Prewar Life and His Brother's Service

Enlisting as an Aviation Cadet

Segregation at Keesler Field

Gunnery Meet in Texas

Graduation and Commission

Overseas Deployment to Italy

Flying Out of Ramitelli, Italy

Flying 21 Combat Missions

Only One Close Call

End of the War in Europe

Integration of the Air Force

Flying B-29s in Korea

Flying the Fairchild AC-119K Stinger in Vietnam

Last Thoughts on the War

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George Hardy was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 1925. His actual birthdate is 8 June but due to a problem with his birth certificate it is listed as 6 June. He kept that date intact because it got him in the service two days earlier. There were seven children, four boys and three girls, and Hardy was second to the oldest. His father was a laborer working at various jobs with oil companies. During the Great Depression, Japan was "raising the devil" in the Pacific and China and Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was doing the same in Europe, so that's how they grew up. Hardy delivered newspapers as a boy and kept up with world events. He thought life was great. His first school was segregated with all black students. His junior high school was desegregated. His high school was mostly white. In a graduating class of 281, only four were African-American. Hardy was in his bedroom doing homework when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941. He turned the radio on to listen to the Eagles [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia Eagles] football game. The game was interrupted to mention that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. He did not know where that was. He was concerned because his brother had joined the Navy in June 1941. Hardy wanted to join the Navy because he loved his brother. His brother was a cook and went in at Stewart Field [Annotator's Note: Newburgh, New York] with two of his buddies. His brother spent three and a half years on a destroyer in the North Atlantic, where he was engaged with German submarines even before Pearl Harbor. His brother came into port several times. He was on a World War 1 four stacker, a vessel with four smokestacks. It would come into port in New England, so his brother would come home. No other siblings were in the service. Hardy graduated from high school June 1942 at age 17. He asked his father to sign a paper to go into the Navy but he refused. His father explained the race issue. Hardy wanted to be an engineer and his father did not want to see him stuck serving food. He agreed with this father. He had only wanted to be in the Navy to be with his brother.

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George Hardy's father persuaded him to not join his brother in the Navy because of the race problem. He would be limited in what he could do because of his race. His brother was a cook and that was the highest he could be. Hardy changed his mind after that. Hardy was 17 and went to get a job at a shipyard. They told him that if he was hired, he would get a deferment from serving. He heard that and left to go back home. He wanted to go into the service as soon as he turned 18. Everyone else was going in. His friends were 18 and had already signed up. Kids were being drafted right and left in 1943. In March 1943, the Army and Navy decided that 17 year old high school graduates could take the aviation cadet exam and Hardy rushed to do so. He took it for the Navy first because he wanted to fly off carriers. He passed it but he failed his physical. They said his teeth were a problem. He still has all of his original teeth. He then went to the Army and passed. He was sworn in as a Private in the Reserve and sent home until he turned 18. In June 1943 he got orders to report on 13 July. He felt good. The United States was losing people all around the world and Hardy wanted to fight for his country. He had not always wanted to fly but the Battle of Britain [Annotator's Note: air war over Britain fought from 10 July to 31 October 1940] influenced him. Churchill's [Annotator’s Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945] statement [Annotator's Note: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few", 20 August 1940] was good, and those guys really fought hard. He wanted to be one of them. He had never even driven a car. [Annotator's Note: Hardy laughs.]

