The Brigadier General Charles Edward McGee Library hosted a ceremony Thursday morning to honor the legacy of its namesake on what would have been his 105th birthday.
Brig. Gen. Charles Edward McGee was a Tuskegee airman and longtime resident of Bethesda, Maryland. He died in January 2022 at 102.
“The Tuskegee airmen are people who gave their lives and fought for this country and came home and were treated like dirt,” Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said at the ceremony. “They stood up for this country even when they were denied the basic rights.”
McGee earned his wings and commission as a second lieutenant in 1943, five years before the late former President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order integrating the armed services. Throughout his 30-year career in the military, McGee flew 409 combat missions in conflicts from World War II to Vietnam. His plane was hit by enemy fire twice — during the Korean conflict and again years later near Laos.
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“Let excellence be your goal in everything you do,” McGee said in a 2019 interview. “Fortunately, the integrated portion overrode the sorrows of segregation.”
The Distinguished Flying Cross Society, a nonprofit war veterans organization, hosted the ceremony, specially welcoming dignitaries from the military Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. and county leadership to honor his life and achievements, according to Montgomery County Public Libraries.
At the ceremony, his daughter shared a memory about a time she complained to him about work.
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“He just looked at me. He said, ‘Was anybody trying to shoot you out of the sky?’ And then I got perspective,” Yvonee McGee said. “He is someone who the young people, everyone, can look up to as an example.”
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