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There’s a reason we call them “The Greatest Generation.”
The men and women who survived the Great Depression and saved the world from Axis tyranny were brave, hardworking, patriotic — and, often, stoic as well as humble. In so many ways they embodied the best of America, and the best of humankind.
And we’re losing the last of them at an alarming rate.
So it is that Lt. Col. James Harvey’s homecoming was such a special event for him, and for our community.
Harvey, 95, is a Mountain Top native who graduated from Fairview High School in 1942 as class president and valedictorian. He went on to become a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, as the nation’s first all African American group of military pilots was known.
Based in Tuskegee, Alabama, the program graduated more than 900 pilots, of whom more than 300 saw active service. Barely a dozen are still living.
It’s fair to call Harvey’s four-day return to the region a true victory lap.
Among his stops, the WWII and Korea veteran visited the Wyoming Valley Airport in Forty Fort, he spoke with students at Crestwood High School, and he had dinner with veterans Tuesday night at a Mountain Top American Legion hall, where he arrived with an escort befitting a true American hero.
You can read about Harvey’s special dinner in a story on the front page of today’s edition.
His story reminds us that the desire for freedom and human rights are causes for which many have suffered and died.
He and his generation went to war to protect a way of life. They went to war to protect families, homes, country and freedom.
They went to war to defeat a brutal dictatorship led by a band of violent thugs — in which minorities and dissenters were persecuted and killed, militarism and loyalty to the regime were the highest civic virtues, free speech was outlawed, and tyrants exercised unchecked power over millions through fear and coercion.
The bitter irony is that African Americans who served this nation were still subject to discrimination and oppression in many parts of the country, even as the fight for freedom was being fought and won overseas.
“I never knew racism until I had to sit on the back of the train,” Harvey said, recalling the culture shock of heading South after high school.
Tragically, it took a decades for the Tuskegee Airmen to be formally and properly honored by the nation for their efforts.
It was therefore heart-warming to see the enthusiastic turnout for Harvey as he made a swing through his childhood home before returning today to Colorado, where he now lives.
It is a beautiful thing that area students had the opportunity to hear from Harvey and learn about history first hand.
On behalf of a grateful nation, Lt. Col. Harvey, we thank you and your comrades for your service to America.
May God bless you, sir.
— Times Leader