Legacies Project Oral History: William Henderson

Mon, 08/29/2022 - 12:26pm

When: 2022

Transcript

[00:00:12] INTERVIEWER: This is a videotape interview for the Legacies project, which has students gathering for oral histories and putting them into an archive for future generations. Please ignore the camera, just have a conversation with me. We may have to pause to change tape, we'll just pick up where we left off. Everyone, it's time to turn our cell phones or pagers or anything that might make noise. Mr. Henderson, you could call break at anytime, you don't have to answer a question if you don't want to in the interview if you wish. I'm first going to ask you some simple demographic questions. While these questions may jog memories, please keep your answers brief and to the point for now. You can elaborate later in the interview. Please say and spell your name.
[00:01:00] William Henderson: William A. Henderson. W-I-L-L-I-A-M, A, middle initial, H-E-N-D-E-R-S-O-N.
[00:01:10] INTERVIEWER: What is your birth date including the year?
[00:01:12] William Henderson: January 18, 1943.
[00:01:16] INTERVIEWER: How would you describe your ethnic background?
[00:01:18] William Henderson: African-American.
[00:01:20] INTERVIEWER: What is your religious affiliation?
[00:01:23] William Henderson: Methodist.
[00:01:25] INTERVIEWER: What's the highest level of formal education you have completed?
[00:01:29] William Henderson: Well, I have a bachelor's degree from college, but I also have 18 month training in the Marine Corps as a pilot which would be equivalent to at least a master's degree. But formal education, bachelor's degree.
[00:01:47] INTERVIEWER: What is your marital status?
[00:01:49] William Henderson: I'm married.
[00:01:50] INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have?
[00:01:51] William Henderson: Two.
[00:01:53] INTERVIEWER: How many siblings do you have?
[00:01:55] William Henderson: Three.
[00:01:58] INTERVIEWER: What would you consider your primary occupation until today?
[00:02:02] William Henderson: Pilot, commercial pilot.
[00:02:05] INTERVIEWER: Now we can begin the first part of our interview, beginning with some of the things you can recall about your family history. We're beginning with family naming history. By this, we mean any story about your last or family name or family traditions and selecting first your middle names.
[00:02:21] William Henderson: Well, my last name's obviously Henderson. But my grandfather was born in Montreal of an Irish woman and a Spanish man. She brought my grandfather to Ann Arbor when he was three or four years old, and he was adopted by a white family with the last name of Henderson. That's how the Henderson came into it. But that was not his birth last name, which we don't know. That's how the I was named Henderson.
[00:03:03] INTERVIEWER: Are there any naming traditions in your family?
[00:03:06] William Henderson: I'm named after my father William, but we have different middle name initials.
[00:03:12] INTERVIEWER: Why did your ancestors leave to come to the US?
[00:03:15] William Henderson: Well on my mother's side, her great, great grandmother was a slave who married a German soldier here in the United States. Her family moved to Canada. Again, on my father's side, what I told you is all that I know on that piece.
[00:03:43] INTERVIEWER: Do you know any stories about how your family first came to the US? Where did they first settle?
[00:03:48] William Henderson: Well, the great great great grandmother who was a slave, she was a slave in Delaware. Now, what her background was prior to that, where she came from, I have no idea. Whether she was born here or came here from Africa or somewhere, I don't know.
[00:04:07] INTERVIEWER: How did they make a living in the US or in the country they came from?
[00:04:12] William Henderson: well, on my mother's side, in Canada, they were all farmers. Most of the people who lived in that town called Buxton were people who would come on the Underground Railroad slaves into Canada for freedom. They were farmers, farming community. On my father's side again, my grandfather end up growing up here in Ann Arbor and he just held menial jobs, mostly working in Staples and things of that nature back in that time.
[00:04:45] INTERVIEWER: Describe any family migration once they arrived in the US and how they came to live in this area.
[00:04:50] William Henderson: My father, who was born in Ann Arbor, had relatives in Canada. He was back-and-forth to Canada, met my mother. They got married in Canada and moved right here to Ann Arbor. He, my father, grew up in Ann Arbor, except for a brief time in Canada. My mother grew up in Canada. They came here in your early 20s or she came in and early '20s.
[00:05:15] INTERVIEWER: Why did they decide to come to Ann Arbor?
[00:05:18] William Henderson: Well, a lot of people came over from Canada, a lot of my relatives came over from Canada to Ann Arbor because they got jobs working in these fraternity houses as cooks and janitors, and then also a lot of folks went to work for the auto industry here in Michigan.
[00:05:35] INTERVIEWER: What possessions did they bring with them and why?
[00:05:38] William Henderson: I can't tell you that, I have no idea.
[00:05:40] INTERVIEWER: Which family members came along or stay stayed behind?
[00:05:45] William Henderson: My mother and father of course are here. Then I had an aunt, my mother's sister, her and her family moved here, to Ann Arbor. They stayed only maybe five or six years and then went back to Canada. A lot of cousins from Canada were here in Ann Arbor, and they normally stayed 5-10 years or longer and then eventually all moved back to Canada. But my family, of course, like I said, my father was born and raised here, so they stayed here, obviously.
[00:06:19] INTERVIEWER: To your knowledge, did they make any effort to preserve any traditions or customs from their country or region that they came from?
[00:06:25] William Henderson: No. No.
[00:06:27] INTERVIEWER: Are their traditions that your family has given up or change?
[00:06:32] William Henderson: Well, it used to be a lot more. We had a lot of family reunions in Canada and people trying to go back to that. In fact, in this town called Buxton, it's a little town outside of Chatham, Ontario, which is about 60 miles from Windsor. Every Labor Day, that was a big day up there, and people all came back for Labor Day and now it's become the whole weekend. I haven't been in several years, but they told me it's gotten bigger every year. That's actually grown. But not with my family. There's less people involved, because there's less of us at this point in Canada and here.
[00:07:09] INTERVIEWER: What stories have come down to you about your parents and grandparents?
[00:07:17] William Henderson: Well, there are stories about in Canada, the farming community. I had a grandfather who had a large farm and in his sons, which my uncle's end up buying a couple of other farms, and I used to go up there every summer until I was about 15 and spend three or four weeks or sometimes a couple of months. I got involved with that. That was fun as a little kid. But as you got older and you had to do more work, it wasn't that much fun, but lot of farming stories up there. Here in Ann Arbor on my father's side, my father's father, there's not a lot of horses and buggies back at that time, and he worked in stables. My father ended up finally working for a very wealthy man, he's a driver and gardener and that, and then he eventually got a job where he worked for like 37 years at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church down on Division. Just different stories about growing up at that time.
[00:08:27] INTERVIEWER: What did your father do?
[00:08:28] William Henderson: He was a janitor.
[00:08:29] INTERVIEWER: Do you know any courtship stories? How did your parents, grandparents, and other relatives come to meet and marry?
[00:08:37] William Henderson: I can't tell you about how my grandparents met at all. I have no idea on that. My father, though, like I said, he's going to Canada because he had a lot of relatives there. He met my mother and my father was about four years older than my mother, and they met up there in their '20s and they started seeing each other and eventually got married. But that's all I know about that. Came over here.
[00:09:06] INTERVIEWER: For our communications, media, and public policy magnet program, we're exploring issues surrounding politics and money. Our class came up with two questions we will ask for every stage of your life. As with all the other questions, you can decline to answer if you choose. For this section, we're asking about your family's history with these issues and any stories you remember that you have that had been handed down to you. So prior to your own birth, how did politics, government, political or social activism affect the lives of your parents, grandparents and more to say?
[00:09:38] William Henderson: Back then, my grandparents, again, they grew up in Canada in a pretty much of a small black farming community. There were less racial issues in Canada and everybody was pretty much struggling, so they made a living of farming. Over here, again, my father and grandfather had menial jobs initially, and at that time, there wasn't a lot of politics. First of all, in Ann Arbor at that time and even up until I graduated from high school in Ann Arbor, was a very small black community. One high school, for example, in my case, and most of the Black people in Ann Arbor knew each other, probably 95% of everybody knew each other. That's how small the community was.