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After getting his orders, George Hardy went straight to Keesler Field, Mississippi. That train trip was an eye opener. There were three of them going to Tuskegee [Annotator's Note: Tuskegee, Alabama] and had Pullman [Annotator's Note: railroad sleeping cars] tickets to Cincinnati [Annotator's Note: Ohio]. They got on the L&N [Annotator's Note: Louisville and Nashville Railroad] there and still had Pullman tickets, but when they went to eat the diners were suddenly divided. They had a heavy curtain across with a couple of tables where he ate. They called them coloreds on the train. The curtain would close shut so the whites could not see them. That was his introduction to segregation in the South where it was instituted by law. They were segregated at Keesler Field too. They had a separate mess hall. Hardy had more things to worry about than that. He got regular basic training like everyone else in the Army. They were usually the only ones training on any site. Biloxi [Annotator's Note: Mississippi] was not a big town. You could tell the black section of town blindfolded. The paved roads ended there. Hardy experienced a number of incidents of racism in the service but they were usually minor. Once they got to Tuskegee, he did not go into town much due to that. A lot of whites would provoke them. They survived by just staying on base or going to the Institute [Annotator's Note: Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama]. They lived on campus while there. If they had gotten involved in anything that interrupted their training they could be eliminated from at least the training.

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George Hardy always considered himself a fighter pilot. The bigger guys were being trained to be bomber pilots. He only weighed 130 pounds. Once at Tuskegee [Annotator's Note: Alabama], they were sent to a college training detachment [Annotator's Note: at Tuskegee University] for five months of college training. He started as an aviation cadet after only three months in December 1943. He then moved to Tuskegee Army Airfield for training. Primary flying training was contracted out because the Army did not have enough pilots for it. He received ten weeks of training on campus and then back to the airfield for the rest. He started on the PT-19 [Annotator's Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft] and then on the Stearman [Annotator's Note: Stearman Boeing PT-17 Kaydet primary trainer aircraft] and the BT-13 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated Vultee BT-13 Valiant, nicknamed the Vultee Vibrator, basic trainer aircraft]. They also flew the AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan, advanced trainer aircraft]. It was a beautiful airplane. His first fighter was the P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. He graduated in September 1944 and went to Eglin [Annotator's Note: Eglin Field, now Eglin Air Force Bse, Okaloosa County, Florida] for gunnery training. There was a gunnery meet with all of the classes at Matagorda Island, Texas. Hardy was picked to represent Tuskegee. He went out with two white instructors, a captain and a lieutenant. They flew to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: Louisiana] and went to the barracks. Hardy was given a room near the end. He changed clothes and went back to see about dinner. The two officers had already gone into New Orleans without telling him. Hardy went into town alone, blended in, got food, and came back. The next morning nothing was said, and they flew to Matagorda. The three of them lived in one tent there. After the meet, the officers still wanted a night out and they flew to Houston to Ellington Airfield. The captain said Hardy could ride with them and be dropped off wherever he liked. The staff sergeant driving them took them to a restaurant where a lot of officers were. The captain asked the sergeant where Hardy could go eat. The sergeant said, "in there". The captain looked at the lieutenant and said, "okay, let's go". Hardy went in and ate with them and nothing happened. The next morning, they flew back to Tuskegee. He was upset with these two men, but people were that way in those days.

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[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about Dr. Rothacker Smith, a medic in the Medical Section, 2nd Battalion, 366th Infantry Regiment in Italy; Dr. Smith's oral history is also available on this Digital Collections website.] George Hardy did not see any difference with African-Americans from the South than from the North, but he did not have much contact with people off the base. In primary flying, the instructors were black. In basic and advanced, they were all white instructors. He thought they did a good job. Hardy's class leader was washed out the day before graduation. He was a super soldier but he got lost on a night navigation mission and ran out of fuel. He had to bail out of the airplane. He had already been eliminated but got reinstated. His name is Eddie Bishop. Aviation cadets are always either studying or flying. Captain Farga [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling; no given name provided] was a flight commander. He came into a room where Hardy was studying and told him and some other instructors that "that damn Bishop had been reinstated but we'll see about that." That was when Bishop got washed out. He had already bought his uniforms. Hardy got his pilot wings and was a Second Lieutenant. He had come a long way. His parents were unable to attend, but a classmate's mother pinned his wings on him. He had two girls outside who wanted to do it and he was not sure about which one should. He saw his classmate's mother and asked her to do his. When he walked outside, he had his wings on already. [Annotator's Note: Hardy laughs.]

