Don Elder remembers what it was like as a young African-American soldier assigned to a base in Atterbury, Ind., during World War II. He was housed at the same location where German prisoners of war were kept.

“I was a young recruit, didn’t even have a uniform yet,” Elder said.

The Germans slept in bunk beds. The African-American recruits slept in tents across the street.

“The Germans were treated better than we were,” he said.

Elder went on to become a member of one the most celebrated fighting forces in world history – the Tuskegee Airmen, an elite corps of black fighter pilots trained in Tuskegee, Ala.

Elder, a retired army air corps corporal, was the crew chief for the 99^th Fighter Squadron and the first black airman to hold such a job. It earned him the nickname, “The Jackie Robinson of Aviation.”

Elder visited DeSoto High School on Dec. 1 as one of the three founders of the Career Resource Professionals Future Pilots Flight School, a program that trains high school juniors and seniors to become pilots, aviation engineers and mechanics.

Elder and co-founders C.B. Rice, the historian for the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, and Maj. Alejandro House, a U.S. Marine who has flown 78 missions over Iraq and Afghanistan, are hoping to make DeSoto the eighth school in the nation to offer a flight program.

According to Ron Brewington, a former national public relations officer for Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., it is impossible to know how many Airmen are still living.

According to Brewington's records, four live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Col. Lloyd McKeethen of Cedar Hill.

Rice, a resident of Duncanville, isn’t one of the Tuskegee Airmen but has a lifelong love of flying that started when he and his father built and flew their own planes. His love of flying was rekindled when he saw the HBO film The Tuskegee Airmen, starring Laurence Fishburne, in 1995.

From that point on, he soaked up everything he could find about the fabled group.

He remembered talking to one of the airmen about a mission to Berlin.

“The longest escort mission ever was about to occur. They knew they were going to Berlin, and they needed larger fuel tanks to go on the wings,” Rice said.

The Airmen were denied their request, so they improvised. They commandeered their own extra fuel tanks and flew six-and-a-half hours from Italy to Berlin and back.

“They were only supposed to go halfway, but the other escort group never showed up, so they went the whole way, and they could do that because of those extra fuel tanks,” Rice said.

The CRP Aviation Maintenance Technician elective program is a four-year course that provides FAA certification upon successful completion. In addition, a piloting program for juniors and seniors will provide a private pilot and instrument rating to students before graduation.

The program, in addition to one school period a day for teaching, requires students to train two Saturdays a month at local airports, including Dallas Executive.

If 10 students sign up, then DeSoto can join the seven other programs in the nation at Dallas Skyline, Fort Worth Dunbar and schools in New York, Kentucky, Delaware, California and Las Vegas.

“The program continues the tradition of the Tuskegee Airmen and creates pilots, mechanics and engineers,” said House, who told students to address him according to his call sign, “Brick.”

“You must have a strong science and math background, which are sadly lacking today,” he said.

Elder told the students that they have unparalleled opportunities to go as far as their education can take them, opportunities that weren’t available when he was growing up.

“Some of the things that we endured during that time – segregation and discrimination – was unlike anything you will ever see or read in any books,” said Elder, who was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. “The opportunity is there for you to not have to go through what we went through.”