[00:10:33] William Henderson: During my father's time they talked about it. Of course, they killed my father and mother came through the depression. They talked about how everybody didn't matter what color you were then you were there in fresh and people were red lines and everything else. I often hear my father talking about the WPA, which was a government program to put people to work building schools and roads and all that. That was a pretty good thing for them because people got jobs, government jobs, and they were actually doing something. The depression I guess was a very tough time. As a result, people who lived through the depression, they always thought that another depression even after that one was over, they were always in fear that there'd be another one so they were very thrifty with their money to the point where as a child, I could understand why. No, you can't do this, can't do that. But it did mean well, because my father taught me to save. But there was a lot of coming up through that depression from my father and mother. Those were tough times, again for everybody and there wasn't a lot of politics involved. But Roosevelt became president and turned everything around so most folks really became democrats and we loved Roosevelt and he was elected four times. That was the environment then.
[00:11:58] INTERVIEWER: Prior to your own word what kind of relationship did your parents, grandparents, and we're just to answer, just have with money and savings?
[00:12:05] William Henderson: Well, they had very little money. All of them had very little money. It was pretty much living day to day. But as time's got better, I was surprised when my father finally passed away the amount of money he had accumulated from having a very menial job. He bought a house eventually and we lived well, we weren't poor, but there was no extras. But the depression made a big impression on everybody that went through it and affected their life for the rest of their life. Then in many ways, it affected their offspring such as me because they taught you certain things either directly or indirectly.
[00:12:56] INTERVIEWER: As a kid did you realize that your parents were saving or was it just like?
[00:13:01] William Henderson: No, I never thought about that.
[00:13:05] INTERVIEWER: Today's interview is about your childhood up until you began attending high school. Even if these questions jog memories about other times in your life, please only respond with memories from earliest part of your life. Where did you grow up and what are your strongest memories of that first?
[00:13:21] William Henderson: I grew up in Ann Arbor laid down over on the corner of hoovering green, which is about 200 yards from the University of Michigan Stadium. I had a big yard. It was all housing over there. Then there were only about three or four black families in that area. Then I read most of the other folks lived over and forth, at the North side. But there were three or four black families. I had a really great childhood corner store, we had a couple of cousins that lived in the house with us from Canada, a couple of young women who were here going to school and working. We lived pretty much on the first floor. They rented two rooms up on the second floor of the house. I would just remember a big yard and my father always had a big garden and main a half the yard into a garden. He also had, which was not uncommon in those days, he had a garage pretty big, garage he raised chickens, rabbits and pigeons. These were raised to eat. Every weekend he would kill a chicken or a rabbit. The pigeons I don't remember we ate those, but not very often. He did flew those around or something. But I always remember we had a lot of rabbits and a lot of chickens and in the yard and all that. I remember that. Then our house, we had a yard. I was born in that house and they'd only been here about six months when I was born in the house. That yard we had cherry trees, apple trees, apricots trees, peach trees, plum trees, and grapes. Whoever owned the house before that had planted all these around the edges of the yard. It was a big yard. Too sweet cherry trees, a couple of sour cherry tree, walnut tree. The only thing we didn't have was a pear tree and next door and the neighbors everybody was friendly, back then and grew up together and friendly neighbors next door had a pear tree so we had everything. I had a very fortunate pre-school childhood.
[00:15:38] INTERVIEWER: How did your family come to live there in that house?
[00:15:42] William Henderson: They lived over in my grandfather's house with my grandfather and mother. Then this house came on the market and I guess they finally had enough money to buy a house. I think they said that when they bought that house was like $11,000. They end up buying a house.
[00:16:00] INTERVIEWER: What was it like it was it [OVERLAPPING]?
[00:16:05] William Henderson: No, it wasn't small. Well, it will be small compared to houses of the day. But I had two sisters who were older and they were both living there. I name that we're upstairs until the two young women from Canada came over and one sister got married and left. It was small for that number of people but we've gotten used to big houses now that back then you didn't even think about it. It was at most the time you're outside anyway as kid.
[00:16:39] INTERVIEWER: What languages were spoken in or around you?
[00:16:42] William Henderson: Only English.
[00:16:45] INTERVIEWER: Rare different languages spoken in different settings such as home in the neighborhood or in local stores?
[00:16:50] William Henderson: No.
[00:16:51] INTERVIEWER: What was your family like when you were a child?
[00:16:55] William Henderson: Well, like I said, my mother and father, I was the youngest, two older sisters. I had a half-brother that I didn't meet until later as a teenager. It was the three kids, me and my two sisters and my mother and father in that house. But by the time I was four and my one sister had moved out. Then a couple of years after that my other sister moved out. That was about four or five was in the house, but five in the max in the house at that time. Then for several years was just three of us, me and my mother and father.
[00:17:35] INTERVIEWER: You said your father was a junior here at the church. Did your mom do anything?
[00:17:39] William Henderson: Yes. She was a cook in the fraternity houses.
[00:17:43] INTERVIEWER: What is your earliest memory?
[00:17:46] William Henderson: Earliest memory. I would think my first day at school. I started kindergarten at four because I graduated from high school when I was 17. Not that I was smarter, they let me in early by mistake, I guess because everybody else in my class started a year later than me, age wise. But my very first day at school we were coming registered for kindergarten. I went to Paris School, which was only three or four blocks from where I lived. Me and my mother were coming home and across the railroad tracks. I railroad runs through there. I tripped and fell and cut my mouth and had to go to hospital for stitches. It's four-and-a-half, almost five years old. But as my first memory, that stands out.
[00:18:35] INTERVIEWER: What was a typical day life for you in your preschool years?
[00:18:40] William Henderson: Well, preschool, so that'd be before four-and-a-half, five. Just tip a little kid. I remember my mother read a lot of books to me as a kid. There was a series of books about a car or something. I remember almost every day when I have ever read a part of that story to me. I remember the corner store, I used to go over there with her and finally well, I probably after I was five before. I went on my own because you had to cross the street, but I couldn't have been more than 100 yards from the house. Then playing in the yard in my father's garden every year. He put it this big garden and then I'd get out there and help with that as a little kid. Those were my earliest memories.
[00:19:25] INTERVIEWER: What did you do for fun?
[00:19:27] William Henderson: Playing in the yard. Sometime he take me to work with him and I had a ride around in a car that was a big deal. Ride in in a car.
[00:19:37] INTERVIEWER: Did you have a favorite school way?
[00:19:38] William Henderson: No.
[00:19:43] INTERVIEWER: Your favorite book was Dan Clark?
[00:19:45] William Henderson: Yeah. It was in fact was a series. As I recall it was like a bookcase of these books in one lead than the other. But there was one story about a car. Lawrence bought this car, I remember that one. But it was a series of books.
[00:20:03] INTERVIEWER: Were there any special days, events or family traditions you remember as a little kid?
[00:20:08] William Henderson: Going to Canada, we'd go up there and maybe once a month. One time we went to Canada and we couldn't get it back because my mother didn't have citizenship. We got all the way to the border coming back and they said not so fast, so I ended up being up there about two months at a time. But that was probably eight or nine at that point.
[00:20:31] INTERVIEWER: How did politics, government, political or social activism affect your life when you were a little kid?
[00:20:36] William Henderson: As a little child, no it didn't.
[00:20:40] INTERVIEWER: What was your relationships in money and savings at this time in your life?
[00:20:45] William Henderson: As I said before like five years old there wasn't any relationship.
[00:20:53] INTERVIEWER: Okay. We'll discuss your time as a young person from about the time that school attendance typically begins in the US up until you begin your professional career work life.
[00:21:05] William Henderson: Oh, okay.
[00:21:07] INTERVIEWER: You went to preschool? What do you remember about it?
[00:21:11] William Henderson: Well, it wasn't preschool. It was in Kindergarten, yeah. But there wasn't considered preschool and then I guess maybe it wouldn't be today.
[00:21:19] INTERVIEWER: Did you go to elementary school, where and what do you remember?
