Well thank you and good morning. I want to welcome to Ames Research Center, one of NASA's research centers in aeronautics. NASA is has four letters in it.

Oh, I also want to welcome, I almost forgot to do this. We not only have all the faces that I can see here but we also have a live Webcast going on for this session and I want to welcome all the students that are watching in over the Internet. And I also want to let everyone here in the audience know that the students on the Internet can ask questions, we'll get into a question and answer period later on, they can ask questions as well. And we're live on the web and we'll be asking those questions from the desk up here.

This is the first of a series of activities that NASA is going to sponsor over the next two years celebrating the Centennial of Flight. The Centennial of Flight, that's a celebration, it's the 100th anniversary of the flight of the Wright brothers. Now the Wright brothers were the first ones who flew a heavier than air flying machine sustained by its own power that could carry a person.

And that happened as a matter of fact this month only 98 years ago. So the anniversary happens two years from now and we're going to spend the next two years having various activities to celebrate that 100th anniversary. So I'm pleased to have you help us kick this celebration off.

NASA is a federal government organization. I work for the federal government. And most people think of NASA when they hear the word NASA or the term NASA, they think of the space program. And that's correct. The S in NASA is for space and we are the space agency. We launch shuttles, we support the International Space Station, we send probes to other planets, we send exploratory probes to outer space looking at asteroids. And I'm sure you've seen a lot of response from those activities on TV and in your classrooms.

But as much as I get excited about the space program, I get actually more excited about airplanes. And I started back when I was younger than you guys are, building model airplanes, and I still build them today, and I still fly model airplanes today, and it's just an exciting part of my life.

We're going to look at now another letter in NASA and that's the first A. What's that stand for? Aeronautics. Well aeronautics, in my way of thinking about it, means airplane. It's a little bit broader than that but it means airplane to me. So NASA studies and develops technology in both the aeronautics activities, or airplanes, and in space. Today we're going to spend your time with us primarily looking at aeronautics activities, airplane activities.

Well the Centennial of Flight, this 100 years that we have been flying people in airplanes, there have been steps in the development of the technology in the airplanes. And one of the events that caused a great deal of research to be done and a need for developing new technology in airplanes was World War II.

How many of you know when World War II happened. Shout it out. Yeah okay, 1939 to '45, that time frame. Well NASA back in those days called NACA, if you go look up the history. We did a lot of research in developing airplanes. But we have the distinct pleasure today of having with us some representatives of an elite group of pilots who flew airplanes in World War II. And that elite group of pilots and men that supported those pilots and that operation are called the [Tuskegee] airmen.

Now we have with us today Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson, who's going to be speaking to you, tell you a bit about flying, how the Tuskegee airmen happened, what the importance of that was and some of his experiences that occurred in World War II. And he will introduce the folks that he has with him.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Thanks for inviting me, Bob. Thanks for inviting us out to NASA Ames Research Center, and see all these bright faces. I'm a former schoolteacher. You say, yeah, here he goes again. Yeah. Watching Mama's dear little darlings. Somebody said, "Well, you teachers are suppose to love us." Are you kidding? Think about it. Look at this character. Who's supposed to love you? Now here I've got a wife. I've got a mortgage on neck, I've got a car payment, and I come to school and I'm suppose to love him. Na, NA, only a mama's suppose to love you.

Teachers, now seriously, teachers are here to give that which we have up here. To prepare you to deal with life. I came out here to Ames and I'm flabbergasted with the amount of brains in this place. You guys and gals don't realize where there's many times, where I am we have a slogan: "It's hard to fly with eagles when you work with turkeys." I'm talking intellectually about people.

We Tuskegee airmen, see how do I start this. We Tuskegee airmen have a job to do. We haven't flown in years. But we have a job to do today of preparing our youth to excel in science, aerospace, whatever. We used to tell a young person, if you don't want to go to the Air Force Academy, to the Naval Academy, to West Point, you want to go to Purdue, want to go to Cal Tech, great. But doggone it go somewhere, do something, don't be a stump on a log and sit back and talk about "well you ain't done nothing and you ain't helped me." I got news for you, only way to help yourself is to get up off your knees and hustle.

