[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 27 (Thursday, February 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S643-S644]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND HONORING BRIGADIER GENERAL CHARLES E. McGEE AND 
                 STAFF SERGEANT WAVERLY B. WOODSON, JR.

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, as we celebrate Black History Month, I 
rise today to honor two American heroes from our Greatest Generation: 
Brigadier General Charles E. McGee and Staff Sergeant Waverly B. 
Woodson, Jr.
  McGee was a Tuskegee Airman who passed away peacefully in his home in 
Bethesda, MD, on January 16, 2021. He was 102. Woodson, an Army medic 
assigned to the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, landed on Omaha Beach 
on D-day and saved the lives of as many as 200 soldiers over the next 
30 hours of continuous duty.
  Both of these Marylanders fought with valor and distinction on behalf 
of a Nation that discriminated against them.
  Brigadier General McGee's incandescent spirit, courage, and resolve 
led us to victory through some of our darkest times. He has left 
lasting impact on our country as a pilot, patriot, and civil rights 
advocate. He was born on December 7, 1919, in Cleveland, OH. His mother 
died soon after. His father, who was a minister, teacher, and social 
worker, moved the family frequently during McGee's childhood in search 
of work opportunities that were not easy to come by. Despite this 
adversity, McGee graduated from high school in Chicago in 1938 and 
joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC.
  McGee used the money he made in the CCC to help pay for college, 
attending the University of Illinois as an ROTC student.
  When we look at the extraordinary life of Charles McGee, one thing is 
explicitly clear: No matter how dangerous or difficult the call, if his 
country needed him, he always answered. This inspiring pattern of 
behavior started during his sophomore year in college when, on McGee's 
22nd birthday, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. McGee began 
searching for a way to serve in the war. After he heard that President 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had authorized a unit of Black soldiers to 
train as pilots in the Army Air Corps, he applied and to start flight 
training at the Tuskegee Army Field in Alabama and was accepted.
  Charles McGee battled racial discrimination but completed flight 
school as 1 of only 1,000 pilots, earning his spot as a Tuskegee Airman 
in the first-of-its-kind, all-Black 332nd Fighter group. In 1944, just 
a year after graduating, he deployed to Italy as a fighter pilot in 
World War II. He moved up the ranks quickly, from lieutenant to 
captain. McGee's squadron was responsible for escorting heavy bombers 
of the 15th Air Force across Europe and for target-of-opportunity 
missions. McGee flew 136 missions across Europe. Our victory in World 
War II, however, was not the end of McGee's service. He remained in the 
Army Corps and the Air Force for another 30 years, flying in both the 
Korean and the Vietnam wars. He tallied a record of 409 aerial fighter 
combat missions over the course of three wars. In 2020, McGee received 
an honorary promotion to brigadier general.
  While there are few individuals living or dead who have had careers 
as successful or significant as Charles McGee's, what made him so 
remarkable was his undying positive attitude and kind nature, even in 
the most trying situations. As a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, he was 
constantly subject to racial discrimination, both in the military and 
back home where Jim Crow Laws prevailed. In an essay McGee penned for 
the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, he wrote, ``The 
prevailing opinion was that blacks did not possess the intelligence or 
courage to be military pilots. One general even said, `The Negro type 
has not the proper reflexes to make a first-rate fighter pilot.' The 
Tuskegee Airmen certainly proved men like him wrong.''
  Until the day he passed away, Charles McGee educated others about the 
Black experience during this time and spoke of the ``equality of 
opportunity'' that he and the Tuskegee Airmen valiantly fought to 
achieve.
  I am humbled and proud to call Charles McGee a fellow Marylander. His 
daughters Charlene McGee Smith and Yvonne McGee, 10 grandchildren, 14 
great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandchild survive him. His 
legacy is intertwined with our Nation's legacy. He is a true American 
hero.
  Waverly Bernard Woodson, Jr., is another true American hero. He was 
born on August 3, 1922, in Philadelphia and attended Lincoln University 
in Oxford, Pa, where he was a pre-med student.
  McGee enlisted in the Army 8 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
He joined the anti-aircraft artillery Officer Candidate School after 
scoring highly on a test, where he was one of only two Black Americans. 
He learned, however, that he could not become an officer because of his 
race. He trained as a combat medic at Camp Tyson in Paris, TN, where he 
experienced segregation and discrimination. He was assigned to the 
320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, reaching the rank of corporal by the 
time Operation Overlord commenced.
  On D-day, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion was the only African-
American battalion to participate. While Corporal Woodson was coming 
ashore at Omaha Beach, his landing craft tank--LCT--hit a naval mine 
and then was hit by an ``eighty-eight'' shell. Woodson suffered 
shrapnel injuries to his groin, inner thigh, and back. Once he reached 
shore and received treatment for his wounds, he set up a first-aid 
station and began treating other wounded soldiers. He worked 
continuously from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on the following day, setting 
fractured limbs, removing bullets, amputating a foot, dispensing 
plasma, and reviving three men who nearly drowned while exiting their 
LCT; Woodson provided artificial respiration to the three men, reviving 
them.
  Woodson's commanding officer recommended him for a Distinguished 
Service Cross for his actions, but the office of General John C. H. Lee 
determined that Woodson's actions warranted the greater honor of a 
Medal of Honor. U.S. Department of War special assistant to the 
director Philleo Nash proposed that President Franklin D. Roosevelt 
should give Woodson the award personally. Woodson ultimately received a 
Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote, 
``The feeling is prevalent among Negroes that had Woodson been of 
another race the highest honor would have been granted him.''
  After World War II ended, Woodson hoped to study medicine, but was 
unable to find a medical school that would admit him as a Black 
American.
  He returned to Lincoln University and graduated with a degree in 
biology in 1950. Woodson served in the Korean war, initially training 
combat medics before running an Army morgue. He served in the United 
Kingdom, France, and the Asia-Pacific. Within the United States, he 
also served at Fort George G. Meade, Valley Forge General Hospital, the 
Communicable Disease Center, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
  Woodson left the Army in 1952 with a final rank of staff sergeant. 
After leaving the Army, Woodson went on to work in the bacteriology 
department of the National Naval Medical Center. In 1959, he began 
working in the clinical pathology department of the National Institutes 
of Health until he retired in 1980.

