WASHINGTON(AP)
Six decades after completing their World War II mission and coming home to a country that discriminated against them because they were black, the Tuskegee Airmen are getting high honors from Congress.
That gratitude will be expressed Thursday when the legendary black aviators will receive a Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. The award is the most prestigious Congress can offer.
“It’s never too late for your country to say that you’ve done a great job for us,” Ret. Col. Elmer D. Jones, 89, of Arlington, Va., said in an interview. Jones was a maintenance officer during the war.
President Bush, members of Congress and other dignitaries are expected to join some 300 airmen, widows and relatives.
Ret. Lt. Col. Walter L. McCreary, who was shot from the sky during a mission in October 1994 and held prisoner for nine months in Germany, said it hurt that the group had not been honored for its accomplishments.
“We took it in stride. It’s a recognition long overdue,” said McCreary, also 89, of Burke, Va.
Persistent claims of the Tuskegee Airmen’s valor has always been in doubt by military and private avaition historians.