Tonight we honor the memories of two very different men who fought in two very different wars. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Lee A. Archer, the first African-American flying ace, passed away on January 27th at the age of 90. Staff Sgt. Rusty H. Christian, a special forces soldier from Greeneville, Tennessee, was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on January 28th. Please fillow me below the fold to learn more about the lives and heroism of these two brave men.
Lt. Col. Archer was born in Yonkers in 1919, but he was raised in Harlem. He left New York University in 1941 to join the Army Air Corps. He wanted to be a pilot, but African Americans were banned from fighter pilot training in 1941. A 1925 War Department study had said that:
Negroes didn't have the intelligence, or the character, or the leadership to be in combat units, and particularly, they didn't have the ability to be Air Force pilots. ~source
Archer was initially assigned to a communications job in Georgia, but when the military began to train black flyers at Tuskegee Airfield in Alabama, he joined the Tuskegee Airmen and earned his wings in July of 1943.
Lt. Col. Archer flew 169 combat missions during the Second World War. On a single day in 1944, he shot down three German planes over occupied Hungary. He is credited with shooting down five German planes, making him the first African American flying ace. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service to our country.
Despite his heroism during WWII, Archer returned to an America that was still segregated.
“I flew 169 combat missions when most pilots were flying 50,” Mr. Archer told The Chicago Tribune in 2004. “When I came back to the U.S. and down that gangplank, there was a sign at the bottom: ‘Colored Troops to the Right, White Troops to the Left.’ ” ~source
Archer remained in the military until 1970 and retired as a Lt. Colonel. He then went on to a successful business career. He served as a Vice President for General Foods and then went on to found a venture capital company, Archer Asset Management.
In recent years, Archer was one of the Tuskegee Airmen who attended the inauguration last year. Of the original 994 Airmen, it is estimated that only about 50 to 60 are still alive. Archer also had an opporunity to visit our troops in Iraq in 2005:
In October 2005, Mr. Archer and two fellow Tuskegee veterans visited an air base at Balad, Iraq, to meet with 700 servicemen from a successor unit to his all-black outfit.
“This is the new Air Force,” he told The Associated Press. In the dining room, he said, he saw “black, white, Asian, Pacific Islanders, people from different parts of Europe.”
“This,” he said, “is what America is.” ~source
Archer's wife passed away in 1996, but he is survived by three sons and a daughter, as well as four grandchildren, including Kossack mallyroyal.
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On Wednesday, the Department of Defense made the following announcement:
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Rusty H. Christian, 24, of Greenville, Tenn., died Jan. 28 in Oruzgan province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.
SS Christian was a native of Greeneville, Tennessee, and graduated from Greeneville High School in 2004. He joined the military right out of high school, and he served a tour of duty in Iraq.
Last year he was accepted for Special Forces training, and he was deployed to Afghanistan as an engineer sergeant at the beginning of January of this year.
“He was very proud of what they (his Special Forces unit) were doing over there,” Shannon [a friend] told the Greeneville newspaper.~source
On learning of his death, Christian's family issued the following statement:
"We would like to thank everyone for their support during this most difficult and trying time." ... "We appreciate the condolences, prayers and acts of kindness that we have received. Rusty was a man who deeply loved his family and believed that he was making a difference in the fight against terror." ~source
Rusty Christian is survived by his wife and two small children, Taylor and Gavin, his mother and stepfather, his father and step mother, and a brother, Aaron. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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Poppies are the universal symbols of remembrance. May our nation never forget the heroism shown by these two men.
The purpose of the I Got the News Today series is to honor service members who have died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its title is a reminder that almost every day a military family gets the terrible news about a loved one.
Click here to see the series, which was begun by i dunno, and is currently maintained by Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, noweasels, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, twilight falling, joyful, roses, SisTwo, a girl in MI, Spam Nunn, JeNoCo, Janos Nation, True Blue Majority, Proud Mom and Grandma and CalNM.
Please bear in mind that these diaries are read by friends and family of the service members chronicled here. May all of our remembrances be full of compassion rather than politics.