Tuskegee Airmen Invited to Obama Inauguration

Four more years? But on the Blagojevich thread you were so certain Obama wasn't going to make it to January!

Oh, wait, you were just being a dick.

I think it's time for me to bust out my Obama dance again:

Ooooooooooo

fuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyes

Aren't you late for school?

You better hurry or you're going to serve another detention after school.

Ace pilot during WWII:

You don't get it do you? If Obama doesn't make it to January, then the next highest vote getter (McLame) will be offered the job (seeing as how he didn't really want the job anyway, he'd probably decline), leaving us with...

[drumroll]

Pelosi!!!!!

(Hey, at least she'd get that plane she's been wanting)

fuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyes

Weren't the Tuskegee airmen one of the highest-decorated combat groups in WWII?

Quite possibly. I have no issue with them being invited. It's who isn't being invited, and the example it sets.

I don't follow your logic. All WWII vets should be invited to the inauguration in order to avoid insulting any of them?

Sure, why not?

Perhaps the better question to ask is, why invite just the Tuskegee Airmen?

The issue here is not at all that cj is afraid of and literally HATES black people, or that he is a piece of ****. For if that were the case, why would he post this on another thread?

I'd have to go check, but i believe that the 332nd Fighter Group has been alleged to have had the distinction of never having lost a single bomber to enemy figherts in the entire history of their escort operations. By the way, properly escorting bombers means that you probably have fewer kills of enemy fighters, because if one of them runs, your job is to return to protect the bombers, not chase after them to add another kill to your record.

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Further reading suggests that there is a good deal of recent controversy over the accuracy of that claim about the 332nd. An Air Force report a few years ago suggests that 25 bombers may have been lost to enemy fighters while escorted by the 332nd--although that is still an impressive record, given that the unit flew 15,000 sorties (a sortie is one plane flying one mission, and a plane and/or pilot can possibly fly more than one sortie in a day--on escort missions, however, just one mission per day is likely) during 1500 missions.

I can find no evidence that they were the most decorated fighter group of the war. They painted the group identification on the tail of their fighters in red, and became known as "the Red Tails." Their reputation for protecting their escorted bombers so tenaciously, and minding their business rather than tearing off to increase their kill records resulted in bomber crews requesting a Red Tail escort whenever they faced a difficult mission over Germany. It is generally thought that bomber groups did not necessarily know that the Red Tails were flown by black aviators.

By the way, the quickest way to get information on the Tuskegee Airmen, which is specific to their combat record, is to search for the 332nd Fighter Group, or the 99th Fighter Squadron. The 99th was the original formation, and while its record was not distinguished, it was as good as that for white squadrons. We know this is true because a Texas congressman purported to have a report from a "scientist" in Texas claiming blacks were intellectually inferior and incapable of performing as fighter pilots, so the Army Air Force made a specific study of the 99th's record in comparison to equivalent squadrons with white pilots.

The 332nd Group was formed from the 100th, 301st and 302nd squadrons. The 99th Fighter Squadron was later added to the 332nd.

I wonder how many surviving airmen from WWII there are left?

My Dad is a member of the fraternal order of Quiet Birdmen, and every meeting he goes to, there are fewer and fewer showing up.

While looking for information on the 332nd, i found this web site for Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. I suspect that would be the best place to start to find information of survivors.

Well, perhaps I should have said "most successful."

My recollection is that because of their race, they were not deployed as quickly as other units and benefited from additional training. When they were finally deployed, their skill embarrassed the other air groups.

Are you certain that only the Tuskegee Airmen are invited?

Further, I don't think you understand what it means to be honored. The fact that you honor one group does not imply an insult to groups that are not honored.

OK, so why did he pick them to be honored?

Why shouldn't he?