[00:21:22] William Henderson: I went to Perry Elementary School, which is like I say, just a couple of blocks from my house. I remember walking there every day and then we come home at lunch and go back and come home in the evening. I remember there was a bakery right on the way to school and at some point in elementary school, we'd stop by that bakery and they'd give us a day old baked goods. That was a big deal, donuts and free donuts and all this type of thing. Just remember that the kids from school. Again, I was in elementary school there probably weren't more than about maybe 15 black kids and all maybe 20 in all six grades. Because again, it was primarily a white side of town. Most of the blacks lived over on the other side of town.
[00:22:16] INTERVIEWER: You ever experience any racism?
[00:22:18] William Henderson: No, I don't remember any in elementary school. I remember in junior high once you went into the ninth grade in prior to coming, which was I went Lawson Junior High School. That was seventh, eighth, and ninth. Then in the ninth grade, you had to sign up for what curriculum you are going to take in high school. There was only one high school, Ann Arbor High which is now Pioneer. That was called or you had industrial and college-prep, University Prep and there are two or three others, I don't remember. But they always steered the black kids to the general prep. Ann Arbor was a very pretty liberal town. You didn't see overt racism. But they always steered the black kids to the general prep. I kept saying no, I wanted to go to college prep and I did. But only few of us went to college prep, black kids, because they went along with the program. There was only one black teacher in Pioneer Ann Arbor High school when I went there, he was a second teacher in the whole school system. I would say there was some racism, but it was very covert, very low level.
[00:23:52] INTERVIEWER: You went to the Pioneer and what do you remember about it?
[00:23:55] William Henderson: A big school, brand new. It was only like three years old when I went there. Pioneer High School at that time, as I recall, where it is right now, was out in the country. I mean, that was right on the edge of town. Everything behind there was country. It was a brand new school and I remember it cost, excuse me, $10 million. That was a big thing out there, black people were upset about the cost of that school. But it was so modern and new with the planetarium and the five buildings. I think we were the third class or second class that went all three years there. But it was a great school, like I said there were 1,600 kids, 650 in my class. It was a really good experience. It was a great school.
[00:24:46] INTERVIEWER: If you did not go to any of the above school levels, why not, and why did you do? Why didn't you attend?
[00:24:51] William Henderson: Yeah..
[00:24:52] INTERVIEWER: Okay, so did you go to school or career training beyond high school? Where and what do you remember?
[00:24:57] William Henderson: I went to Eastern and graduated in 1960 from Ann Arbor High and then went to Eastern for four years, graduating in '64. It was during that time in Eastern that I signed up for the Marine Corps. One of the stipulations of that program is you had to graduate in four years. That was an incentive to graduate in four years. Back then most people did graduate in four years. I understand now, because of scheduling and a lot of other things, college takes a lot longer or five years or whatever in many cases. But yeah, I commuted to Eastern from here in Ann Arbor, I didn't stay on campus. Then during that time, I was able to arrange all my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I worked Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at Sears Roebuck, eight hours a day for 24 hours a week. Once in a while I'd have to have a class on a Tuesday or Thursday evening, but for my last three years, that was my program.
[00:26:02] INTERVIEWER: What drove you to join the Marine?
[00:26:05] William Henderson: Well, when I was a boy scout as a kid, my scout leader was a young guy. He was a marine. I had several friends whose brothers were Marines. I saw several marine movies, the Marines. I was walking across campus as I was 17 years old, the freshmen walking across campus about October and my first year of college and there was a Marine Recruiter there, recruiting for the officer program and they're standing there with uniforms on so I asked a couple of questions. They said, when you take a test, you know, it's a couple of hour test and see what you're thinking. I did pass it. There was a program where you would go, after my freshman year, I would go to boot camp for six weeks and you come back. [BACKGROUND]
[00:27:04] INTERVIEWER: Did you play any sports or engage in any other extra curricular activities?
[00:27:10] William Henderson: No, not at this stage.
[00:27:13] INTERVIEWER: What about your school experience, is it different from schools you know it today?
[00:27:18] William Henderson: Yeah. I think it is somewhat different, the schools were smaller so people knew more people. There was a lot less high-tech things and things didn't change as fast as they changed now, technically. It was just a more conducive atmosphere for knowing people I think. Today, I think people tend to be a little more disconnected from each other than we did back then.
[00:27:57] INTERVIEWER: What type of music was popular?
[00:28:00] William Henderson: Rock and roll and the Motown was just getting started. It took off real quick and that was really big. Motown.
[00:28:10] INTERVIEWER: Did you have a favorite artist?
[00:28:12] William Henderson: No, several Motown, but no particular one.
[00:28:16] INTERVIEWER: Did the music have any particular dances?
[00:28:19] William Henderson: Oh yeah. I can't remember the name but there would be a dance and then three months later there'll be a new one that was kind of a whatever the latest fun was, but yeah. [OVERLAPPING] Yeah. Right.
[00:28:32] INTERVIEWER: What were the popular clothing or hairstyles at the time?
[00:28:36] William Henderson: That was before Afros. Everybody all black males were their hair short.
[00:28:43] William Henderson: Later on it was about the time I was going in the military is when people started wearing longer hair and Afros. Also for the Caucasian kids, that was before The Beatles. The Beatles just came about when I was in college so even males, everybody wore their hair shorter back at that time. But then when The Beatles came along about the '64, '65, somewhere in there, everybody start wearing longer hair and there were different fans for clothing but nothing really weigh out or you didn't have as many choices for clothing. When I was a kid growing up, getting tennis shoes or gym shoes, they were like two. They have PF kids and there was another one. Those are the only two but they were really nice. Now you go to a store and there's a wall of shoes for kids to pick from.
[00:29:36] INTERVIEWER: Did you play sports or engage in extra curricular activities in high school at all?
[00:29:42] William Henderson: I swam for one year, but my father, he wanted my grades to be better so that only lasted one year.
[00:29:51] INTERVIEWER: Can you describe any fads or styles from this era, any other ones when you were in college?
[00:29:57] William Henderson: Well, back then, everybody took a little pride in how they dressed. Most people back then wore leather shoes and you didn't see a proliferation of gym shoes like you have now. We took pride in wearing leather shoes, polished. We used to really iron our blue jeans and grease our khakis with a lot of starch and it was a more of a dressing up casual dressing up thing.
[00:30:28] INTERVIEWER: Were there any slang terms, phrases, or words used back then that aren't common today?
[00:30:36] William Henderson: No, I can't think of any.
[00:30:40] INTERVIEWER: What was the typical day like for you in college?
[00:30:44] William Henderson: Well, as I said, I took all my classes from my last three years were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so I commuted. My first-year of college, I had a car, an old car, and then I sold that and end up riding with a couple of other guys. I'd leave home by 8:00 in the morning and go to classes, about five classes throughout the day and normally be through about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. Between classes, I'd go to the library and study or the union and socialize, and then at night I do some studying. Then on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I got up and went to work at Sears and Roebuck for eight hours a day and studied when I could at night. I didn't really have the college experience that most kids had who lived on campus. Because I was living at home and working most of the time.
[00:31:38] INTERVIEWER: What did you do for fun?
[00:31:43] William Henderson: Well, I joined a fraternity as a freshman, and so there was a lot of socializing there. I had a girlfriend who lived in Whittaker and she commuted in the Eastern. Most of my friends that I grew up with in high school, some of them had gone into the military, others had gone to work. I somewhat disconnected with them because I was in another world at that point. But we had a lot of fun, not probably the same thing kids do today with free time, movies and parties and things like that.
[00:32:22] INTERVIEWER: If you didn't join the military, what do you think you would have major in?
[00:32:25] William Henderson: I would have probably end up being a school teacher or I thought about it that time being a state police officer. In fact, when I went in the military, I originally thought I was going to go in for three years, come out and join the state police. But I ended up going to flight school and that changed everything.
[00:32:43] INTERVIEWER: Were there any special days, events, or family traditions you remember from when you were in college?
[00:32:49] William Henderson: The normal holidays, and then again, that Labor Day up in Canada was a big deal. We do normally go up there in the fall, but that was pretty much it.
[00:33:03] INTERVIEWER: Did your family have any special sayings or expressions?
[00:33:06] William Henderson: No.
[00:33:09] INTERVIEWER: Any changes in your family life when you were in college through high school?