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George Hardy went on leave after graduation [Annotator's Note: from aviation cadet training at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama]. He was then sent to Eglin [Annotator's Note:Eglin Field, now Eglin Air Force Base in Okaloosa County, Florida] for gunnery training, then to a gunnery meet, and then returned to Tuskegee. He had to then get ten hours of time flying the P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. After that, he transferred to Walterboro Army Air Field [Annotator's Note: Walterboro, South Carolina], in November 1944. There, he trained on the P-47 Thunderbolt [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] under white pilots who had flown it in combat. He liked it. It was sluggish taking off. He flew the 51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] overseas. The 332nd [Annotator's Note: 332nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force] flew P-39s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] overseas on coastal patrol. About April [Annotator's Note: April 1944], they started flying the P-47. In June, they started their first escort missions. In July, they transitioned to the P-51. At first they flew the Cs [Annotator's Note: P-51C]. Hardy flew most of his missions in A-33, a D model [Annotator's Note: P-51D, aircraft number A-33]. A lot of experienced pilots like Hannibal Cox [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Colonel Hannibal M. “Killer” Cox, Jr.] kept the Cs. For Hardy, the D had better visibility. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what Hardy's last leave before going overseas was like. Hardy replies that nobody ever asked him that and laughs.] Hardy saw a couple of girls on his last leave before going overseas. His mother hated for him to leave. He was 19 and looked young for his age. He went out of a port in Virginia with 24 others [Annotator's Note: 24 other African-American airmen]. There were about 400 people on the ship. The whites had to sleep below in hammocks, but due to segregation, Hardy and the others got to sleep up on deck in beds. They ended up with good accommodations where they could play cards. Some of the white pilots came in and played cards with them. When they got to Italy on 6 June 1944, they all played softball together and then they all shipped out to their segregated units.

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George Hardy flew out of Ramitelli [Annotator's Note: Ramitelli, Italy]. They would take off to the east, out over the Adriatic [Annotator's Note: Adriatic Sea]. He realized things had changed when he saw the tent he had to sleep in with three others. His friend, Herbert Barland [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Herbert C. Barland], a communications officer, and an engineering officer shared the tent with him. They could play games like baseball and cards but they wanted to train and go on missions. They had checked out in P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] but now had to get trained in the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. It was an easy transition. They got used to the cockpit. Once they cranked the engine up, it was just like any other airplane. The P-51 had a lot of power. Hardy's roommate paid the price for that. He bounced on a landing and pushed the throttle forward and the plane flipped on its back. Luckily, he was not hurt at all. Hardy had an incident where a wheel locked and the plane stood on its nose. It is why he did not like the bubble canopy on the D [Annotator's Note: P-51D] and preferred the C [Annotator's Note: P-51C]. Barland had told him you were still protected by a safety bar, but it did not convince Hardy. After Barland wrecked, Hardy went into the tent to find him smoking. He asked if he was alright and Barland said, "see, I told you, you are protected in that bubble canopy." [Annotator's Note: Hardy laughs.]

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George Hardy's unit had one loss in training at Walterboro [Annotator's Note: Walterboro Army Air Field, South Carolina]. They were in a flight of four. Robert Johnson [Annotator's Note: likely US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Robert Monroe Johnson] was flying on the second element as wingman. In South Carolina, at certain times of days, you cannot see anything in certain directions. A B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] ran into Johnson's plane. Everyone was lost. The papers in the South wrote it up as the fault of this black pilot. Once they got overseas, they lost three people in combat and two in accidents. It was difficult, but they realized they were in war and that was the name of the game. Something has to give. You just thank God it is not you. You learn to destroy things. There are people in them. You must move on. Hardy does not remember his first combat missions. Most of his missions were as an escort. By April 1945, the German Air Force was not what it had been. They did not run into much opposition. He remembers running into a 262 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me262 jet fighter aircraft] he thought was making a pass on them. He was on Hannibal Cox's [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Colonel Hannibal M. "Killer" Cox, Jr.] wing when Cox turned into it. The 262 took off then. The only time Hardy fired his guns was on strafing missions. After they escorted the bombers, if they had fuel left over, they went back and strafed targets. Barges were hard to tell about; trucks they could see the damage being done. They would love to get a train, but there weren't many left. Hardy did not get a train but a number of trucks and several barges. He did not think much about the vulnerability of the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] in ground attacks. The main mission was high altitude escort and it excelled at that. They did anything they could to destroy the German's will to move supplies. Hardy flew 21 missions. He had 12 or 14 missions in A-33 [Annotator's Note: A-33 was the serial number Hardy's P-51 Mustang].