Once more: Nobody's going to help you until you help yourself. When you get home, tell your mama what Col. Jefferson said. "Ain't nobody going to help you until you help yourself." And by the way a teacher ain't suppose to say ain't. Tell your mama what I said. I used to tell kids this all the time.

We Tuskegee airmen came about in W.W.II, 60 years ago because society across the United States said that Negroes did not have brains enough to fly an airplane. Now everybody knew it was a darn lie because blacks were flying in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, small airports, airports everywhere.

Society said that Negroes do not have the ability to play basketball. Oh yes. Blacks could not join NBA. Society said that Negroes could not play baseball, but there was a black baseball team called the Kansas City Monarchs and every winter they would do just like the New York Yankees, go down to Cuba. And when they played, the Kansas City Monarchs would beat the New York Yankees every day. But society said blacks could not join the National League or the American League.

Finally, during the war the government said we're going to setup a special airfield in Alabama to train Negroes to fly airplanes.

And this process, we came from all over the United States. Ed Woodward, where were you from?

Ed: New York.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: He was from New York. I'm from Detroit, other guys from California, other guys from Mississippi. We were able to complete the program, to become pilots. For each, there were 900 pilots odd, for each pilot there were 10 to 15 to 20 other people, all segregated, all black, in this one unit. We had our own cooks, truck drivers, air mechanics, doctors, nurses, you name it, all segregated in Alabama near the school of Tuskegee. Tuskegee Institute, famous for the guy with the peanut. Who was the guy that had all, did all the stuff with peanut, anybody? Who was he? Joseph Washington Carver. Come on, you've heard your history.

I completed pilot training in 1944.

Ed was a navigator on B25's, the same kind of airplane, you guys remember where Col. Doolittle took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo. Well Ed was on that kind of an airplane, the B25.

I flew this plane.

This is a P51 Mustang. Fastest airplane in W.W.II Smooth, oh god, it's just like, you guys and gals haven't driven cars yet, not yet. I don't think so, you don't admit it. I know, this was considered to be the Porsche of the aircraft in W.W.II

And my unit, the 332nd fighter group flew out of Italy escorting B17s and B24s, the bombers going from Italy to Berlin. From Italy to [Ploesti]. And I had 18 and one-half missions in this airplane. Eighteen long-ranged missions, sitting up above the B17's and B24's going to Berlin.

The B17 is the four engine bomber just like the movie, there's a movie about four engine bomber. Well Memphis Belle, if you've seen the movie, Memphis Belle. Ten men in an airplane going to Berlin

and our job was to fly across the top of these guys to protect them from the German fighters.

German fighters would like come in and shoot down the bombers.

Well our job, and by the way, the B17 only flew at 170 mph. Today you say, 170 for a bomber. Hell, the B52 takes off at a 170. The B52 flew at 600-700 mph. The B17 only flew at 170. Everything out. And we fly across the top to protect it.

I had 18-and-one-half missions. And then the war department said, we've got a job for your redtails. Oh, the tails of our planes were painted red for air identification. So if you saw a P51 in the air over Germany with a red tail, you knew it belonged to the 332nd fighter group.

If it was a solid yellow tail, it belonged to the 52nd fighter group. If you saw a P51 with checkerboard, black and yellow little squares, just like a regular checkerboard, covering the whole tail, it was the 325th, their identifications. So they said, "Redtails, we've got a job for you. We want you to go over on the coast of southern France, right outside the city of Toulon and shoot up radar stations.