[00:33:14] William Henderson: No.
[00:33:16] INTERVIEWER: Were there any special days, events, or family traditions you remember from this time?
[00:33:21] William Henderson: No one of them.
[00:33:23] INTERVIEWER: Which holidays did your family celebrate? How were holidays traditionally celebrated in your family? Has your family created its own traditions and celebrations?
[00:33:30] William Henderson: No, they haven't created their own tradition or celebration, but like most people love 4th of July, do a picnic or a barbecue or something. Birthdays they celebrated. Pretty much just traditional thing. When they were on the holidays weren't a real big deal. Nothing really special.
[00:33:51] INTERVIEWER: What special food traditions does your family have? Any recipes that got passed out?
[00:33:55] William Henderson: Well, my mother, who was a cook for a living was a real good cook. So we ate well, and I remember [NOISE] the things that she cooked. It was always good food. She really made some great desserts and all that, but there was nothing special. It was pretty much never a shortage of food or anything like that. Like I say, even people who didn't have a lot, everybody still ate well, poverty was not the same as it is today. I think today people who are in poverty or in severe poverty, you didn't see homeless people then or if you did, I don't remember. I remember there were very few, and you didn't see people on the side of the road with signs asking for money and all of that. Very few people were on the streets asking for money or begging. You didn't have a homeless shelters, they just didn't exist.
[00:35:06] INTERVIEWER: When thinking back on your school years, what important social or historical events were taking place at the time, and how did they personally affect you and your family?
[00:35:14] William Henderson: Well, I remember the Kennedy assassination. I was 20 years old then, and I'd already done the Marine Corps thing, was getting ready to go into Marine Corps like the year after that, and that was a real shocker for everybody. Lot of sadness. Big time. It was almost like a family member was lost when he died, when he was assassinated. I even thought about not going into the Marine Corps briefly. But that was a traumatic thing and then it was televised. When his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was walking out of live on television. They were walking him out of his cell, out to the police car and the guy walked up and they should have shot him right on television. You saw it live like two days after the Kennedy assassination. Then the funeral was televised. It was really a strange time.
[00:36:16] INTERVIEWER: How did politics, government, political or social activism affect your life at this time in your life?
[00:36:22] William Henderson: Well, and that point, the civil rights was really taking off in the South, the Freedom Riders and all that, but that wasn't up here. There are a few places up here that were not open to Blacks in employment. I remember there was one restaurant down on Main Street nearing Hans Street and they were picketing, and I remember a bunch of guys we were down that way and we just jumped into picket line for 20 or 30 minutes most for fun. Not really thinking about the seriousness of it. But anyway, back then there was a lot of civil unrest in the South. The Freedom Riders, people getting beat up and trying to integrate the schools, and it was all on television every day. That was a big thing back then.
[00:37:21] INTERVIEWER: What was your relationship to money and savings?
[00:37:24] William Henderson: When I was working at an early age when I was 14, when I wanted anything my father, more or less told me, you want it? Fine, but go ahead you've got to earn your money to get it. At the age of 12, I started with paper routes and so at an early age I started saving money, and so I always had money in college because I was working all the time. Spent some but I always. Saved some, so I always had money. Little money, I don't mean big money but money.
[00:38:00] INTERVIEWER: These little questions covers a long period of your life from the time you completed your education, entered into the labor force or started a family until all of your children left home and you and/or your spouse retired from work. We're possibly talking about a stretch of time spanning as much as four decades. After you finished high school, where did you live?
[00:38:23] William Henderson: After I finished high school, I still lived at home because I commuted from home to college for four years.
[00:38:30] INTERVIEWER: Did you remain there or did you move around through your working adult life and what was the reason for this move?
[00:38:35] William Henderson: Well after I graduated from college at 21, I went right into Marine Corps, and I was in Marine Corps for 10 years and moved every couple of years. Lived in the West, the South, and the East. I got married after I was in the Marine Corps a couple of years. I had one child when I was in the Marine Corps. For those 10 years I lived in a lot of different places. Then when I left the Marine Corps, I came back to Ann Arbor and went to work for General Motors, and lived in Ann Arbor in apartment for several years and finally bought a house. But while I was working for General Motors, I also joined the reserves out itself for Jerry National Guard days. I basically had two jobs and because that wasn't one weekend a month, that one's about six or eight days a month I had to go out there. I end up buying a house in Ann Arbor, I was married. Me and my wife divorced after about 10 years, and I then lived in a house for a while by myself. Then five or six years after that I remarried. After I left the Marine Corp at the age of 31, I've been in Ann Arbor ever since and now I live in Ypsilanti Township. My second wife was a school teacher, retired from Wayne-Westland Community Schools, and she retired about five years after I did. I've been in this area now since 1974. I left in '64, came back in '74, and I've been back here ever since.
[00:40:23] INTERVIEWER: I would like you to tell me a little about your married and family life. First time you got your spouse. Where and when did you guys meet?
[00:40:30] William Henderson: My first wife we met my first-year at college. I was a bus boy at Michigan League and the Michigan Union and my wife was a bus girl, I guess you'd call it at the Michigan Union we met there. I was one year ahead of her. She was still in high school. I was a freshman in college. We dated for about three years and when I graduated, we got married. Actually, a year after I graduated we got married. She traveled with me wherever I went to the station, except I went to Vietnam for a year and she came back to Ann Arbor. Then when I came back for good in Ann Arbor, we stayed married about another three or four years and we end up getting a divorce. Her and my daughter stayed in Ann Arbor, or by that time, by what time we got divorced we had had a second child, who was about four when we got divorced. Me and my kids we certainly remained close. My only son just graduated from Michigan about five years ago as a pharmacist. He went to Eastern for four years and then went to Michigan for four years, became a pharmacist. He lives in the Ann Arbor area. My daughter, she didn't attend college. She was not college material, but she's a good good kid, works, and I've got two grand kids by her.
[00:41:59] INTERVIEWER: How were you able to contact your family and your wife when you were in Vietnam?
[00:42:04] William Henderson: Strictly through letters?
[00:42:06] INTERVIEWER: You didn't talk to them for a whole year?.
[00:42:08] William Henderson: No. There was none of that.
[00:42:12] INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your engagement and the wedding?
[00:42:15] William Henderson: Let's see. [NOISE] Excuse me. I hate this cough. I had been in the Marine Corps about a year and a half. That's right. I was stationed in California. My soon-to-be wife was still back here and I was getting ready to go to flight school for a year, another year-and-a-half. On my way back, we agreed to get married and so I came back to Ann Arbor. We got married, had a wedding, family and every traditional wedding. Then we went to Florida for the first part of my flight training and in a navy flight training, you go to Florida for a while, about six months then you go up to Meridian, Mississippi for six months, back to Florida for about a month and then out to Texas for six months. We made those moves. That was interesting because that was a time in the south when black people couldn't live just anywhere. We had a real interesting time in Mississippi finding a place to live. All my classmates got apartments and all that. I was the only black in my class, African-American. We couldn't find a place to live. The base commander got involved. Making a long story short, we ended up moving in with an older woman and it turned out to be great because she became almost like a mother to us and we remained close with her for years. That actually turned out to be a very good experience. But it was a real experience in Mississippi and some of the racial things in Florida, Mississippi, and Texas, but the in the other bases they had base housing so I can stay on the base.
[00:43:59] INTERVIEWER: How was it growing up in Ann Arbor, a pretty liberal town and then living in Mississippi for a while?
[00:44:04] William Henderson: Ann Arbor, even today has a reputation of being not reality compared to the rest of the country. Ann Arbor was very liberal. We didn't really experience racism in Ann Arbor. There were racial things going on that we didn't know about. But as a kid, you just didn't know. Everybody along. Got a lot of white friends, everybody got along, basically socialized different. But everybody was friendly. We never had big racial issues.
[00:44:44] INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your children and what life was like when they were young and living in the house.
[00:44:49] William Henderson: When my daughter was born while I was in the Marine Corps, in fact, she was only two when I left the Marine Corps. She was born in North Carolina and we lived in base housing. My wife didn't work. Most of the wives didn't because you were moving so often. It was great and a little girl and then we got out and came back to Michigan. Then about five years later, no, nine years later, her brother was born here and that was very close. We had a good time.