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When George Hardy would go out and get his airplane into position, his crew chief would ride on the wing. It is really a safety no-no, but they did it. His crew chief had confidence in him. Hardy went into Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy] on furlough to a rest camp a number of times. After the war ended, he traveled around Italy. The first time he saw Frank Sinatra [Annotator's Note: Francis Albert Sinatra, American singer, actor, producer] sing was in Milan [Annotator's Note: Milan, Italy]. Hardy did not interact much with the Italian civilians. The men were getting powdered eggs quite often. Hardy did not smoke, so he would trade his cigarette rations for fresh eggs from the locals. The mission that stands out most to Hardy was a strafing mission during which he was hit by small arms fire. The bottom of the cockpit is dark but as he pulled up, he could see light coming through near his feet. That was the only time he was hit. They lost a number of people on strafing missions. It only took one hit to the coolant line to bring the plane down. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells of P-47 pilots who got shot down in North American P-51 Mustangs after they transitioned]. The P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] could take a lot of punishment. They could have engine problems and still come back. Their engines were air cooled. If their engine was coolant-cooled, they had to worry about heating up [Annotator's Note: the North American P-51 Mustang used a coolant-cooled engine].

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George Hardy does not remember when he heard that the war was over. They knew it was close because they were running out of targets. They were wondering how they could keep on fighting. Anyone could read the cards. The Soviets were coming from the East, the Allies from the West, and they had no production to support them. Hardy saw a clip [Annotator's Note: a video clip at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] that said some of the generals would use the bombers as bait to get the fighters [Annotator's Note: German fighters]. Have the fighters attack the bombers and then attack them. Colonel Davis [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force General Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr.] made sure the 332nd [Annotator's Note: 332nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force] stayed with the bombers. Hardy feels that some of the generals did not seem to care about the bombers. Davis told them to let a fighter go if it left. Some of the generals told their pilots to stick with any fighter until it was shot down so he will not come back tomorrow. If the pilots and planes are eliminated, they will not have any left. Hardy hates the term "using them as bait." Davis was a great guy. He was tough and had to be. He was aloof to most people, but he was the commander. He had to put up with a lot. Hardy does not know if they were held to a higher standard. He did not feel any pressure. The Germans surrendered in May [Annotator's Note: May 1945]. In April 1945, the 477th Bombardment Group was preparing to go overseas but had a problem at Freeman Field [Annotator's Note: Freeman Field mutiny, April 1945], Indiana. 101 of them were arrested. That put a crimp in things. In June, Colonel Davis was sent to take over the 477th. The 99th [Annotator's Note: 99th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force] was supposed to be part of the 477th Composite Group which was to be made up of two B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] bomber squadrons and one P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] fighter squadron. While Hardy was overseas in the summer of 1945, they were still the 99th. Beginning in August 1945, about all of the pilots of the 99th were returned to the United States. All of their orders had the word "coloreds" in big caps on them. The 99th was deactivated overseas and then reactivated at Godman Field, Kentucky with Colonel Davis in charge [Annotator's Note: on 1 July 1945].

