Ron McGee poses with models of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, left, and a Boeing 777 Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020. McGee, son of Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee, was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and later a commercial pilot.
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020 | 2 a.m.
All Ronald McGee wanted to do was fly jets for the U.S. Air Force. Just like Dad.
But McGee, a 72-year-old Las Vegas resident, faced plenty of hurdles because he was Black at a time in the early 1970s when there weren’t many minority fighter pilots.
Instructors refused to fly with him. And when they did, he said they would lower his grades so he would remain at the bottom of the class.
Veterans Day has special meaning for all those who have served. For McGee, the recognition for his service is overwhelming and never gets old.
After all, when he returned from the Vietnam War in 1973, servicemen weren’t celebrated. Those who protested the United States’ involvement in the war didn’t welcome the troops back with open arms.
“Now people thank you for your service, but at the end of it, you were a dog and you were spit on,” Ronald McGee said.
Black military members were doubly misunderstood — something McGee sensed at a young age.
His father, 100-year-old Charles McGee of Washington, D.C., is one of the last living members of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-Black fighter pilot unit that fought in World War II with little acknowledgment for their sacrifice.
His father would tell the story of Black prisoners in World War II being asked by German soldiers, “Why are you fighting for a country that doesn’t want you?”
Even though it’s a country where people constantly struggle for equal rights, the United States still belongs to every citizen, Ronald McGee said.
“We’re still Americans. It’s still our country,” he said.
Ron McGee and his father Charles McGee are shown in cockpit of B-17 in Oshkosh, Wisc. in 2012.
The elder McGee made history as the first to serve in the U.S. Air Force for more than 30 years, completing over 400 combat missions in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In 2011, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.
“I didn’t know it until I got into the military myself what he had done. That generation didn’t talk about the war,” Ronald McGee said. “I knew his rank but I didn’t understand what he went through as a Tuskegee Airman.”
Charles McGee earned his wings in the 1940s when the military was still segregated. There had never been a Black pilot in the U.S. military up to that point. Blacks “would be good for driving trucks, cooking and cleaning but nothing else,” Ronald McGee said.
In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order to integrate the military.
“If they had failed, I’m not sure he would have signed that order,” Ronald McGee said about the Tuskegee Airmen. “Their success opened the door to so much.”
Charles McGee retired from the U.S. Air Force around the time Ronald McGee joined in the early 1970s. “He pinned my wings on me when I graduated in 1971,” Ronald McGee said.
Despite having been at the controls hundreds of times for flights, father and son were never on the same flight until a few years ago. Ronald flew the plane, and Charles was the passenger — unknowingly. When the plane landed, Ronald walked out to surprise his dad as the pilot.
“My dad and I never flew together. My mother wouldn’t let it happen. She said I’m not going to lose you both at the same time,” said Ronald McGee, who moved to Las Vegas eight years ago and still works as a flight instructor.