We didn't know what the heck radar was. Radar was brand new. Only thing we were told that these huge towers. Heck the darn things are about 150 feet high. Go over and shoot the, had a building quite naturally. We had three guns here, three guns here, shooting 50 calibers. The 50 caliber is about as big as your thumb. And our job was to destroy the radar because the radar would indicate ships coming across the horizon, our ships on the invasion of southern France.

So here we go. Sixteen airplanes. Four, four more,

four, eight, twelve, sixteen. A Flight, B Flight, C Flight, and D Flight. D Flight one, D Flight two, D Flight three, D Flight four. Our squadron was called "Bubble." Bubble D four. Tail end Charlie. Me. 4-8-12-16. I'm number 16.

A Flight goes in and fires at these radar stations, they miss the radar stations, they shoot them up, they come on out and go back out to sea, going home.

B Flight they go in, and by the way, this side of the cliff was covered with these little red — chum-chum-chum - and over the radio it says, "what in the heck is going on"? Hey our men, they're shooting at us. Twenty millimeters, 47 millimeter. A 20 millimeter is about that big around. About big around as a silver dollar.

C flight goes in, D flight and by the time I get there they're doing about 400 mph, oil pressure is in the red, everything is forward and the old plane is bumping, it's kind of bumpy. Got to line up on a building and a tower and they get shots on it and by the time I think I'm down to a 100 feet, doing about 400 mph and as I pass over the top of it something says. Boom!. I'm sitting here like that and I look up and on top of the canopy, there's a hole. Top of the canopy there's a hole. And of course you say to yourself, what the — dumb-dumb-dumb.

And then in the front of the stick, fire came up out of the floor. Now we were covered with long gloves, leather gloves. You had an oxygen mask, goggles, completely covered. And I didn't get burned. But since something told me, shoot baby you got to get out of this so and so.

Pull back on the stick and as you go up, try to get some altitude. I think I was about 50 feet, I don't know. You pull a little red knob. The little red knob and the canopy would go off, and then when you get right up on top you punch, you hit the buckle. You had a large buckle, shoulder straps, seat straps, all hooked. And when you hit it they come loose. Now right up on top and when I hit it I'd come out.

And as I looked, by the way, and you see the tail go by with all this fire coming out of it. And you reach over and sitting right here on your chest is a D-ring, a big ring and you pull it. And I remember pulling it and looking at it and nothing happened. Oh. . . 1, 2, 3, and then, boom!, the shoot opened and I'm going down through the trees and I hit the ground and rolled over and they told us, if you go down in France you get with the free French, the Marquee, the free fighters, they're fighting in the woods, they're out in the woods fighting against the Germans.

And when I hit the ground and rolled over and I looked up, a German guard said, Ya [German], for you the war is over. Okay. Four thousand miles from home and there I was. Somebody's often asked me, well Mr. Jefferson weren't you scared? No. You'd be surprised when you get in a situation like that you're so busy doing what you have to do, you don't have time enough to sit there and feel sorry for yourself.

You rise to the occasion. Two weeks later, I set back and I started thinking about what happened. That's when I got the queasies, and I got scared and on the inside my guts started to jam up, thinking how close I came to being killed.

These other 15 guys got through, and when they looked back, they're doing 400 mph, and they look back and they see my airplane do that. Go in and explode.

So when they got back to the base they made out the report that said, "Jeff bought the farm." When you're in active duty and you get killed, $10,000 goes to your benefactors to pay literally the mortgage on the house and somebody $10,000.

My father and mother got a telegram, KIA. What's that? Killed in Action. They didn't find out about me until two months later, when International Red Cross had got into the POW camp and set a report back that I was alive. I spent nine months in Germany. That was an experience that takes another hour to talk about, mainly because you didn't have enough food. I went in at a 125 pounds, I came out at about 110. After nine months in Germany, oh, let me something else, I forgot the first session.

I was in a place when I was liberated by the American forces that came through and liberated the camp. Twenty miles north of Dachau concentration camp Dachau. I was not in Dachau, I was in a prison of war camp 20 miles away.

