Robert A. Decatur

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Greetings...Please click on below link to see story in January, 2008 about Robert Decatur when he appeared at a Navy MLK ceremony, telling participants that he "flew missions in Europe in World War II and in Korea" (please note that he "washed out" of flight training from Class 44D):

Tuskegee Airman Robert A. Decatur often spoke in public about being one of only about 960 black pilots who escorted the all-white crews of bombers over Europe, how he inscribed his plane in Latin with the slogan "Through Adversity, to the Stars," and how one of the characters in a 1995 HBO movie about the black pilots was based on him.

"If you remember the scene in The Tuskegee Airmen where the pilot, played by Laurence Fishburne, landed in a field where convicts were working, the pilot stepped out of the plane and one of the convicts said, 'My God, he's colored.' That pilot was Robert Decatur," he told an audience during Martin Luther King Day observances this year at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Because of his stories of heroism, the Arkansas chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen is named in his honor.

But his death last month in Titusville at age 88 did not lay to rest the contention of fellow Tuskegee Airmen that Decatur's legendary life was largely his own creation.

"He included himself as one of those heroes, and he wasn't," said John Gay, president of the Orlando chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., an association created in 1972 to honor the first black pilots trained in Tuskegee, Ala., during World War II.

Decatur's embellishments were repeated over the years in articles ranging from a 2004 cover story in Onyx magazine to an Aug. 22 obituary in the Orlando Sentinel.

The record shows that Decatur was a Tuskegee cadet in 1944 but did not complete pilot training. He did not graduate from flying school and never flew in combat. He was not Laurence Fishburne.

"Mr. Decatur was not the model for the character, nor were the six or seven others who have claimed to be over these last 14 years," said Joan Williams, whose late husband, Robert, wrote the movie's screenplay and based much of it on his experiences as a Tuskegee pilot.

The impersonation of war heroes is so prevalent that Congress passed the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 to crack down on men who gave themselves medals they never earned. To many of these men, the glory of their imaginations makes up for shortcomings in their lives.

"The more you exaggerate, the more acclaim you get, and the more acclaim you get, the better it feels," said Alan Keck, an Orlando psychologist.

But Robert Decatur, who retired to Titusville in 1992, didn't need to make himself into something more than what he was. Becoming a Tuskegee cadet was an honor in itself and earned him the lifelong legitimacy of being a Tuskegee Airman. He graduated with a law degree from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio in 1951, which would have elevated him into the black elite of Cleveland.

His friend and fellow Brevard County Airman Noel Harris said Decatur's portrayal of himself as a Tuskegee pilot was not so different from the war stories on steroids heard at every Army reunion.

But in creating his own fame, Decatur defamed the men in the cockpits who were true heroes, said Ron Brewington, former public relations officer for Tuskegee Airmen Inc. Brewington said he became frustrated that the organization didn't do more to stop Decatur. But Gay said it's not the Tuskegee way to publicly admonish members.

The fabrication of his war record also calls into question other achievements Decatur claimed: judge, law teacher, civil-rights attorney with Martin Luther King Jr. and confidant of John F. Kennedy.

Decatur spent 25 years as a probate magistrate in Cleveland and referred to himself as Judge Decatur. But the magistrates, who deal mostly with estates, are not judges, said court spokeswoman Ann Vanik.

One of the schools where Decatur said he taught, Cleveland State University Law School, confirmed that he was a part-time adjunct instructor in the 1970s. Three other schools where Decatur said he taught law had no records of him.

As for his connections to King and Kennedy, those claims could not be confirmed.

Other stories he told are true. He was a pilot and he did fly a planeload of water purifiers and supplies to Haiti in 2005, following a flood that devastated the island.

The measure of the man should be in his actions and his deeds, not his words, said his friend Joe Hurston, who provided the water purifiers. "I have all kinds of evidence that the Judge was genuine, that the Judge cared deeply for people," said Hurston, 58. "The Judge to me is and always will be a hero."

And to his children, Decatur was every bit the bigger-than-life man he portrayed himself to be.

"I know he was an important person in Cleveland and the community. He was a person held in high esteem, and he was my dad," said Dawne Mumford, 57.

At the same time, Mumford wonders herself about the real Robert Decatur: "It confuses me sometimes. I don't know really what he was."

Jeff Kunerth can be reached at jkunerth@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5392.