I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw The Tuskegee Airmen before. It is the kind of tv movie that is filled with just enough allusions to racism and death that it does not feel like an after school special, but just sanitized enough and focused on historical heroics to make the cut for a high school class viewing. In comparison to Red Tails, it is a masterpiece particularly in scenes with interactions between black officers and cadets. The Tuskegee Airmen is the usual tale: excellent self-sacrificing black men believe that by performing in a noble pioneering role, they will eventually be treated as human beings in an institution run by the narrow-minded, racist, indifferent or moderately hopeful white men. Side note: shot on the same barracks as Biloxi Blues, an autobiographical coming of age story about a draftee ill-equipped for the rigors of war as he becomes a man. Compare and contrast.