I saw Dachau, and if you have ever read anything, the ovens were still warm, bodies were stacked up like cordwood. Dead people. "Man's inhumanity to man," that's another session that I usually mention and let everybody know how inhuman human beings can be to each other.

Came back after the war. Married, school teacher, stayed in the Army Air Force until 1952. Went offline status because my eyesight changed and I couldn't tell how close I was to another airplane because I killed myself and killed somebody else.

We Tuskegee airmen after all these years are still together. The cooks, the bottle washers, the truck drivers, the pilots, the navigators, the bombardiers we surmise at about 25,000 at one time. There's a chapter in every city, Tuskegee airmen. And our job is to make sure that our young people are brought up-to-date. We want to inspire and teach you how to join this system.

Isn't it strange, we don't have any guards in this country to prevent people from leaving. Think about it. We don't have anybody on the guards on the outside, with guns to keep you from leaving. Everybody in the world is trying to get here. Think about it. You are here. And I've had some kids sit here fat, dumb, and happy refusing to go to school, refusing to learn, refusing to read, refusing to learn about life. And they're here.

You watch television, you read newspapers. Isn't it strange, "I don't want this math, the teacher don’t like me." What the heck does a teacher got to do with you getting brains up here? "Well, that teacher, he said he don't like me," Oh, come on.

Guys and gals, this is the best country in the world. Many times somebody asks me well Mr. Jefferson aren't you an Afro-American? Mr. Jefferson, I said, hey wait a minute, I am an American. Everybody here, you are an American, give yourselves a hand.

Many times you're going to be confronted and you're going to have to stand up on your feet and ascertain your citizenship and your honor, and many times I've often said, and by the way, you've been through 9/11, I went through Pearl Harbor. Ed Woodward went through Pearl Harbor, but we didn't see it on television. But still we acclaim that this is our country and we're going to stand by it, God Bless America. Thank you much.

Lt. Col. Jefferson goes to presenter table

Now we are going ask for questions and you're going to be orderly, quietly, in order, and they're going to bring you down one by one by one by one by one and watch who’s in front and who's next. Go ahead.

Participant: Please raise your hands and the volunteers will identify you and if you will come down the stairs over here to where I am I will give you the microphone so you can ask your question. So please raise your hand if you have a question so you can be identified to come in the front here. Any questions?

Q: In the meantime I do have several questions from the chat room, so I'll get started until folks have taken their position there. Let's see, I'm look through, people were asking questions as you were speaking so some of them did get answered.

Jolene of West Lawn, however, would like to know what nickname did you give your plane?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh golly. Every guy with wings, sharp uniform, had a girl in Atlanta, had a girl in Detroit, had a girl in San Francisco, but the gal in Washington was named Margot. Margot was about that tall, Margot had green eyes, shaped like, boy. "Margot" was the name of my plane and when I got back from overseas, my good buddy, my tent mate had taken care of Margot, my girlfriend, I never saw Margot after that. But that's when I got back to state and I met Adela. Ah that was the one I spent the rest of my life with.

Q: One more question while you make your way to the mike. Lori would like to know, did you train with Col. Ben Davis of Texas [talkover]

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh, my god, yes. Col. Ben Davis through before me, but he was my commanding officer overseas. Tall, erect, by the way, Ben Davis was a soldier. We were civilians who went into the military. He went to West Point and he was a real soldier. And today he's still living, tall, erect, very militant, I admire the man fantastically. Shall we?

Q: I'm going to let you talk to the kids on the floor here.

Student: How did it feel to be a kid our age?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: You got to understand, hey, by the way, guys, I've got approximately 25% hearing in this ear, approximately 75% in this ear and isn't it strange, out on the playground when, here you'll yell, "you all get down here," but you get in here and you watch television by the way and see a guy walking around with a microphone , [sound effects]. You get to the microphone and you sit off there like this, da, da, da, da. Come on speak to the mike. Speak to the mike.