[00:45:26] INTERVIEWER: Was it difficult for her moving often, from base camp to base camp?
[00:45:31] William Henderson: Not really because normally, well, when I was in flight school, I was involved in all the moves because we're right there and going together. Later on many times I would be at a base and then she'd come down maybe two or three months later and that base housing so it made it pretty easy. You went out buying a house and all that. That's fairly simple.
[00:45:57] INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your working years in the military.
[00:46:00] William Henderson: In the military? Well, my first year before I went to flight school, I was in air traffic. We went to infantry training and all that for six months. Then I got into specialty of air-traffic control about six months and then I went to flight school. Flight school if I had to put it studied in flights in college like I studied in flight school, I'd probably have two PhDs. Flight training was very intensive and I remember when I went to flight training, we got to show up at eight o'clock in the morning and go to school till about 4:00 Monday through Friday. I would come home for about an hour, watch the news and eat, and I studied five, six hours every night. Saturday and Sunday, I'd get up and go to the library on base, study another 4-5 hours on Saturday and other 4-5 hours Sunday. [NOISE] Because you were competing to get a certain grade levels so that you could fly a certain type of airplane. That went on for like three months. Then when I got selected for that type of airplane, now you started flying half a day and ground school a half a day. The ground school wasn't as intense. You didn't have to study as much. But your day was eight hours, nine hours every day, ground school and half a day of flying. Then when I went to Texas, we flew seven days a week. There was a big push on and get everybody through. You got one day off about every 11 days and you are never off with any of your friends or very seldom. It was pretty intense 18 months of training. The problem, the thing with flight training was you could be the best pilot, the best student, having them on the top grades but in certain phases of training like when we went for carrier qualification.
[00:48:08] William Henderson: You went out to the ship, if you didn't qualify your first-time out, the way it's set up, you had to make six landings, know instructor in there but you're by yourself. If you didn't make it, you were through, there was no way, we'll do it again next week or next month. If you didn't make that care quality and that a lot of time no matter how great your other grades where you were out of the program. The rest of the program and information and instruments and other type of training, air to ground area. If you went up and they got what they call it down, you didn't do well, instructor said you have to refi that one, you got it down. If you went up and didn't pass that flight a second time, you got a second down. Now you go before a board of three-person board and they determine whether you're going to stay in the program. The pressure was always on until you got those wings on, graduated. It was a highly competitive and a highly real out pressure, and I looked back on it and if I hadn't known it was going to be there way before I started, probably a good chance I wouldn't even have to sit and do that.
[00:49:36] INTERVIEWER: But didn't work, did it now?
[00:49:38] William Henderson: Yeah. I got intermediate training. I got one down the whole time. But I saw guys get downs and they're out there. There were a lot of them when I went through the other thing and advanced training in Texas, we were finding an all trainer and they didn't tell us this thing. The intermediate train back in Florida and Mississippi, these airplanes were falling out the sky left and right. We got to Texas for advanced training, and I had in that six months two close friends who died in aircraft crashes. They think it was a problem with the airplane. When I got to that base. That was all guys walking around on crutches and in going over to the base hospital and dropping an equipment. I thought I was over there one day I was sick and I went to sit back for something called or something and there were two guys in there who were quitting that day the night before they'd seen an airplane crash and they said that's enough for me, they quit. You also had that last six months was like bad deal. Fact I pre-flight one airplane. Quick story. When you went to go carrier qualm, you went onto a little auxiliary airfield which was 30-40 miles away from the base and you practice on land. They had like a aircraft carrier set up on this little runway landing single officer and he practiced landing like you're on a carrier. Well, what were you would do is you float. We flew in the morning and then we go do that fly in the afternoon. We brief real quick for us and then we'd rush out and get over to that field. Well, I got as soon as you got over there and quickly you're finished. I went out and pre-flight my airplane fast and I was head of the other three guys and I'm playing Captain walks up to me and he says, hey, you got to take you out of this airplane, put you in another one. Now I'm going to be asked but hey, what can you do? That same airplane that afternoon. We were over there training in. We got to go on our way back. We get a call on where I'm coming back in a car because of some other students took those aircraft. Well, the airplane just crashed down. What squadron? It was two squadrons. Vt 29 it that was our squadron. Who was it? Guy named Bruce Watts was in my class, are only like four guys in my class when we got there that thing, it was a guy named Bruce Watts, so I knew like that. It was the airplane that they had taken me out of in he was in that airplane when he crashed. I don't know if the airplane and he said the dog fighting and all of a sudden he went in flame.
[00:52:42] INTERVIEWER: How did you deal with that losing a lot of friends?
[00:52:45] William Henderson: Well, it was sad? Well, especially in this case because we were only like a month from graduation. It was sad but three or four to eight. You keep on going.
[00:53:03] INTERVIEWER: Mr. Henderson.
[00:53:04] William Henderson: Okay.
[00:53:07] INTERVIEWER: Did a great job.
[00:53:08] William Henderson: Thanks.
[00:53:11] William Henderson: I started that. I spent 10 years on active duty in the Marine Corps as a pilot. When I was in Eastern, I signed up for the Marine Corps, graduated and went to Marine Corps Training, which eventually led to a year-and-a-half of flight training with the Navy and Pensacola, Florida, Pensacola Meridian, Mississippi, and Kings Texas, all three bases you moved around. Now when I got my wings and I went into a Marine squad for a year of training before I went to Vietnam as a pilot and other duties in Vietnam and I came back and I continued in aviation with the Marine Corps. Then when I got out of the Marine Corps ten years later, I went to work in aviation as a pilot for the General Motors Corporation. I did that for twenty eight-and-a-half years as executive pilot, flying in General Motors executives all around the world. While I was doing that, I also joined the International guard as a pilot, and that took up about six days a month generally. My whole thing has been aviation.
[00:54:16] INTERVIEWER: How was that General Motors job? How you get that out of the military?
[00:54:20] William Henderson: I was in the military and a friend of mine back here in Ann Arbor. General Motors was living for minority employees and pilots. He gave him my name and they called me, I knew nothing about their flight department. They called me. I was coming home on leave any way for a vacation and they asked when I come by and talk to them about them employment. I did and that led to me getting out of the Marine Corps and going to work for General Motors.
[00:54:50] INTERVIEWER: Describe the steps of the process involved in your job from start to finish.
[00:54:56] William Henderson: Well, first of all, you have to have a college degree, which I did that. Then you have to go through extensive in the military. You have to go through extensive military pilot training which was 18 months basically, sometime a little more or a little less, which was very intensive training. All forms of AVA formation, landing on aircraft carriers, gunnery, instrument flying that whole routine. Then to become a civilian pilot. They really favored military pilots because you've had so much training. However, if you're not an ex military pilot, you have to build up a certain number of flight hours which can be costly. Eventually based on, in most companies they all want a college degree also. Extensive flight flying background, and then you can hopefully get hired, but is very competitive field.
[00:56:00] INTERVIEWER: Did you ever feel in danger and your training, was there ever like.
[00:56:05] William Henderson: Yeah.
[00:56:05] INTERVIEWER: Moments are stories that.
[00:56:07] William Henderson: Yes.
[00:56:07] INTERVIEWER: To go.
[00:56:08] William Henderson: Yeah. Military flying as a pilot fighter, there's different types of pilots in the military. There's the fighter pilots and then there's helicopter pilots and then there's the transport pilots. I would say the helicopter pilots in the fighter pilots, that's the most dangerous because you're like I say, landing on an aircraft carrier, that's a very dangerous operation. Landing and takeoff. Carriers are very dangerous place, a lot of things going on in a very small space.
[00:56:42] William Henderson: Military flying is designed. I mean, the military flying is about fighting, using an airplane as a weapons. Therefore, the airplane itself is dangerous. Lot of fuel, lot of ordinance on it. The missions you go on in war. People are shooting at you. Helicopters, the same thing. Those guys in Vietnam are moving troops in and out, getting shot up. Military VM, there's quite a few areas that can be very dangerous in military flying.
