There were a few in college, but they were not in my circles so I knew of them but not about them.
I lived through 16 years of a military career and only encountered black men or women when they were subordinates, perhaps refueling my jet or accepting my flight plan at base operations.
My last four years in the USAF, I had to learn a new trade. No longer was I a pilot of jets. I was a staff officer and my job was to manage the application of Air Force bombs on Army targets. I talked to the men who wanted the bombs on one phone and I talked to the men who had the bombs on another phone, and I brought the two together.
After a while, I was given a minor leadership position in my squadron and tasked to lead a "flight" of white, Hispanic and black men and women. The members of my flight performed a variety of jobs that resulted in a functioning subset of an Air Support Operations Squadron. I did that and I learned a lot.
In so doing, I had to talk to black men and find out what it was they knew. I had to ask them to work for me. I had to ask them what they thought we should do. Most of all, I had to ask them to perform as if they cared what the result might be. They did that.
During that time, I had one more new experience. My new operations officer, my immediate supervisor, was black.
He was an F-15 pilot, a fighter pilot, and even though his fighter heritage was more aggressive, more focused, and more intense than my reconnaissance heritage, his style was low key.
We got along OK. He was a good leader and I and all of my peers respected him. We never said that, but it was understood. More than some of our leaders, he focused on our mission, not on the politics of life with the Army's III Corps.
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