Student: How did it feel to be a kid our age?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: How does it feel to be a kid your age? When I was your age I was into model airplanes. I was a stinker. I remember because I got double-promoted twice. Teacher didn't know what the heck to do with me. I was a stinker. Go ahead, next question.

Student: How did you feel when you met Eleanor Roosevelt?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh I did not meet Eleanor Roosevelt. This is something that happened about two years before me. When she went down to Tuskegee Institute and she flew with a civilian, and she got in an airplane with Chief Anderson. That was about two years before me. Thank God for Eleanor Roosevelt.

Particpant: I have a question here from Jesus that says, "What is your opinion of the Tuskegee airmen movie"?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Ah, the movie was, the movie was a documentary, let's face it. Many of the incidence in that movie were true except where that young man was getting to be washed out, and he ran out and got in an airplane and committed suicide by diving into a hangar and you saw all the fire, that is Hollywood. I'm 22 years of age and I'm not going to kill myself. That was baloney. That's strictly Hollywood. But everything else in that movie was great.

Student: Was it harder to fight in Pearl Harbor than WWII?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Pearl Harbor happened and it expounded us realistically. And it was one of those things that, it frightened us but we rose to the occasion because we knew we had to fight for the preservation of the United States of America. And many of us went to war and we did our best, many of us we tried to rise to the occasion.

Q: Okay I have another one here from Cody at West Lawn asking, what were the POW camps like?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: I was treated as an officer and a gentleman. They knew more about me than I knew about myself. They new my father's social security number, they had my complete schooling. I simply sat inside that barbed wired fence, in a barracks. They did not beat me, they did not torture me, they did not abuse me. I simply sat the war out.

Now this is in Germany. If I had been in Japan or the Far East, their attitude was that if you were captured you were suppose to die, period. That's why Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam was so famous. I literally sat the war out with no abuse. The only thing is we didn't have any food. That's the only thing. Next question.

Student: Why did your eyesight go out?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: I got to be an old man.

Student: Why did you decide to work at NASA?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh by the way, I'm here at NASA because my nephew works here at NASA and I was invited as a Tuskegee airman to come out and talk about my experiences in America. And invite Ed Woodward who is from Vallejo, California to come. We've been invited, we don't work here. Wish we did.

Student: Did you ever feel nervous on your missions? Or scared or something?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: To tell you the truth, no. It's crazy. We look back and we say, all of those airplanes going to Germany and the fighters and things that are happening, we were never nervous. I cannot explain it to tell you the truth. It was so, it was exciting.

Student: Did you have any wishes when you went into Pearl Harbor to fight?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: No.

Students: You didn't have any wishes?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: No, no. I didn't want to hurt anybody. Seriously, I didn't want to kill anyone. But I knew that I had to go to the Armed Forces because these country was under arms and we had a job to do.

Student: Did you get drafted into the war or did you have a desire in your kid to fight for your country?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: That is a question I've often thought about. I am not a conscientious objector because if this country has a purpose and if it's threatened I am in the Armed Forces like everyone else and we are going to fight to protect our country.

Q: Okay I have a question here from [Lakisha] at West Lawn. Why do you think it took you so long to get the purple heart?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh, now we went into something. In the prison of war camp there was one guy who was going bananas. He was going stark raving nuts because he couldn't get out of the camp. So the Colonel gave him a job. He said "I want you to sit down, and I want you to interview every man that comes in. Take his name, his rank, where he was shot down, and all this stuff." To keep him from going nuts and crazy. It was a heck of a job. He interviewed 2,000 men. Kept all of this on paper and after the war he brought it back to the United States. He didn't do a thing with it. Put it in a locker, a locker room, a footlocker.

He died in 1990. In 1992, his nephew found this document and published it. And in it, it shows that I was interviewed and I went down through the trees and I got cuts and bruises and scratches and contusions on the face, arms, legs. By the time nine months later when I get back to the States they're all healed up. And I forget about it, and I don't make an application for a Purple Heart.

