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mean, when I was in college training they told us a third of us wouldn't graduate
out of pilot training. During the Vietnam War when they needed bodies you

couldn't even quit. [laughter]

Ivan: Wow.

Bill: So it’s always the needs of the Service.

Ivan: So you know what I mean, and granted, I am a different generation, and what I
heard for so long was we don't pass people along because of safety of flight
issues, and my immediate thought was 'there are a whole bunch of civilians on
an airliner, wouldn't they be just as concerned about safety of flight and passing
people on that "quote unquote” are a flight hazard; a flight risk, or safety risk,
you know; because it just seemed like the rationale I have heard over the years

was, we hook people or give them UNSATS and stuff because they are going to
be a flight risk, and if we pass them on there is going to be a safety hazard and
it's better just to wash them out.

Bill: That's's bunk,… I believe it is bunk. Number one. Like I said the military, they
need so many pilots. They are only going to graduate so many. That is a fact. The
other thing is that the military may have all kinds of reasons for washing people
out. When you are in a situation where there's not a lot of African-Americans in
pilot training, and you are there by yourself, it's a lot more dicey. For instance,
Moore Air Base had civilian instructors with military oversight. They started
training pilots in 1948. When I went in August 1959 they had not graduated an

African-American in 11years. In 11 years.

Ivan: Wow.

Bill: And my flight surgeon who was African American tried to talk me out of going to
Moore. He said because they just don’t graduate us down there. Now, I have
always been a little bit stubborn and sometimes not too smart. And I said I'll go
down there, and I’d had success in playing quarterback in white universities and
at white high schools, so I figured I was pretty good. I mean that is just talk. And I
had done so well in pilot training, at the university, at SIU, because that five and
a half-hour solo time is still a record down there…I guess I just worked harder

Ivan: Can you can you talk to… one of the things I've seen in my role as a mentor of
African-American officers, that I'd like you to talk to, is this notion of fitting into
the majority culture. I'm thinking of a couple of people at my last base at L.A.
who went to a majority black high school, who went to an HBCU, and they just
never, in my opinion, learned to deal with, to thrive in white officer culture. They