Harry Stewart looks around the slowly filling ballroom in an Orlando, Fla., hotel and brightens.
"I haven't seen some of these guys in over 66 years," he says. "Some I haven't seen since I entered the service, and others since I left at the end of the war. This is very exciting."
Red Tail pilot Alexander Jefferson was shot down by the Germans in 1944 and was held as a prisoner of war. Before his trip home, he took a horrifying, last-minute side trip.
The war Stewart is referring to is World War II, when the Army was still segregated. Stewart is part of a reunion of Red Tail pilots, members of the 332nd Fighter Group. They're part of the Tuskegee Airmen, an organization composed of World War II fliers and the thousands of people on the ground who made their missions possible.
The event's organizer, Leo Gray, says he realized earlier this year that time was zipping by. One of their members, Lee Archer, considered to be the country's only World War II black ace pilot (his plane was emblazoned with five swastikas, one for each confirmed German plane downed), died last year.
Gray wanted to bring the remaining pilots together again. "Nothing official," he explained. "I wanted this to be social, to give the guys plenty of time to spend with each other, because you never know what's going to happen, or when somebody's going to go next."
It's a pretty safe guess that "next" may not be too far off: The youngest Red Tail pilot is 86, the oldest 96. Many are infirm and unable to travel. Others could only come with the assistance of younger family members. But about a dozen ended up drinking a little, laughing a lot and sharing war stories.
