Lt. Col. James H. Harvey III, a Tuskegee Airman and one of the nation’s first African American fighter pilots, stands by as his wife and daughter pin on his colonel insignia at his honorary promotion on Nov. 4. Trevor Cokley/USAF
Photo Caption & Credits
AFA In Action: 100-Year-Old Tuskegee Airman Promoted to Colonel
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
Storied Tuskegee Airman James Harvey III was honorarily promoted to colonel during halftime of the Air Force vs. Army game on Nov. 4 before tens of thousands of spectators at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver.
Harvey, who turned 100 years of age in July, is among the few World War II Tuskegee Airmen still surviving today.
Wearing a crisp new service dress uniform provided by the Air & Space Forces Association, Harvey stood in the south end zone alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. His two daughters, Alysyn Green and Kathy Harvey, and his niece, Karen Jackson, pinned colonel on his shoulders.
“Because of his work breaking barriers, I can stand here today as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Brown said during the ceremony. Brown, the former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was the first Black service Chief in U.S. history. He is only the second Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “James, I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank you for breaking barriers, and it’s my distinct honor to promote you to colonel today.”
As one of the last living members of the Tuskegee Airmen, Lt. Col. James Harvey III was honorarily promoted to colonel by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr. Joint Chiefs of Staff/@thejointstaff
Following the pinning ceremony, two historic aircraft conducted a stadium flyover: a P-47 Thunderbolt, like those flown by Tuskegee Airmen from Harvey’s 332nd Fighter Wing, which won the propeller-class segment of the first-ever Air Force gunnery meet in 1949, and a P-51 Mustang, flown by the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.
“It was a magnificent honor to watch thousands of Airmen, Guardians, and Soldiers cheer on Colonel Harvey when our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. C.Q. Brown, promoted him from being the Air Force’s oldest lieutenant colonel to the newest colonel in the U.S. Air Force,” said AFA’s Executive Vice President Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.), who took part in the end-zone ceremony as a distinguished guest. “The Air & Space Forces Association is proud to ‘issue’ him a uniform fitting of his senior rank and stature as a Tuskegee Airman, combat fighter pilot, and leader.”
Also present during the ceremony were the Chairman’s wife, Sharene Brown, newly sworn-in Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, Gen. Mark Kelly, Commander at Air Combat Command, and Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark, Superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy.
To learn more about Harvey’s magnificent career, read Air & Space Forces Magazine’s online July 10, 2023, article, “Attitude is Still Altitude for this Tuskegee Airmen As He Turns 100 Years Old.”
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
The Space Force put Guardians on notice to purchase the service’s new physical training gear uniform by the end of January, but it isn’t ready to set a mandatory wear date for its new service dress uniform.
A pair of MH-139A helicopters flew the type’s first ever intercontinental ballistic missile convoy at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., putting the new Grey Wolf into operational use.
Impure metal used to make a gear in the proprotor gearbox of a CV-22 caused it to fail, leading to a mishap and emergency landing in November 2024 that resulted in nearly $2.8 million in damages and a brief operational pause for the entire Osprey fleet, according to a new Air Force report.
Some U.S. personnel are evacuating Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, America’s main military base in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump is weighing military action against Iran in response to its crackdown on protestors, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
Airmen and Guardians preparing to take updated physical fitness assessments this year won’t be surprised by the Pentagon’s updated body composition standards that all service members will have to meet; the Air Force worked up similar standards three years ago.
With the first operational T-7A trainer jet in hand, Air Force leaders are already looking ahead to how the Red Hawk will fit with the service’s plans for sixth-generation aircraft.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth foot-stomped the Pentagon's push for acquisition speed and contractor accountability in a Jan. 12 speech at Lockheed Martin’s production hub in Fort Worth, Texas—the heart of the department’s biggest acquisition program, the F-35.
The Air Force is clamping down on digital multitasking while on duty, ending a previous policy that allowed Airmen to use phones and other digital devices while walking in uniform.
U.S. aircraft launched airstrikes against forces identified with the Islamic State group Jan. 10 as part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, a retaliatory campaign in response to the killing of three American troops last month.
Subscribe to the Air & Space Forces Daily Report
The latest news from Air & Space Forces Magazine, as well as news from other leading publications, delivered right to your inbox every morning!
We’re sorry, there has been an error. Please review your input or try again later.
