Was maintained by war fighting sources. The total combat sorties was 15,943. Total aerial kills was 112. Id like to ask everybody a question. How many of you have heard that the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber under their escort . Ok. Education time. Ladies and gentlemen, im here to tell you that the myth of never losing a bomber is false. The total number of bombers lost while under escort by the Tuskegee Airmen was 27. This is going through air force records both on the enemy side and on our side. By comparison, the average number of bombers lost while under other p51 squadron protections in theater was 46 for the same period of time so even though they did lose aircraft, their effectiveness showed they were a stretch above the average p51 unit in theater at that time. Please feel free to pass that information on. To date, 66 tuskegee pilots gave the ultimate sacrifice and were killed in north africa and european combat zones. Additionally, 32 were shot down and captured and later repatriated after the war. A little known side note, was that the air corps also had a Bombing Group made up of black airmen. They were the 477th Bombardment Group at selfridge army airfield. They trained black pilots, navigators, bombardiers, radio men and Ground Support staff on the operation and maintenance of the twin engine b25 mitchell medium bomber. The unit was programmed to deploy to the Pacific Theater but they never deployed due to the ending of the war. Id like to touch base on another aspect of the Tuskegee Airmen that doesnt get a lot of light. Womens contributions to the Tuskegee Airmen. Unfortunately most of us see hollywood and their idea of what the Tuskegee Airmen are. In reality, it was very different. As the Tuskegee Airmen fought in the skies of world war ii, they were supported by a dedicated and often forgotten cadre of women. They were nurses, mechanics, supply and ferry pilots and secretaries. They nursed injured bodies and injured souls. They packaged and repackaged parachutes, cleared land for runways and base buildings delivered supplies and did many other duties to help keep a base operational. When black activists urged president truman to desegregate the military in 1948, they pointed to the example and heroism of the red tails, their air crews, ground crews and base support staff. Many of those personnel were women. The actions of black servicemen and women proved they earned the right for equal treatment enjoyed by all loyal americans. Its important at this point in time to note this one aspect and please, this is what id love for you to carry away with you. Without the bold imagination of mary mathune, the sheer stubbornness of her friend first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and numerous unrecognized women warriors, it is doubtful that the Tuskegee Airmen would have come into existence or been as successful as they were. At this point in time, i have a few questions for the gentlemen on our board. I would like to ask mr. Pride to please come down. Mr. Pride is one of our distinguished dodas. Thats fine. Excellent. Id like to ask the first question of mr. Fauntroy. Im the youngest guy up here. Mr. Fauntroy, please give us one moment, folks. Mr. Fauntroy, where are you from . Washington, d. C. , Columbia Hospital for women, where i was born. Ok. Several years ago. Not too long ago. Mr. Fauntroy, what was your inspiration when you first left home . We had an officer in the Police Department here who was an all american football and basketball player and you can look at me and see that i was interested in basketball. No doubt. Yeah. I idolized that gentleman. After my father, he was the greatest man that i knew. He joined the Tuskegee Airmen shortly after the war started, graduated and was killed in an airplane accident in michigan. He was my inspiration. Of course, i was just 15 years old when the war started. By the time i turned 17, i decided that i didnt want to go in the navy so i went to 11th and new york avenue to the bus station where they recruited in the army and i, with permission of my mother, asked if i could go in the Army Air Corps and they gave me a test. Apparently i passed it, to my mothers surprise. And i went off to bowling field to take a physical psychological, psycho motive and some other test and on february 51, 1944, i was sworn in the Army Air Corps reserves. May of 1945, i was sworn in to the Army Air Corps because i had turned 18 in march. I went to keisler field, took some more tests and to my surprise, i passed and was sent up to Tuskegee Army airfield as a preaviation cadet. I stayed there until may of 1945. I was put in class 45i. You mentioned 42. 45i was my class. And for you folks that dont know it, the war ended when they found out 45i was being trained. Thats not true. But thats what we like to say. I was able to go through three of the four phases to become a pilot before they declared a surplus and i was discharged at andrews Army Air Corps base november 8. Tomorrows my anniversary, 1945. The main thing about my training, i like to think, is that the gentlemen who went over before me came back and taught me. My instructor in basic flying was lieutenant captain Leonard Jackson out of fort worth, texas. He came back and taught meow me how to fly the at6 and do night flying, cross country. Those men came back and they taught me well, they taught us well. I guess my other claim to fame is that in primary, my first check ride you guys or girls interested in flying know that after 20 hours of flying theyre going to give you a test. And its the test is for you to prove that you learned what your instructor is supposed to have taught you. My first check ride was with c. Alfred anderson, chief anderson, who