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The Japanese surrendered while George Hardy was on a ship returning home. He and his outfit landed shortly after that and went to a replacement center in North Carolina. People could get out of the service right away. There were three choices offered to them. They could sign on indefinitely, sign on until June 1947, or get out. Hardy signed on until June 1947. He wanted to go to school. He went to Tuskegee [Annotator's Note: Tuskegee Army Air Field, Tuskegee, Alabama] and flew as a supervisory pilot until it closed in the summer of 1946. He then went to Lockbourne [Annotator's Note: Lockbourne Army Air Field, Lockbourne, Ohio; now Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base]. He was released from active duty in November 1946. He then attended engineering classes, returning to active duty in June 1948. He made a career of the Air Force. He had gotten married in 1947 and his wife got pregnant immediately. That changed his mind. The Air Force became a separate service in September 1947. Colonel Davis [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force General Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr.] had a shortage of pilots. In early 1947, the Army inactivated the 477th Composite Group and reactivated the 332nd Fighter Group. They needed all fighter pilots. Davis sent a letter to Hardy asking him to return. He reported to Lockbourne on 3 June 1948. It was a segregated service and he loved flying. In April, General Carl Spaatz [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces, then US Air Force, General Carl Andrew "Tooey" Spaatz] announced that the Air Force was going to eliminate segregation. Race would no longer be a factor. That hit Hardy quite a bit. He thought he might be assigned somewhere he did not know anyone. He also only knew flying. He thought he would like to get into all weather fighters with radar. He did not want a desk job. There was an officer school at Keesler Field [Annotator's Note: now Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi]. All the schools were open now for integration. He applied to that school and started flying again. Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] signed the executive order telling the Army, Navy, and Air Force to integrate. Stuart Symington [Annotator's Note: William Stuart Symington, Jr.], first Secretary of the Air Force, was a driving force in the decision to integrate.

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George Hardy got news that he was going to Keesler [Annotator's Note: Keesler Field, now Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi] for electronics officer school in August 1948. He spent ten months there in the Airborne Electronics Officer Maintenance Course until August 1949. He kept flying. In 1949, the services submitted their integration plans. The Air Force and Navy plans were accepted but the Army plan was rejected. It did pass in 1950. The 332nd [Annotator's Note: 332nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force] was deactivated in June 1949 and those personnel received new assignments all around the world. Hardy applied for all weather fighters but was assigned to the 19th Bombardment Group [Annotator's Note: 19th Bombardment Group, 314th Bombardment Wing, XXI Bomber Command, 20th Air Force] on Guam in a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] outfit. He was the first person of color in that outfit. It was the only bomb group not under the Strategic Air Command, but part of the Far East Air Force under MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur, then Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan]. It was his pet group. Hardy supervised about 25 white airmen. He had no issues with them. Hardy had to qualify as a copilot in the B-29. In 1950, he got a new squadron commander who would only talk to him in the line of duty. The Korean War began and they moved to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Kadena Airbase, Okinawa, Japan] in June 1950. On 30 June 1950, they flew their first mission. On 12 July 1950, they were scheduled for their seventh mission. As copilot, Hardy would get in his seat and check the cockpit before take off. Lieutenant Colonel Miller [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] told him to get out of the airplane and informed him he was not going on the mission. The aircraft commander came up and started talking to Miller. Later in the day, Miller saw Hardy and walked up and put his hand on his shoulder in a friendly manner. He told Hardy that his aircraft had been shot down over North Korea. The first B-29 lost there. The crew bailed out. The first two out were captured by North Koreans. The engineer, Bob Leighton, died in a prison camp. The others made it back. The aircraft commander told Hardy if he had on board that would not have happened. Colonel Miller would not let Hardy fly after that. Less than two weeks later he [Annotator's Note: Miller] became deputy group commander. His replacement put Hardy back on flying status. He got to fly 45 missions over Korea. Ten years later, Hardy would work for Miller again for two years. Hardy says it was the best two years of his service. Miller would tell others that he and Hardy had served together in Korea. Hardy would think "what an SOB" [Annotator's Note: Son of a Bitch. Hardy laughs.]

