{"id":31429,"date":"2021-08-13T04:05:56","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T23:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theburn.com\/?p=31429"},"modified":"2021-08-13T04:05:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T23:05:56","slug":"ashburn-veteran-was-final-graduate-from-famed-tuskegee-airmen-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theburn.com\/2021\/08\/13\/ashburn-veteran-was-final-graduate-from-famed-tuskegee-airmen-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashburn veteran was final graduate from famed Tuskegee Airmen program"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
THE LAST TUSKEGEE AIRMAN By Jill Devine<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The decision that changed Carl Johnson\u2019s life came in 1945, and it was one he did not make for himself. It was delivered in an envelope to his home in Bellaire, Ohio, in the form of a military draft notice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Johnson was studying at Ohio State University to become a dentist, but he left his textbooks behind and headed to Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio, for induction into the U.S. Army Air Corps. He had no idea that he would soon earn his wings and that his name would be recorded in history. You see, Johnson was the very last graduate of the now-famed \u201cTuskegee Airman\u201d program, established in 1941 to train Black pilots\u00a0 at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama when the U.S. military was still segregated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cA lot of my friends were drafted before they finished high school, so I knew it was coming,\u201d said Johnson, who today is 95 and lives in the Potomac Green community in Ashburn. \u201cI didn\u2019t get to choose, but I was glad that I got Air Corps instead of Infantry.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Johnson remembers making model airplanes as a child. He also fondly recalls going down to the Ohio River each day and excitedly watching the airmail plane fly its route down the river to Cincinnati and Louisville and back. But he never dreamed he would one day become a pilot. He had never even been on an airplane.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n