happened to have taken mrs. Roosevelt up. I didnt know any of this until i came out of the service. But, man, was that a big deal with me when i found out that that was the man that took me up and gave me my first check. I am very proud to be associated with the Tuskegee Airmen. All of these gentlemen are idols of mine. But to you young people, my god has done with me what ive done. I didnt do it alone. Thank you. Id like to ask mr. Pride. Mr. Pride, what was your inspiration when you were growing up and where are you from . Im from washington, d. C. , also. Home boy. And my inspiration was the local African American newspapers. About every other week or so there would be a photo of a Tuskegee Airmen event and when i was about 16 years old, i decided i wanted to be one of them. I wanted to fly. And like everybody else at that time, we all wanted to serve our country. Our country at the time was 160 million people. Onetenth of them went to war. I am very pleased to be a tuskegee airman. There were many workers during world war ii. Thank you, sir. My next question is for dr. Ware. Dr. Ware, please tell us where your from and did you dream of joining the military when you were young . If not, what were you aspiring to be . What was the question again . Did you dream of joining the military when you were young . No, i didnt dream on joining the military when i was young. I found out after i came out of the military that my grandfather had been a military person in the civil war. But i found that out later, that i had a heritage, a military heritage. I was just unaware of that. I was in junior college, my sophomore year of junior college. Its only two years there so it was my final year of junior college, when the war broke out. And of course our whole class of six guys, we went down to a place where you could sign up. We already we hadnt drafted but we were enlisting people and enlarging the military service. This was in the 1940s. And it was nothing that was unusual. We just thought this was the way that most Young Americans reacted. We were all athletes. We played ball and baseball in the summer, football in the fall. But whatever the normal things that young men did, we thought we were doing. But the exception came when you completed high school. Everybody, it was compulsory to complete high school. So if you had any ambitions and practically everybody had ambitions to go on, it was beyond high school. Well, there are many problems. There werent that many schools. And if you had to go some distance, then you had to maintain yourself while you were going to school. I selected, not out of choice, but forced choice, to go a junior college. It was only seven miles from home. But it gave you everything that a regular college would give you academically and in my sophomore year there, i got my call to active duty. I took the it was an honor to me to join the enlisted reserve corps. It was first started up because there was a war going on and you wanted to be part of something and they said, no, stay out, get your college training, get as much education as you can, then join up, that way youll be of more use to the service. And i tried to do that. However, in my sophomore year in junior college, my final year, i was called to active duty as an enlisted reservist. That was what i got for joining the enlisted reserve corps. It was to stay out until i completed my education. Well, it worked out just as they said. Junior college is only two years. So at the end of my sophomore year, myself and the other four gentlemen who were members of mammoth junior college, we all reported for active duty because we all had joined the enlisted reserve corps. I was in the service i think about three weeks when they gave us an opportunity to ask questions and get whatever answers we needed and i wanted to find out how i could get from the army to the air corps. And the answer was, forget it. And that was best advice that they could have given me because there was no way to get out or to change at that time. But in a short period of time i was on the Atlantic Ocean in november, and we were fired on twice on our way to england. But we landed there. A majority of the ship made it through. We were not an exception. After about five months in england, we were just about ready to hit the channel and finally general eisenhower gave the order and the largest assembly of ships in the history of warfare and of mankind took off and headed for france. I dont know what went on there. We were just standing in line day after day waiting for your outfit to be called. And the third week, we got our call. We went to South Hampton and boarded up to go to france. We didnt know where we were going but we landed at the primary landing point for american g. I. s. There were several beaches. Americans had omaha and utah beach. We landed at omaha. The british had their beaches. It was not a difficult thing as a young man to adapt to the military life. It was demanding. But we had somewhat of a family history. My grandfather had been in the service. I didnt know too much about that. But we were just responding to the things that went on around us. Rest of our buddies were signing up so it was only natural for you to want to be a part of what was going on. I did not intend to be a professional military person. But after world war ii, coming back to school, i needed to have as much as many funds as i had in order not to have to take a fulltime job. And what was the governments package for g. I. s, your g. I. Benefits, would give you a certain amount of money but it wasnt enough. They took care of the payments to the school but you had to live off of 60 a month. So a growing male or female, for that matter, would find it very difficult to manage on 60some