[00:57:15] INTERVIEWER: Did you learn how to fly a plane and a helicopter?
[00:57:18] William Henderson: No.
[00:57:18] INTERVIEWER: Jet only?
[00:57:19] William Henderson: Jet no. You fly one of the other F is strictly full fighters.
[00:57:23] INTERVIEWER: What was a typical day like during the working years of your adult life both in the military and home?
[00:57:31] William Henderson: Well, at the military, it was like a job. You pay. If you were here in the States, you got up and he went to work and you flew and generally once a day or maybe three times a week. In addition to your flying training, when you weren't flying, you had a ground job, could be in personnel, could be an intelligence, it could be an operations, or several other areas. When you weren't flying, you had a ground duty, and generally in peace time you're, it's about an eight hour day like anywhere else. However, that eight hours could be take place at night because that military operates around the clock. In a war, totally different. A war you are there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and how much you fly depends on the requirements of what's going on in the war. Now, for General Motors was civilian flying. It's good job because you have a fair amount of time off. Pay is good when you think about aviation as you make good money, but you don't have anything to take home and work on. You have to stay current in your airplane and go to training every six months for a couple of weeks, but It's a different world in aviation in civilians versus military. Thing about civilian flying to is also seven days a week. It could be seven days a week. You don't work seven days necessarily. But send me your fliers on weekends.
[00:59:13] INTERVIEWER: How did life change for you when the Vietnam War started?
[00:59:18] William Henderson: Changed big time. I was already in the Marine Corps when the war started. I've been in about six months. Once the war started, then everything's geared towards going to war at some point. Some people went right away or that I wouldn't like a year or so later because I was still in flight training, but when you're in the military during the war, you know that eventually you're gone. If it lasts long enough and you might go twice or three times. It all became about preparing to go to war, which is obviously a lot different than non war peacetime flying.
[00:59:58] INTERVIEWER: You had no choice to go to Vietnam?
[01:00:00] William Henderson: That's correct. You're ordered. You go where you are ordered and you know it sooner or later you're going to go to Vietnam during that time frame.
[01:00:10] INTERVIEWER: How was Vietnam? Was it nothing like never experienced?
[01:00:14] William Henderson: No, Vietnam was you heard a lot about the war before I went over there. It was in the news every day and all. The war had been going on about two or three years when I went over there. Went on another two or three years after I came back, but you heard about it and watched it on the news every night. During that time, guys in your generation, when you come out of high school. You were probably going to Vietnam. That's the way it was. The public accepted it. I have some thoughts about that, but went over there and remember the first time coming in and coming to company week flew over on a commercial airline. You flew into new name, which is the one of the big harbors, a big town, big city, second biggest city in Vietnam. Looking out and seeing all the ships around the navy ships and the helicopters flying around down below you, heard of denying a course in land and denying and it was hot and humid and raining. We got there during the monsoons. They're like submarines getting off this commercial airliner. Right at the foot of the steps of the airline is 100 submarines getting on an airplane. They did years up, 13 months ended up. They're staying in there. In all their rugged uniforms and in their combat veterans and we're getting off with everything brand new. They're yelling at us and making all comments and how unlucky we are in when they're getting ready to go home because as soon as we get off they rush in on that airplane gets out of there. It was very and then you ride getting buck boost trucks and they take you up to this place called Freedom Hill, a couple of miles away, where you spend your first night. Then you're going through these villages in this town and seeing all the Vietnamese isn't a surreal slum. This one area they called a dog patch. What was the name of it? In one up to Freedom Hill spent the night and then the next day, you go to back to the airfield and go get sent out to wherever you're going to be station. I always had to go to a place called Chu Lai, which is about an hour away on an airplane. Then I got the Chu Lai where all the marine fighters were and where I was going. I ran into some people I knew there who had come over ahead of me. To see check in your assigned to a squadron and then you start flying.
[01:02:46] INTERVIEWER: Was it typical day in Vietnam very different than a typical day in USA?
[01:02:50] William Henderson: Yes, because first of all, you're not home. You're not going home every night. You're assigned to a room. Chu Lai was right on the South China Sea. It's all about like a beach with a runway there in airplanes and you're there. You know, they got you for 24 hours a day. Once you get through, let's say you fly that day and then do your ground job. You're not going anywhere, even gone 50 or 100 yards from where you're working. We call that a hooch, where you live and you might fly. The other thing is. We flew around the clock. You might not fly it a one or two o'clock in the morning or three o'clock or whatever the schedule that every day a schedule was written. You'd see where you were flying, and there you flew almost every day. Sometimes twice a day. It was totally different. First of all, some time to field was under attack from the Vietnamese rocket attack, my very first night there. The next morning I woke. Siren went off about five o'clock in the morning, which means you run, get in a bunker and the field was under attack. The Viet Cong would fire rockets and they didn't know where they hit. Some time they go away over the field sometime they land on the field. You had that, and that wasn't every day. When I was there, that's six months that I flew out of there. We'd probably came under attack. Maybe it'll twice a month.
[01:04:31] William Henderson: Then like I said, you flew 24 hours a day. It may look in the skin. Well, I've taken off at two o'clock in the morning or whatever time. Then you flew wherever the mission was. It might be Laos or Vietnam or up over North. Then the flights were normally an hour and a half, sometime two hours. But it was very demanding. You're getting shot at, not every time, but probably 80-90% of the time. Other times you're getting shot and you didn't even know it. But might find out later on, and we lost airplanes. My squadron and I before I got there, they had lost six airplanes in four months. Out of those six airplanes, I think they lost two crews.
[01:05:25] INTERVIEWER: Because they were shot down?
[01:05:26] William Henderson: Yeah, shot down.
[01:05:28] INTERVIEWER: Shot down.
[01:05:30] William Henderson: But then after I got there, [NOISE] it had nothing to do with me. Just that their law changed and I think when I was there, I flew there for seven months, 6,7 months, my squadron, we lost two airplanes in the six months. Then maybe there were three squadrons there, we were all together and the other squadron was losing airplane every now and then.
[01:05:53] INTERVIEWER: What type of missions would you carry out?
[01:05:56] William Henderson: There were primarily two types of missions. Air to ground, which is where you're dropping bombs in support of Marines or Army troops on the ground. We were dropping bombs or napalm or rockets. That's called air support, CAS, close air support. The other missions were dropping bombs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was over in Laos, which was the Viet Cong and the Vietnamese moved supplies up and down that trail from North Vietnam in 24 hours a day. We'd go over there at night or day and night [NOISE] and try to bomb that trail or to find targets on that trail and their trucks and all that and fuel depots and attack that. That was so close air support which you would have to be more accurate because there's Marines, you don't want to hit them or Army. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, which if you're wondering, you've got to hit the targets, but if you miss, you're not going to hurt anybody. Then there were missions where we escorted B52s coming out of Guam or Okinawa, they would come over in a cell of three. They were safe missions because they're up around 30,000 feet. You could go up there and it's pick them up as they're coming off the ocean. Fire with one A-4 in front and one F-4 in the back and the three of them in a line and you'd fly to wherever they were going to drop their bombs, escort them and then they'd hit back. Once they got to the ocean heading back, we'd tell them goodbye and then head back to where they're going and we go land. The higher missions were safe. You very seldom got shot at out there.
[01:07:43] INTERVIEWER: Viet Cong didn't have any planes?
[01:07:46] William Henderson: Viet Cong, didn't. They were the guerrillas. The North Vietnamese Army who came into the South in support of the Viet Cong, they were trying to unite their country, they had airplanes, but they never came into South Vietnam. They were in North Vietnam. They protected their own airspace. When I got there, there was a bombing halt. We were not bombing North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Air Force always stayed on the ground. [NOISE] We flew up and down the coast, not over North Vietnam, but off the coast in case they came out. They never did for that two or three months. So I never saw the air to air war with the North Vietnamese Air Force.
[01:08:36] INTERVIEWER: Are there any particular events or stories that stuck out when you were in Vietnam?