When this guy published this thing, I see the evidence, and I make application for a purple heart, and personnel in the Air Force says,"Okay, we'll give you a purple heart." And that's how I got it, two months ago, three months ago. Sixty five years later.

Student: Were black and white people allowed on planes together?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Well ironically we didn't fly together. We flew escorting the B17's, but we were all, my unit was a complete black unit. The guys in my squadron were all black but when we went up in the air we protected the white guys in the bombers.

Q: Now that's not the way it is today.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh that's not the way it is today. Today it's completely integrated. Black and white in the same unit, we sleep the same barracks, we're completely integrated. Just like the personnel here at Ames.

Q: Okay. Ryan here has a question. How were flying planes in WWII different compared to planes today?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: In WWII we flew by the seat of our pants. Oh I went into the simulator, 747 simulator, and the guy sat there pushing buttons into the computer controlling the airplane. Today you've got buttons, you got electronics. Back then we did it by the seat of our pants. And we controlled the rudders, stick, [inaudible], it was completely different. But it was smooth, I got news, as I tell people, flying this airplane was just like driving a Porsche compared to a Mack truck. This was a Porsche, smooth and easy.

Student: What happened to the people in the plane you were in and do you still know them?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh no there was nobody else in this airplane with me. I was in the plane by myself. And when it went in it was destroyed.

Student: What was your first reaction when you found out you were going to go to Pearl Harbor?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: What was my reactions when I was going to go to Pearl Harbor, I did not go to Pearl Harbor. I was in school, in college, when Pearl Harbor happened. And I heard about it on the radio like everybody else.

Q: Yolanda would like to know, in what pilot class did you graduate and how many graduated with you?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: I got my wings and bars in January of 1944. Twenty five men, 125 started out nine months before that. All the rest of the guys washed out. 1944, January 1944, 25 of us graduated.

Student: Did you get any like medals or anything for what you did?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see, I'm trying to count these ribbons, three, six, nine, twelve, fourteen, I got about 14 medals through the years. Oh the purple heart is added to the bottom. Go ahead, next.

Student: How did you and your friend get to work in the Tuskegee Institute?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: How did I?

Student: Get to work in the Tuskegee Institute?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: We did not go to Tuskegee Institute. The air fare was about ten miles away from Tuskegee. We simply called ourselves Tuskegee airmen because of the proximity to the school. That's the reason why we called ourselves that.

Q: Okay I have a question here from Jolene at West Lawn. Do you have any advise to give future bombers for the war we are in now?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Oh this is a can of worms. How do you, America is threatened by terrorism. Mainly because they hate us. How do we fight terrorism when you put religion connected with patriotism? I don't know. It's a can of worms. Really. I put my faith into our leaders, both military and civilians, and hope that they will guide us as they have done before because we will survive.

Student: What got you interested in supporting

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Naw, naw, naw, You know how you sound? Nem, nem, nem.

Student: What got you interested in planes?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: What got me interested in airplanes? As a kid, six or seven, eight, nine, ten years old, I model airplanes, I was a model airplane freak just like Bob here.

Do you fly model airplanes? I had model airplanes hanging up in my bedroom. That glue, oh I can still smell that model airplane glue. Go ahead.

Student: The planes that everyone flew, did they choose them by experience or did you get to pick?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: By experience or did I get to choose? I was able to choose the airplane, well they had a whole bunch of airplanes and I got to be able to choose the one that I flew. Yeah. The one that I put Margot on, I was able to choose it. Yes I was.

Hey is that Andre?

__: Yes.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Hey, Andre, how are you? Go ahead.

Andre: What was your favorite moment in your airplane?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Most dangerous moment?

Andre: Favorite.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Favorite moment. When I flew underneath the ambassador bridge in Detroit.

