Address highlighted U.S. exceptionalism

It’s hard to imagine anyone having a better week than the president last week.

It started with the chaotic caucus results of his political Democratic rivals in Iowa.

The next day President Trump delivered a stirring, positive State of the Union speech.

That was followed by his acquittal by the Senate in the partisan House-led impeachment on Wednesday.

There was more headway on the economic, trade and foreign policy fronts.

Trump’s week ended with great job numbers and a new Gallup poll showing that a record high of 90 percent of Americans reporting satisfaction with their lives.

But Charles McGee, the oldest of the nine surviving Tuskegee Airmen from World War II, also had a stellar week. A veteran of Korea and Vietnam, he flew a total of 409 aerial fighter combat missions during 30 years of military service.

In just a 72-hour span last week, McGee:

• Presented the coin for the coin flip for Super Bowl LIV.

• Was given an honorary promotion from colonel to brigadier general and had stars pinned to his uniform by President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Later that day he was a special guest of the president at the 2020 State of the Union Address.

• Was honored at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington honored by NASA for his accomplishments as part of its Black History Month celebrations.

During a question-answer period at the NASA ceremony, one Army veteran, a millennial, asked McGee for his secret to a long life.

McGee made a prayerlike gesture with his hands, generating immediate applause.

The day before he turned 100 last Dec. 7, McGee flew a private jet between Frederick, Maryland, and the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

That trip came nearly eight decades after he earned his flying wings with the Tuskegee Airmen, the famous all-black flight school in Alabama.

Flying the legendary P-51 Mustang with a distinctive red tail, McGee and his comrades became legendary for their exceptional fighting skills while escorting bombers over Europe.

After the war, McGee helped pave the way for the military to desegregate.

McGee said in an earlier interview that despite all of his accomplishments, he’s not concerned with his personal legacy but desires to pass on to young people his wisdom that you can’t let your circumstances be an excuse for not achieving.

In honoring McGee, the Trump also recognized the centenarian’s 13-year-old great-grandson, Iain Lanphier, an eighth-grader from Arizona. He said Iain was first in his class, among the youngest at an aviation academy, and that he dreams of becoming an astronaut.

The president referred to Iain as “one of the Space Force’s youngest potential recruits.”

Another dramatic moment occurred near the end the State of the Union address when the president introduced the family of Sgt. 1st Class Townsend Williams. Wife Amy and her 2 children — 6-year-old Elliana and 3-year-old Rowan — believed he was in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment to the Middle East with the 82nd Airborne Division when Trump announced that Townsend was back from deployment.

When Williams walked into the chamber and embraced his wife, the chamber erupted into chants of “USA.”

It was a riveting moment that put an exclamation point on the speech about American exceptionalism.

The Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909-66) stated that “youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”

That phrase capsulized the president’s address. The youngsters in the gallery — from Gen. Charles McGee’s great-grandson to Williams’ young children, are the gifts of youth while Charles McGee, who overcame segregation and prejudice to become one of the most highly respected pilots ever, is that original American work of art.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com