distant in those days.

When the fighter group finally arrived in Europe, they were given decrepit equipment and confined to ground strafing.  Despite brilliantly fulfilling these assignments, they were belittled for not shooting down enemy fighters, even though they were assigned to theaters where there were no enemy fighters.

At the time, the Luftwaffe was decimating American bomber forces.  American fighter pilots would take off after the first German fighters they spotted, leaving the bomber formations wide open for attack.

As losses mounted, the Army Air Corps finally sent in the Tuskegee Airmen.

Remember, these pilots had been degraded and demeaned for not shooting down enemy fighters.  But when finally given the chance for self-aggrandizing glory, they demurred.  They adopted the selfless strategy not to rack up victories for themselves, but rather to protect the bombers at all cost.  Bomber losses dropped dramatically under their protection and the bomber crews knew that when they saw the Red Tails on their wings, their odds for survival and a successful mission had just improved dramatically.  Bomber crews began calling them, “Red Tail Angels.” 

Their record speaks for itself: 112 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air; 150 on the ground; 15,533 sorties; 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses; and countless American bomber crews returned home safely.

Tuskegee bomber crews represented by our honorees today were in preparation for what would have been the bloodiest and most horrific phase of the war: the invasion of Japan.

After the victory they had hastened, the Tuskegee Airmen returned home to the same injustice, degradation and segregation they had left.  Their extraordinary story wasn’t widely celebrated.  No one could have blamed them if they felt bitter and betrayed.

But these men didn’t succumb to bitterness.  Their attitude was perhaps best recounted by one Tuskegee veteran who said, “America’s not perfect.  But I’ll hold her hand until she gets well.”

They knew they had planted a seed that, in the full bloom of time, spawned the double victory they had sought.  And God gave many of them the longevity to see that day.  Two of them honor us with their presence today.

In Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech, Henry V says of the veterans of Agincourt, “Then shall he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say, these wounds I had on Crispin’s day.  Old men forget yet all shall be forgot, but he’ll remember, with advantage, what feats he did that day.  Then shall our names, as familiar in his mouth as household words…be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.  This story shall the good man teach his son and Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by from this day til the ending of the world that we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Today, we raise our flowing cups to freshly remember the Tuskegee Airmen and the double victory they won for our nation. 

Through their faith in the founding principles of our nation; through their devotion to a homeland that not always reciprocated; through their nobility and resilience in times of mortal peril abroad and their faith and patience in times of adversity at home, they set in motion the progress of the past 70 years and proved to the world that in this nation, there is only one race -- it is the American race.

God bless you gentlemen.

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Congressman McClintock delivered the attached remarks at the Truckee Air Fair.  The Congressman spoke at a dinner held in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, July 6, 2012.