LT. COL. CHARLES "A-TRAIN" DRYDEN (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Charles Dryden, the real "A-Train," was one of the first black fighter pilots to enter combat in WWII. As part of the original 99th fighter squadron, he fought the German Luftwaffe first-hand over the skies of Europe. When he rotated home, he served as one of the few black combat veteran fighter pilots instructing stateside. Instead of a hero’s welcome, he endured a treatment that was worse than the Italian prisoners of war he helped conquer. Dryden represented all that the establishment tried to deny: an African American military aviator and a combat-proven fighter pilot able to command just as well as any other in the U.S. Army Air Force.

LT. COL. JAMES WARREN (Ret.)

Lt. Col. James Warren is a career military whose personal experience runs the gamut of the Tuskegee experience. He first entered fighter training in Tuskegee and was washed out, or eliminated, from a strict quota system that limited the number of black pilots who graduated from flight training. Since Tuskegee was the only black Army Air Force facility in the nation, Warren was forced to remain there with no chance of promotion. Finally in 1944 he was assigned to the newly formed all-black bomber squadron.

During combat training, he and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen suffered through one of the worst incidents of institutionalized racism when the trainees received less consideration than detained German prisoners of war. In what became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny, Warren and 100 other officers stood up to the racist policies of the local commanding general and risked death as part of a protest against the segregation of the base facilities, a blatant disregard of U.S. Army
policy. The 101 officers were arrested and detained for entering the base officers club, and what resulted led to the 1948 Presidential Order desegregating the U.S. military.