[01:08:42] William Henderson: Yeah, there's a lot of them. Some stuff was funny and other stuff was tragic. We had one crew, daylight, beautiful day. We normally flew two airplanes where they would go everywhere together, they were sometimes four. They were up on a mission, the close air support about 100 miles north of Chu Lai's bright sunny day, the two F-4s from my squadron and one of them got shot down. They're not sure if they got shot down or if the pilot pulled out too low and hit the trees. He had a habit of doing that and pulling out low, not having to hitting the trees, but [NOISE] they're not sure if he got shot down or if he hit the trees. When they pulled off the target, they both ejected out of the airplane. There's two people in there for pilot and the radar operator in the back. They both ejected and the second airplane, when somebody gets hit, the other one goes high and they start calling for help and everybody and every helicopter in the area comes to try to pick this crew up. They saw the two chutes. Both guys got out of the airplane, two chutes. When you come down, you don't come down together because it could be half a mile apart. The wingman's circling and he sees both of them on the ground, an Army helicopter comes in, he sees one over there and one there, they're talking on the radio. The Air Force apply an outfit called search and rescue called Jolly Green Giants, they're the ones that normally come in and pick up down air crews. They got a big sign in front of their squad and how many rescues they've done and all that. They come up and they tell the army, we got the rescue. You guys can leave. They pick up the pilot. The army points out where pilots there and the radar guy's over there. They pick up the pilot and then they can't find radar, the back seat guy, the radar in the real. They called the Army helicopter, it was leaving and call it back and he says, he's right over there. Well, now, the Air Force goes to drop down a paramedic on a hoist to pick him up, but he's dead. He picks up the body and he's been shot in the head, broken arm, broken leg, and his radios and stuff taken off of him. They try to pull him up and that helicopter starts taking fire from the VC who were on the ground. They cut the cord and they dropped the paramedic and the body back into the trees, calling some more helicopters for support and more fighters to try to keep these guys down. [NOISE] They eventually get the paramedic back and the body back and they guy and the pilot, the guy that was killed was a friend of mine, we were in the same squadron, Dan Minihan from Massachusetts. So here's a guy that died unnecessarily. If they would've let that Army helicopter pick him up right off the bat, instead of wanting to get credit for two rescues, he'd still be here. That was a sad story. There were other funny things that would happen.
[01:12:18] William Henderson: Small social stuff. But a lot of sad stories like that [NOISE] .
[01:12:28] INTERVIEWER: Wow, it's crazy. What specific training or skills were required for your job? What tools were involved in? How were they used?
[01:12:37] William Henderson: The tools was the airplane. These skills require as I said, for even military or a civilian, they have to have a college degree, doesn't matter what's in as long as you've got the college degree. Some math and some science involved obviously. But then the tools, the airplane and what you do is you start out and the trainer type airplanes, some type of trainer which are smaller, easier with an instructor and after several flights, I think on the 11th, 12th flight, you go up and solo by yourself. But you have about 11 flights with instructor in the back and he's lot of memorization on maneuvers that you're going to do. [NOISE] Excuse me, each flight is different. Normally, after the 11th flight, he says, Yeah, you're safe to solo go up by yourself. He takes you out to a field, auxiliary field and he gets out and you'd take off and let couple of times, come back and land, pick him up. Now you soloed, and that's a big deal because it's first-time you've taken off by yourself. Then once you solo you continue on training. Each phase of training gets more demanding after basic primary flight, which was those about 16 flights, those 12 plus four after that. Then you go to intermediate where now you are either assigned to helicopter in the Marine Corps Navy helicopter training or fighters. You go up to Meridian, Mississippi where you start flight your first jet. Again, pilot and instructor in the back. Yeah, maybe 10 or 11 flights and then you solo out on that airplane. Then you start from learning formation, flying, instrument flying, all different phases. Then after that, you come six months in Meridian, you come back to Pensacola, Florida and you go start training, land on an aircraft carrier that's about a month training for that. Now when you go to the carrier, you go out by yourself. There's no instructor in the airplane to train for a month for it. But then the instructor leads four airplanes out. He's number 1 and you follow him, the aircraft carrier now you got to land on a carrier. Which is very stressful because you could have been an A plus, plus student in every phase, but when you go to that carrier and you only get one shot at it, one period, if you don't land on that carrier, get those six landings you're through. There's no second. You'll go back tomorrow and go back next week or go back next month. In that hour or hour-and-a-half time frame if those airplanes have to land, if you don't get a board, you're out of the program. That's always in the back of your mind. Then you finish that and if that works well you go out to Texas and finish up enough six months, carrier again at the end of that same program. [NOISE] Excuse me.
[01:15:49] INTERVIEWER: Where do you fly? Would you just fly around and back to Mississippi and Florida or what's your way around the country?
[01:15:55] William Henderson: No, you fly. There's training areas, each state has like here in Michigan in some area is a big training area. When I flew itself reach, we trained up in the thumb area because it's remote and there's other training areas.
[01:16:12] INTERVIEWER: Was there any technology changes? [OVERLAPPING] During your.
[01:16:15] William Henderson: Oh, yeah. When I first started flying, we had what we called all airplanes head round gauges. The airspeed indicator around. Everything was analog. The airplanes now or as I went through. Now it's all computer screens, it's all digital. We used to call the old gauges are called steam gauges. That was just a name for them. But everything now is computerized. You sit there and now in air fighters and commercial airplane, you set their program, the computer for 20, 30 minutes after you start, before you even take off, so it's a huge difference. A lot more information, the airplanes are easier to fly, a lot more automation and auto-pilots and auto landing and auto travel, so it's totally different.
[01:17:10] INTERVIEWER: Did you always have the round gauges when flying?
[01:17:14] William Henderson: No. Before my last 10 years at General Motors, not in the F4, it was all steam gauges. The new fighters, just like civilian airplanes is all computerized. But my last say 10,12 years at General Motors we had new airplanes all the time, so we had all automated stuff.
[01:17:40] INTERVIEWER: What is the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started until now?
[01:17:46] William Henderson: The automation and technological improvements, big changes.
[01:17:55] INTERVIEWER: How do you judge excellence within your field? What makes someone respected?
[01:18:00] William Henderson: Someone who performs consistently at a certain level, somebody who's safe, and maturity is a big deal. Safety is everything in aviation. You can be the best formation pilot, best gunnery pilot, best whatever. But if you're not safe, you're out here. Safety is a big thing in civilian and military, but then in civilian fly, also, you have to know how to treat peak customers and passengers. Whereas in military don't have any, it's just you, and maybe a backseatter.
[01:18:46] INTERVIEWER: How often would someone who get kicked from the pilot training? Wouldn't happen often?
[01:18:51] William Henderson: Oh, yeah. Whoever started the attrition rate was like 50%. It was funny because you can be a very brilliant, we had people with super high IQs, but they couldn't fly an airplane, so they're out. You had people who were really good flying the airplane. But not the day weren't fairly had them take a fair amount of test, even get in. But they couldn't handle the academic side. I say to be a successful pilot, you have to be average IQ. Put the time in the study, and have some coordination skills. Because you can be, like I say, I knew guys who were super smart, went to the best schools in the country, degrees and [inaudible 01:19:52] in mathematics and science. They couldn't fly an airplane, so they are gone. it's a combination of a couple of things.
[01:20:00] INTERVIEWER: What would happen if you didn't get kicked from pilot training?
[01:20:03] William Henderson: You go, if you were in the Marine Corps, you go back to some ground job. In the Navy, you'd go to some see duty or whatever [NOISE] .
[01:20:15] INTERVIEWER: What do you value most about what you did for a living and why?
[01:20:23] William Henderson: I value most was a sense of accomplishment.
[01:20:30] William Henderson: When I went through there were almost no black pilots in the Marine Corps. The whole time 18 months I was there, whenever class I was in, I was the only one. When I go to a squad and it was a novelty black pilot. Same in International Garden. When I went to General Motors, they were looking for minority pilots. For me as a grown up in Ann Arbor with a father who was a janitor and a mother who was a cook. To join an elite force like the Marine Corps and become a fighter pilot flying the premier jet of the time, that was almost unbelievable. Then it might be successful at General Motors to become where I became the chief pilot and the director of the Flight department. That was the most a feeling of accomplishment, I guess. Then again, as a corporate pilot, you're providing a service to the company flying a lot of very high-ranking people around making a very big time business decisions.
