Tuskegee Airman - and first 'Top Gun' winner - turns 100

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“I was a perfectionist… that carried me all the way through life really. However, when I got married, I had to knock it off,” joked Lieutenant Colonel James Harvey.
Thursday, July 13 marked Harvey's 100th birthday. When Rocky Mountain PBS met him at his home in Lakewood, he was in a reflective mood. The past 100 years have seen him from a young boy in Montclair, New Jersey, to becoming arguably one of the most skilled aviators of World War II as a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. After spending the afternoon recounting his time in the service and sharing a lot of laughs, Harvey revealed himself as something of an inspirational jokester.
Growing up in a poor, but proud family, young Harvey adapted quickly to an ever-changing world when his family moved to Nuangola Station, Pennsylvania in 1936. Nuangola Station was a small mountain town and Harvey's family was the only African American family there. But Harvey recounted being treated like everyone else.
“There was not any prejudice whatsoever,” he recalled.
However, that sense of belonging would soon shift for him.
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