a month. So i took rotc. That gave me some additional money and it was just enough to make ends meet and with my military service, rotc was something that i enjoyed doing. It was expanding what i had learned from scratch leadership. I realized when i was taking rotc the tremendous leadership among the men that i had served with. A young First Sergeant who was 27 years old, never been in the service before, was our leader. Everything that i learned, sort of was learning by experience. And as i said, i never looked forward to having a career in the force but once i got out of college and had a commission and examined my possibilities, used the experience that i had, 3 1 2 years of service, to start with, and go back in the service not as a staff sergeant, which i retired as, but as a second lieutenant, i knew all about Second Lieutenants by that time, it was not a difficult choice, and ive never regretted it and i would recommend it to all of you. Im really inspired as i look out and i see so many crisp young uniforms. I was not the neatest soldier. We were a medium automotive maintenance company. We repaired trucks, vehicles jeeps. If it had wheels on it, we could repair it. And we did. We did that for 2 1 2 years in europe. We cannot win the war but we made our contribution to the war effort. And we were proud of that. Some of the edge was taken off when we got back to the states. We had to readjust to what we had left in the states. But that was what everybody had to bear, so it was not unusual. But i think ive said enough. We need to hear from you, sir. \[applause] my next question is going to go to major anderson. The good thing about it is, you never lose your rank, major. Major, please tell us where your from, and also, when did you decide to get involved with the military . My name is major anderson. Major is my first name. Never got a promotion. Its not a military rank. My parents gave me that. I was born march 5, 1925. Makes me 89 years old today. Glad to be here with you today and to speak to you. While in the military, i was enlisted. Can you hear me . While in the military, i was an enlisted personnel. So i consider myself representing the enlisted men in the services. I recall vividly in boot camp during world war ii, when i was in the service, we called it basic training. And basic training, the man that i feared the most was my sergeant. I didnt care about the officers. But that sergeant. The sergeant was telling me, he said, private anderson, you dont address a noncommissioned officer as sir. yes, sir, sergeant, sir. Private anderson, what did i tell you . So thats the way it was with me. In 1941 when the war began, all eligible men 18 and older were required to sign up for the draft, to be drafted into the military. When the war began in 1941, i was 15 and when i became 18, i signed up, being obedient to the law, i signed up, and within three months time i was drafted into the military. Received my boot training at keisler field, mississippi. After boot camp, basic training, i was sent to chanute field, illinois, for Aircraft Maintenance training. For your information, the pilots, like bill fauntroy to my left here, the pilots were sent to tuskegee, alabama. There in tuskegee, they had the classroom, Tuskegee Institute for classroom study. They also had morton field for the pilots to learn how to fly planes. The pilots went to tuskegee. The enlisted personnel like myself went to the chanute illinois, not far from chicago for our training. My training was an aircraft sheet metal worker and my occupation was to repair bullet holes of aircraft. So the Maintenance Crew was a part of. Our job was to keep the planes flying. I was stationed at godman field, kentucky and most of my time at godman most of my time in the military was spent at godwin field, kentucky, 1944 to 1945. The unit of the group that i was assigned to was the 477th bomber group. General davis later became the Commanding Officer of that group. Before we completed our training, the war was coming to an end so the 477th bomber group remained stateside. I was discharged for the convenience of the government in 1945 and that is my career with the military. Thank you. [applause] gentlemen, i have another question for each one of you, in turn. Id like to ask you, what is your most vivid memory of serving in the military . Id like to start with mr. Pride. Sir, your most vivid memory . My most vivid memory was Gunnery School, central field, florida. We started off with the shotgun, shooting skeet. During the training, we ended up shooting skeet out of the back end of a truck. Thats so you could learn how to shoot things while you were moving. On one particular day, i made 50 out of 50. And i thought i was going to be the hottest thing. I went back to the squadron and said, hey, you got the day off from Gunnery School because you did so well. You got k. P. Tomorrow. [laughter] gunnery was something that i enjoyed. That was one of the two Technical Schools that i finished. The other was radio operator. Maintenance guy. I flew 1600 hours during world war ii. