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Denver — The eyes of retired Col. Fitzroy "Buck" Newsum have seen segregation, "separate but equal" and the cancer of racism. But now he'll view something he's not entirely sure he can believe.

At 90, Newsum will watch Barack Obama sworn in as the nation's first black president.

It is an event so extraordinary for the retired former Tuskegee Airman that he felt he had to be there in person.

"If I had to crawl to see it, then I would do it," Newsum said. "I've waited so long to see this happen, I wouldn't miss it."

Sitting on a living room couch in his Denver home, Newsum chokes up at the thought of the moment.

The walls of the room are lined with memories of his time as a member of one of World War II's most notable fighting units: the first group of black airmen in U.S. history.

There are plaques and photos representing an era that seems farther back than it really was. Newsum remembers it as if it was yesterday.

He said he had wanted to fly planes ever since he was a young boy growing up in Trinidad and later in New York where he moved with his single mother, eventually going to Brooklyn College.

When the Army Air Corps began training pilots during World War II, Newsum figured a segregated nation would see beyond the color of his skin and let him enroll in flight school.

It took four tries.

"Each time they stamped that word on my application, rejected," he said. "It was really hard because I started to have conflicted feelings for this country."

But Newsum was determined. He decided at that moment he would do whatever it took to make it happen.

Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen were established in July 1941 in Alabama at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, with the first class graduating in 1942.

There were five.

Newsum was in the second graduating class, and subsequent classes through 1946 saw 994 pilots get through the program.

The men from Tuskegee flew missions in North Africa, Sicily and Italy and were so successful it's thought that their success was a prelude to President Truman's decision to desegregate the military in 1948.

Among the graduates was Sam Hunter, now an 89-year-old living in Colorado Springs.

Hunter became a B-25 bomber pilot but never flew any combat missions because by the time his crew was ready to go, Truman already had cut orders to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

"That effectively ended the war and my chance to see combat," he said. "With a surplus of pilots, I was discharged."

The pride of being a part of the Tuskegee Airmen still resides strongly with him, however, and is one of the main reasons he also plans to be in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Like Newsum, Hunter said he's seen too much to not watch this happen.

"There was never a discussion about whether to go or not," he said. "From the get-go, we were going."

Obama and his inauguration committee have been committed to highlighting aspects of black history during the ceremony and the Tuskegee Airmen were initially suggested as possible invitees through the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. The committee sent invitations to those Tuskegee Airmen still living - about 330.