By the way if there are five or six guys out in training and you are number three and we're playing follow the leader. We're cruising over cumulus clouds, underneath the clouds, and we go down the river, Detroit River, and the guy who leads goes underneath the Ambassador Bridge, number two goes underneath the Ambassador Bridge and you are number three. Are you going to be chicken and pull out? No. You follow them right on through.

By the way we were scared to be court marshaled and luckily nothing happened.

Student: How old were you when Pearl Harbor came out?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: When what? When Pearl Harbor?

Student: When it came out?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: 1941.

Student: How old were you?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: I was exactly 20 years old. Twenty. I was born in 1921, 1941. Yes go ahead.

Student: How did it feel when you first got in the airplane and do you still have the same feelings for it?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: I had my first airplane ride when I was about seven or eight years of age, in a small airplane. And ever since then it's been a pleasure, it's been a joy, it's exuberating. Two years ago I had a ride in the back seat of one of these real, you're going to see this airplane by the way down at the hangar. Somebody had another airplane in which they took the back, the tank out and put a seat back there, and I got a ride two years ago in the back seat of a P51. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Is there one here?

Q: Excuse me. Yes. Danielle wants to know why in your opinion are there so few black military pilots today?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: Why, because of the reluctance of black kids to go to the military and also lack of the opportunity of them being shown that there is an opportunity to get into the military. Many black kids in counseling in high school are not counseled to go to the military, in the Air Force. That's we as Tuskegee airmen have a job to do, to alert our young people of the opportunities.

Student: How many years were you in training to be a Tuskegee airman?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: How many years of training to be a Tuskegee airman? Nine months of training, then you've got your wings as an officer and then you went to six or eight months of training after that before you go to combat. So a year and a half to make sure you know what to do. Next question.

Student: How long was the longest distance that you go in miles? Like in an airplane?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: The longest?

Student: Distance. In miles [talkover]

Lt. Col. Jefferson: We went from Italy to Berlin, 2,000 miles, was that about it? Six hours. And make sure you never drink coffee in the morning. As I said before, this airplane was about, by the way, put out, stretch your arms like this.

This elbow would be on this side, this elbow would be on that side, the propeller will be right where Ed Woodward is sitting, oh not even that far. And the tail was about the third row, fourth row.

You're strapped in, straps across here, straps across here, and somewhere down there there's a tube that if you wanted to, if you can unzip and get to it, you can maybe get to this tube. Never drink coffee in the morning.

Q: We have a question here from Jesus from Mexico. He wants to know how your relationship is with the non Tuskegee pilots?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: When something goes wrong through here, with your automobile, you don't take your tools out and work on your car. You take it to the man. Our mechanics were the greatest guys in the world. For every one Tuskegee airmen who flew, there were 10 to 15 or 30 other people in, our cooks, our bottle washers, nurses, mechanics, radio men. Now today all you got to do is talk on your telephone. You don't know how that telephone works. If it breaks you take it back to RadioShack.

Bob: What about the relationship with other pilots that were not black?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: You'd be surprised, the relationship with other pilots who were not black? They respected us with the greatest of all accommodation because they knew that we could compete equally with them. Of course there was one so and so every now and then you'd run into a lousy, crummy, stinking so and so, who was a racist, so and so and so. But you look at it and forget about it. You go ahead and take care of business. This is the way the world is.

Student: What was your reaction to the terrorist attack?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: To the what attack?

Student: Terrorist.

Lt. Col. Jefferson: It's a can of worms. How do you fight a terrorist. I don't know and that's the greatest problem we're having today. How do we fight with al Qaeda or Omar -, it's a can of worms. Next.

Student: How long were you a Tuskegee airman?

Lt. Col. Jefferson: How long am I a Tuskegee airman? I've been a Tuskegee airman since 1942. All these years and suspect we will die Tuskegee airmen.

Thanks much guys and gals.

Participant: I want to thank you very much, and I also want to thank those students who are on the web with us. And we're so glad to have them too.