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George Hardy retired from the Air Force in 1971. He did fly in Vietnam. The AC-119 [Annotator's Note: Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo aircraft] was a troop carrier they made a gunship out of. There were two versions made. The G [Annotator's Note: Fairchild AC-119G Shadow] had twin engines and miniguns [Annotator's Note: 7.62x51mm M134 Minigun]. The K [Annotator's Note: Fairchild AC-119K Stinger] had two prop and two jet engines. It had the miniguns and two 20mm Gatling guns [Annotator's Note: M61 Vulcan, 20mm Gatling gun]. Hardy flew the K model. They would fly at night and pick out targets on infrared. The pilot fired the guns. Hardy flew 70 missions. The squadron was at Phan Rang [Annotator's Note: Phan Rang Airbase, Phan Rang–Tháp Chàm, South Vietnam]. The aircraft were at Udorn Air Base [Annotator's Note: Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Udon Thani], Thailand and at Da Nang [Annotator's Note: Da Nang Air Base, also called Da Nang Airfield, Tourane Airfield, Vietnam]. Hardy trained at Lockbourne [Annotator's Note: Lockbourne Army Air Field, Lockbourne, Ohio; now Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base]. He was in Plattsburgh [Annotator's Note: Plattsburgh Air Force Base, Plattsburgh, New York] in 1972 [Annotator's Note: he means 1962] and was put in a code three, which meant he could get flight pay without flying. He spent seven years like that. He went to graduate school in Plattsburgh and then Hanscom Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: Bedford, Massachusetts] in Electronics Systems Division. He took part in AUTOVON [Annotator's Note: Automatic Voice Network; AUTOVON 490-L; worldwide American military telephone system] program for the Department of Defense as program manager and chief of engineering. They then were looking for C-119 pilots and he went into that.

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George Hardy came back [Annotator's Note: From Vietnam] in the spring of 1971. He had a physical and failed so he lost his flying status. He decided to retire. He retired November 1971. His neighbor worked for GTE [Annotator's Note: General Telephone & Electronics Corporation]. He had him write his resume and give it to him. Hardy worked for them for 18 years. He got a lot out of the service. He was always looking for an opportunity to improve himself. He tells kids to take advantage of opportunities. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. He had been away from his wife quite a bit too. His marriage became a casualty of his 25 years in the service. It was too late for him to do anything about it. Hardy fought in World War 2 because everyone else was fighting and it was his country too. He read American History, it was his country. It changed his life. He became a pilot and learned about discipline. He learned teamwork. His service means a lot to him. He wore that flag on his shoulder three times in combat. He loves this country and would go to war right now if needed. When you look around the world, we may have some faults, but we are still the best choice. Hardy is not sure what America means today because he is not sure kids really understand. It does not mean anything to anybody if the children and grandchildren do not know understand the significance of it. Growing up he learned about the Civil War [Annotator's Note: the American Civil War], World War 1, the Revolutionary War [Annotator's Note: American Revolutionary War, or, American War of Independence] and what they meant. He is not sure how much kids are taught. A lot of people condemned the dropping of the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945]. Thought it was inhuman. How inhuman was the Rape of Nanking [Annotator's Note: Nanjing Massacre; mass murder and mass rape by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking, now Nanjing, China, between 13 December 1937 and 20 January 1938]? Hardy thinks nothing of dropping the bomb on the Japanese. He was coming back from Europe to go to the Pacific. We could have lost a couple hundred thousand people out there. We had no choice. You do anything you can to keep other guys from losing their lives. Nothing really stands out as most memorable. He loved flying the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. Missions were routine. He does not recall any of them being more memorable than the others. Hardy talks to a lot of kids and he is amazed at their lack of knowledge of the war. He feels he is guilty of it too. He did not talk to his kids until recently. They do not know of the sacrifices of the young men. There were almost 17 million people who served. Women came out of the kitchen and revolutionized this country. It was quite a generation.

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