Friends, family, military and retired military members gathered
Wednesday to pay tribute and to lay to rest an Air Force
pioneer.
Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the first
African-American Air Force general, was remembered in a memorial
service at the Bolling Air Force Base Chapel. After the ceremony,
he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military
honors. Davis died July 4 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center of
natural causes. He was 89.
Alan Gropman, chairman of the Grand Strategy Department at
National Defense University here, delivered the eulogy. Many of
those in attendance wore the distinctive red jackets of the
Tuskegee Airmen -- members of the units Davis commanded during and
after World War II.
"Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. is an American hero," Gropman said.
"We call those who demonstrate physical courage heroes because they
risk their lives for something bigger than themselves.
"General Davis risked his life for his nation and for his
people. He believed all his adult life in racial integration and
thought he could bring this essential reform to America once World
War II began. If he demonstrated blacks could fly and fight and
lead with the same skill and courage as whites, a notion foreign to
white America of 1941, he believed he could destroy the myth of
racial inferiority. The Tuskegee Airman shared his vision and
courage, and he and they succeeded."
Davis' nephew, Judge L. Scott Melville, spoke on the attributes
of respect, dignity and honor, and how Davis worked to earn them.
"Black men, brown men, yellow men, red men and women of all colors
could not acquire those attributes through birth. …They had
to earn them," Melville said. "Ben understood these rules of
American politics, and he was determined to overcome them. Not by
demonstrating, not by denouncing, not by complaining, not by
whining, but by succeeding.
"He was determined to succeed. This is what motivated him. He
tried to instill in each of his officers the need to show by
example that they were just as good as anybody else, and maybe even
better."
At Arlington National Cemetery, as is military
tradition, a horse pulled Davis' casket on a caisson to the
gravesite. Tuskegee Airmen served as honorary pallbearers.
During the Arlington service, the Air Force honor guard rendered
the time-honored courtesies to a hero passed: a cannon salute, a
lone bugler playing taps and the passing of the American flag to
the next of kin.
Davis' memory was also honored with a heritage flyover,
including a vintage P-51 Mustang painted in the Tuskegee Airmen's
flying colors, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15 Eagles. The fliers
paid tribute to their fallen comrade and leader with a missing man
formation, traditionally reserved for military aviators killed in
the line of duty.
Davis' survivors include his sister, Elnora D. McLendon, and
many nieces and nephews.
[Thanks to Staff Sgt. C. Todd Lopez, USAF; Special to the American
Forces Press Service --ed.]
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