[[Page S644]]

  Staff Sergeant Woodson married Joann Katharyne Snowden in 1952; the 
couple had two daughters and a son. He died in 2005 and was buried with 
military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
  Last month, I joined Senator Van Hollen and Representative Trone in 
writing to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth to request that an award 
decision authority formally review and consider awarding the Medal of 
Honor to Waverly B. Woodson, Jr., posthumously. In June 2021, 
Commanding General of the First United States Army Thomas S. James, 
Jr., wrote in favor of Woodson receiving the Medal of Honor.
  Woodson's widow Joann announced that if he were to receive the Medal 
of Honor posthumously, she would donate it to the Smithsonian's 
National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  These stories are just two examples of Black-American soldiers who 
fought to defeat fascism during World War II while simultaneously 
enduring virulent racial discrimination as servicemen and back home in 
America as civilians.
  After the Civil War and Reconstruction, powerful White officials in 
southern States sought to nullify the political outcome of the Civil 
War. They passed laws and instituted policies that enforced 
segregation.
  We all know those laws: the Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes, the 
institutionalized segregation. The intent was to disenfranchise 
minority voters with poll taxes and literacy tests and voter 
intimidation.
  Thanks to courageous leaders, we were able to reverse those laws. 
President Harry Truman integrated our military in 1948. Then, there was 
the landmark decision in 1954 of Brown v. Board of Education. We 
Marylanders are proud of Thurgood Marshall, a native son, with respect 
to the role that he played in arguing that case before the Supreme 
Court. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and followed that 
historic legislation with the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the Fair 
Housing Act in 1968.
  Black Americans and other people of color have fought and died to 
preserve our freedom. As we celebrate Black History Month, if we want 
to honor Brigadier General Charles E. McGee and Staff Sergeant Waverly 
B. Woodson, Jr., and countless others like them, we need to continue to 
expand equal opportunity in America, and we can start by passing voting 
rights legislation, the need for which I have frequently spoken about 
on the Senate floor.

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