Tuskegee airmen honored guests at inaugural

From the terrace of the Capitol, they watched an African-American president being sworn in for his second term. And they were cared for reverently by many whites in uniform, who more than six decades ago would have had no contact with these two dozen veterans now sitting with green Army blankets across their laps. Several of them said they were at Obama's first inaugural but were just as excited to attend his second.

The tables certainly were turned for Homer Hogues, 85, who marched with his segregated unit in President Harry Truman's inaugural parade in 1949.

The black troops were quartered in a hangar with little heat, while the white military marchers were in a barracks.

"We couldn't do a lot of protesting at the time," said Hogues, a Dallas resident who was a mechanic with his unit working on P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. What would he have told Truman, the president who integrated the armed forces? "I would have asked him, 'Why did he put us in those hangars," said Hogues.

As a civilian, Hogues tried to get a job as an airline mechanic but was told he only could work cleaning planes. He went to work instead in the metalworking industry. He looked forward to seeing Obama again at the Commander In Chief's inaugural ball.