An Eye-Opening Journey Through Race and Service in the U.S. Air Force
In his insightful reflection, “My Black Roommate Opened My Eyes to an Air Force I Didn’t Know Existed,” published on April 2, 2025, by The War Horse, Mark Miller describes how his early Air Force experience in 1971 transformed his understanding of race, equity, and military service. Although Mark Miller and I did not serve together, his experiences in the Air Force, akin to my own, highlight similar lessons learned from our military careers, offering valuable insights into the potential of diversity for individuals, teams, and organizations.
Miller, a white teenager from a small midwestern town, enlisted in the Air Force seeking opportunity and stability. Arriving at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, he expected camaraderie and career growth—but found something deeper: an unfiltered education on race in America, taught not through textbooks, but through lived experiences.
His first roommate, Paul, a Black airman from Washington, D.C. with a sociology degree, became his unexpected teacher. Paul and his circle opened Miller’s eyes to a parallel Air Force experience—one shaped by segregation, exclusion, and injustice. While Miller had never personally encountered overt racism, his Black counterparts lived with it daily: discriminatory transport, unequal job assignments, biased military justice, and social exclusion in facilities meant for all service members.
The contrast between Miller’s naive assumptions and the harsh realities his Black peers endured was stark. When a noncommissioned officer—also a Klan recruiter—offered to remove Paul as his roommate, Miller began to grasp the deep-rooted systemic issues not just in the military but society writ-large.
His awakening deepened with the 1971 race riots at Travis Air Force Base in California, where years of inequity erupted into violence, forcing the Air Force to reckon with its own failures. The resulting changes—Equal Opportunity offices, inclusive dining options, cultural sensitivity training, and new leadership roles for Black airmen—marked the beginning of institutional transformation.
Yet Miller’s story is more than a historical reflection. Now a Roman Catholic deacon ministering in prisons, he connects past lessons to present realities. Despite decades of progress, he acknowledges how racial inequity persists—reminding us that awareness is the first step toward meaningful change.
Miller’s experience underscores the power of proximity: how authentic relationships can challenge ignorance, disrupt assumptions, and inspire growth. His honest reckoning with his own limited worldview models the humility and courage needed in any institution—and any generation—to build a more just and inclusive society.
His closing question, “Will we ever learn?” lingers. It challenges readers not only to reflect, but to act—so future generations don’t need race riots or personal upheaval to understand what equity truly demands. In the words of Maya Angelou, famed American memoirist and poet, “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”