Alabama grit seemed to blow across the Patriot’s Casa conference room, Nov. 3, as Tuskegee Airman Dr. Granville Coggs described learning how to shoot a 50-caliber machine gun almost 70 years ago at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida.
The stories kept coming as visitors waited for Tuskegee Airmen Theodore Johnson and Coggs to be presented with portraits at the “Portraits of Patriots Art Show” commissioned by Wayne Wright Injury Lawyers. Artists from the Salvation Army Senior Services Program created the works displayed on easels circling the room.
There are about 200 Tuskegee Airmen alive today. Six of them call San Antonio home.
Tuskegee Airmen are African-American pilots, bombardiers, and navigators who overcame racial adversity during WWII. They paved the way towards integration of the United States military.
Coggs stood up telling another story about the fallen soldiers at Gettysburg.
“The Civil War was our bloodiest war,” he said. “Six hundred thousand men were killed during that war. And quite a few were killed July of 1863 at Gettysburg Pennsylvania. There were 200,000 men lined up there, 100,000 Confederates and 100,000 Union. It was a bloody war. About 30,000 were injured, 7,500 were killed.”
As he set the scene silence blanketed the room to honored the fallen. His next words were the recitation of the Gettysburg Address.
In the crowd were artists that painted the portraits of Coggs and Johnson.
Seventy-one-year-old Victor Trello painted Airman Johnson’s portrait. He started studying art at the age of 12, he said.
Seventy-six-year-old Lupe Muñoz painted Coggs’ portrait. Muñoz started sketching at the age of 10, he said.
He joined the Salvation Army Senior Program and took advantage of the painting classes they offered.
Muñoz, whose hands and body were burned in a butane gas accident, found a love for painting and practiced 10 to 15 hours a day to improve his skills, he said.
“At my age I don’t have a lot of time to waste,” Muñoz said.
The paintings depicting military scenes and themes were given expressive titles such as “Night Duty,” “American Rooster” and “The Face of War.”
The artwork is on display at the Patriots’ Casa through the month of November.
For more information, contact Richard Delgado at the Patriot’s Casa, 210-784-1175.
