second potential lieutenant curtis, second lieutenant the bow, second lieutenant george s roberts, and second lieutenant mac ross. one of the key evolutions to getting to this point was in 1941, first lady eleanor roosevelt, at the urgings of her close friend and social activist mary beth noon, moved to help expand the training program at tuskegee, alabama. in march of the year, eleanor roosevelt not only visited the tuskegee institute, but incredibly, and in against the advice of her secret service detail, she asked to meet with a flight instructor charles anderson, and to take her on a flight. this single act of flying the first lady for more than one hour had great symbolic value to the advocates of black military aviation. this visibility helped to open the door for the department of black military aviation units to the european theater. unfortunately, they were still in segregated units. in total, there were 2483 pilot trainees then enter training in teske, alabama, of which 992 graduated, earning their wings as pilots. from 1942 through 1949 -- use me, 1946. there there were 352

second lieutenant lemieux curtis second lieutenant charles depot, second lieutenant george s. roberts and second lieutenant mack ross. one of the key evolutions to getting to this point was in 1941, first lady eleanor roosevelt, at the urgings of her close friend and social activist moved to help expand the pilot training program at tuskegee, alabama. in march of that year, eleanor roosevelt not only visited the tuskegee institute's field but incredibly and against the advice of her secret service detail, she asked the chief flight instructor, charles a. chief anderson, to take her on a flight. this single act of flying the first lady for more than an hour had great symbolic value to the advocates of black military aviation. it brought a visibility to tuskegee's pilot training program. this in turn, helped open the door for the deployment of black military aviation units to the european theater. unfortunately, they still were in segregated units. in a total there were 2,483 pilot trainee that is entered training in tuskegee, alabama of which 992 graduated earning their wings as pilots

s majority or the 61 votes robert byrd had were george mitchell's and 103rd congress. i know senator lott with 55 would like more. but senator baker's high was 54, and mine was 53. the last time there were 55 republican senators was in 1929, which is pretty impressive considering there were only 48 states. [laughter] and strom was then a democrat. age may not bestow wisdom, but as some of us know, it carries certain privileges. among them the right to remember and perhaps distill whatever perspective comes with experience. there are countless memories wrapped up in nearly 10,000 days i served in the united states senate. 10,000 days. i'm not going to speak about each one of them because i know we have limited time. but i would like to pick out a few that stand out. as i tried to whittle it down, it was difficult. but like all of you here, i remember the day i took the oath of office and signed the book is senators have done before and since. it was january 3 1969. i sat in the back row, the seat senator susan collins now occupies. i was sandwiched between arizona's two