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Fauntroy, your poignant memory . Solo. My instructor, cecil ryan, after eight hours of teaching me asked me to pull up to the t out in the middle of the field at morton field was just a field. It didnt have runways. Just a grass field. And we pulled up to the t. He got out of the pt13d and stood on the grass and looked up at me. Go on up there and kill yourself. I took off, because i knew what to do. I took off, went through the pattern, came down, bounced all over the place. Never landed, just kept going. I came back and landed properly. See, it taught me to do that and i pulled up to the t to pick him up. He said, no, no, no, go on up and kill yourself. So that was one of the things that i remember. After you solo, with two more days, you have to shoot three landings at the airport. I shot those three landings and fourth day, they said, go out, youre on your own. Im supposed to go out and practice what they taught me. But believe me, that first hour out there, all i did was ride and look and think how proud my mother would be to see her little boy flying an airplane. \[applause] dr. Ware . Thinking back, i think the memory that i cherish the most occurred when i was in korea. It was a night when i was assigned to be the officer of the day and as night was approaching, my responsibility to be in charge of the flag detail. All of you know, in handling the flag, this is a very significant task, you have to be very meticulous in carrying throughout responsibility. So it happened at the headquarters for the air force and the headquarters for the army are side by side. When you went up on the top of the roof to lower the flag, each one had its own flag, they were on the adjacent ends. So i could look right across to the next building and there was an Army Lieutenant who was doing the same thing that i was doing. He was in charge of the flag detail, to lower the flag. As they played the notes and the flag was lowered, it struck me that i was the person representing all of the people in korea. They were hard at work doing their jobs. My duty, safeguard the flag and to represent them. So i felt an unusual feeling. I cant really describe it. Witnessing the flag come down. I may have held that salute a little longer than ive ever held a salute because it struck me that we were here, many thousands of miles from home doing our duty. That was significant to me. \[applause] ladies and gentlemen, at this point in time, we are noted to keep our program moving. I have a few brief comments id like to make and then were going to close. We, the members of the east coast chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, thank you for joining us this morning. Id like to impress upon you that we are still in service to our country today. The mission now is to expose our youth to education opportunities, specifically within the aviation realm. To achieve our goals we have established a youth in Aviation Program where we expose youth to Career Opportunities in the aviation. A flight school, Aircraft MaintenanceTraining Facilities and air Traffic Control exposure class to enlighten our youth. We also provide Educational Opportunities to collegebound students to our scholarship programs. Please continue to support us and follow us online at eccti. Org as we work to enlighten our youth to the opportunities education opens for their futures and promote the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen. Ladies and gentlemen, id like to thank you for your time with us today personally and a round of applause for all of our panelists. [applause] good morning. The medal of honor is awarded by the president of the United States in the name of the u. S. Congress. The medal of honor was created in 1861 and several years later on march 25, 1863, the first medal of honor was presented to a private. Since then only 6,000 have been awarded. 3,470 represents a very small fraction of the tens of millions of women who have served in uniform. There are only 79 living recipients of the medal of honor and im pleased to be here with two of them. Our first served for 27 years and received the medal of honor for valor during the vietnam war. He served as deputy secretary assistant for the navy until 2009. He served as acting assistant secretary of the navy from january through april 2009. Please welcome medal of honor recipient barney bar numb. Our second panelist serve in the army for 26 years. He was one of americas first soldiers to dawn the green beret authorized by president kennedy to be worn by the special forces. He served two tours in vietnam. On september 17, 1969 his heroic actions in vet name earned him the highest military award. After more than 45 years, he finally received the recognition he deserved and was decorated with the medal of honor by president obama in march of this year. Please welcome u. S. Army Sergeant First Class melvin morris. [applause] ive prepared a few questions for our panelist but ill give you plenty of time later on for your questions as well and well have a good discussion with our panelist. Before we get started i encourage to you visit the medal of honor website where you can learn about all recipients and read their citations as well. Fur ever down in charles son, i encourage to you visit the medal of honor museum in south carolina. So id like to start with you colonel. What were some lets talk about some of your role models early in your life growing up in connecticut. I think my role models first of all were mom and dad. We came from a small town in connecticut. We didnt have much but we had everything. Dad worked three and four jobs and mom was a homemaker. Then i think probably scouting made a big difference in my life. And i think much of what i learned in scouting carried on in my career as a marine and leadership aspects and first aid and living in the field. And i guess my coach. I played sports and thats when i learned its not about you, its about the team because thats what it takes to get through life. And of course, i think my minister and on into the military various leaders in the marine corps. You were president of your high school classes. Tell us about the day military recruiters came to your school and why you became a marine. On career day in high school, they had all the juniors and seniors in the auditorium. And they had all the recruiters come in. And the Army Recruiter got up