The first African-American US Marine Corps aviator was Frank E. Peterson Jr. from Topeka, Kansas.  Everyone called him "Pete."  As I recall, he and Ken went through flight school together.  Friends.

Back then, in the late forties and early fifties, if you washed out of flight school, they sent you to helicopters.  So for a jet-jockey, that was as bad as it could get.  That policy created a lot of aviation conflict, so after a few years, the commandant issued an edict that all pilots would "voluntarily" cross train in helicopters.  Ken and Pete refused to go and got called in to the general's office so that the general could explain the "Way of the Lord" to the two of them more perfectly.

After listening to the General's explanation of why they had to learn to fly helicopters, Ken said that Pete told the General, "Sir, ain't it bad enough being a "........."?  (I can't bring myself to repeat the word Pete used.)  Whether that was politically correct or incorrect, that's what Pete said.  As a result,  Ken and Pete got out of having to go to helicopters--for which Ken was eternally grateful.

Years later, the Navy and Marines changed the policy for aviators concerning helicopters.  They decided that you had to make a choice before you went into flight school.  Choose:  Jets, or Helicopters.  Which eliminated the concept that the 'coptor pilots had failed jet aviation.  But the guys who flew jets still thought they were superior--until Viet Nam.

Viet Nam changed everything because of the heroic flying the helicopter pilots did every day.  They flew into ground fire to insert troops, and they risked their lives every day flying in to extract combat troops that were under fire.  They were sitting ducks on the ground while the dead and wounded were loaded and extracted.  They were under constant fire.  And many of them didn't make it home.

After Ken retired, he had to make a trip to D.C., so he looked Pete up.  Old times, funny stories, renewed friendship.  When Ken got back home, he kept me laughing telling the story about how he and Pete escaped helicopters.  By then, Pete had made general.  The first African-American general in the USMC.  He was something.  They both were.












Frank E. Petersen Jr. (USMC) (born March 2, 1932 in Topeka, Kansas) is a retired United States Marine Corps Lieutenant General. He was the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general.