[01:22:01] INTERVIEWER: How was being one of the only African-Americans in the pilot training.
[01:22:10] William Henderson: That is a whole different story. When I went, I could talk to you for hours about that. The training was in the South, that was just during the civil rights era. Let's say you and I, the sixth class was normally about 20 people. We all became close because we were together about year-and-a-half. I was close with maybe 10 or 12 of 20. They can always find base housing or housing. I was married at tonight, naked, always fine place to live when we got sent to a new base. Not me. This was in Mississippi, for example. I always had a problem find the house. There were times there were racial jokes told in a client that sometime you might have five or ten class together might be 150 people. Big on her torment. Me being light-skinned, hair cut short, wouldn't stand out in a crowd. That's some time there were racial jokes told. Not knowing that there's an African-American or negro or a black man in there at the time. Then my classmates sitting there cringing. Then that person who told the joke, maybe come and read somebody telling him later on, hey, we got a black student here in that person coming up and apologizing to you later on? I remember one time when I first started were three of us, three students and instructor sitting on the end of the runway. We had duty where you had to watch the airplanes land, makes sure their wheels were down, was just give me something to do for a little while there. I had airplane crashed a couple of weeks ago where the instructor and the pilot guy and then student got killed. This instructor who was sitting there with the three of us at the end of the runway, he didn't realize that I was black. He said, Yeah, I saw when they bought their bodies into the hospital, they were guessing got burned pretty bad. Look like two niggers burned up or something like that, because they were burned pretty bad. Sitting in a class one time in Mississippi about 20 people and the instructor tells us Joanne, when he's explaining them about when did we land at this one airfield, he's given us tips. Where to start. You turn in all this. He said, Well, yeah, when you get over the nigger shag, right close to the runway and that's where you want to start your turn and then come up and apologize later and things like that. people that later on for why didn't you say something? Well, when until you get those wings on your chest, you don't say a word. Because let's say you were instructor and you made that statement and I went to your squadron commander said, Hey, he told his jokes, and so you're going to get called and he's going to tell you why you can't do that. But you're going to go out and tell your other instructor friends and yeah, he got me in trouble. Now when I go fly, they're going to find out a reasonable why I didn't do very well on that flight. You get what I call it told you about a down, get a couple of those and you're out of there. Until you get your wings on your chest, you say nothing. Once you get your wings. That's a new ball game. But things like that.
[01:25:52] INTERVIEWER: Say like a classmate or someone in the class said something like that, would you confront them about it?
[01:25:58] William Henderson: Yeah. Classmate? What do we mean it wasn't like that with classmates because you're together, you become pretty good socialized. All the young married guys, most of his wives did things together, foremost like a family.
[01:26:17] INTERVIEWER: What's the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started until now?
[01:26:22] William Henderson: Well, the technological changes.
[01:26:26] INTERVIEWER: For General Motors, how was it flying around all the top executives.
[01:26:36] William Henderson: It changed over the years. When I first started, General Motors had 50% of the automobile market in this country. Other words, one out of every two air cars were sold and made by General Motors, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, they own all these. It was the biggest company in the world. They were very generous and how they spent their money, the pay was good. We'd go places, stay in the best hotels and give you a car to drive. Whichever division you are flying, they'd give you a car as. Over time as things started taking up, that started you still meet with paid well and living fairly well, but some of those perks went away. Instead of giving you a car all the time, they said, Okay, you can get a car, you got to rent one. Well, they paid for. It was much more convenient when they provided one and things like that. Then you watched the company that whole time I was there, the company kept shrinking down, selling off different divisions based on frigid air. They own T-Rex and made the big worth moving trucks. Was really interesting flying because we went to make up the way up into Canada where they had these huge earth moving trucks and the people basically where they stayed was underground. It was like a little city underground because of the weather out there in the wintertime. They took us all around and minefields showing us these trucks up there and the wheels on those trucks to as high as that top of that screen right there. The first thing that when you went on to the end of the mine area, that's open surface mining. There's this pickup truck that's about this high. It's been flattened, backed over, probably run over by one of those. The big thing is, hey, they can't see it, so be safe and all that. But things like that go into races. We used to go into Indy car races, Nascar races because General Motors had cars and all. However, 99% of the trips were strictly business trips where they're going to different facilities around the country and around the world. It was very a lot of travel experiences. I went to Italy couple of times of France, state and real nice places. I was very fortunate in military and I was fortunate at General Motors. In the military, I joined the Reserves and guard on itself region and he eventually rose to whereas command or the Michigan international Guard headquarters up in Lansing. I made general and got promoted in the guard, and got promoted to chief pilot General Motors all in the same month in 1993. It was unreal. I've been very fortunate.
[01:29:41] INTERVIEWER: What would you do in that job in East Lansing, what was that called?
[01:29:45] William Henderson: Command with the headquarters.
[01:29:50] William Henderson: Air National Guard has got a base itself fridge with fighters. They've got a basic Battle Creek right at that time with attack airplanes and they had Alpena up North, which is a big gunnery training range so they had those three bases. Each base had his own commander and staff, but the headquarters for the role that was in Lansing. There was a general who was in charge of all that. He's the agent in general and then I was a general. I was in charge in the headquarters, I was responsible for all administration of those bases. That's what that job was about.
[01:30:36] INTERVIEWER: Tell me about any moves you made during your working years in retirement prior to your decision to move to your current residence.
[01:30:44] William Henderson: Well, then the military moved all the time. That 10 years on active duty, I started on Quantico, Virginia, went to Los Angeles, California for a year, then deflate training which was Florida, Mississippi, and Texas. That was a year and at three times and that year-and-a-half. Then I went to South Carolina for a year, then I went to Vietnam for a year and then I came back to North Carolina for a couple of years and went backup to Quantico. I moved a lot during those 10 years. Then at General Motors, I came home in my move, maybe twice. When I first came back, we got an apartment and then found a house and I think I moved twice. But I stay right here.
[01:31:35] INTERVIEWER: Of all the places you've lived in America, do they all match your favorite?
[01:31:41] William Henderson: Yeah, I would think. Well, then it was California, but California now has become so crowded. I'm not sure if I care to live there, but the places I've traveled, my two favorite place I guess would be Colorado and Arizona, Colorado primarily. I probably wouldn't have come back here if my father hadn't gotten ill and he had that General Motors job offered to me, I would have probably lived out west somewhere.
[01:32:11] INTERVIEWER: You've traveled abroad, Italy, France. France, what's your favorite [NOISE] country outside United States?
[01:32:19] William Henderson: Well, I spent a little time in Germany but not much, and then over of course went to Thailand when I was in Vietnam. I would probably say, I forgot I went to Switzerland several times. Probably, I guess both Switzerland. But Italy and Switzerland, France, they're all right there together. Most of those countries, like Switzerland, everybody speaks French, German, or Italian, one of those three. But it's just beautiful over there. This country is beautiful too. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot to see in this country that matches up with everything over there. But I don't know if I'd want to live in any of those countries. It'd be nice to be there maybe for a year or two. But I'm not sure if I'd want to leave here and go and live there permanently, as nice as they are. Because especially I'm big on mountains and outdoor stuff, you can't beat the western part of this country either.
[01:33:29] INTERVIEWER: How did you come to live in Ipsi?
[01:33:32] William Henderson: Yeah. [NOISE] Well, just we were back home here at Ann Arbor. I lived in Ann Arbor before when I first came back for a while, but I found a real nice home. It reminded me of Colorado as a matter of fact. I live on a street called Pine View Drive. The first time I drove down and you dragged, I didn't even know I was there and I drove down the street in it. When you get to one part of this street, the next is only like half-mile, three-quarters a mile along. The last quarter of a mile, it's like you drove through a gate into Colorado. It's all hundred foot pine trees. A friend of mine told me they were building the house down and so I went down that way, I thought, look at this, this is like being in Colorado. I watched the house go up in these trees and eventually end up in the house. I got like 200 foot pine trees all on my house or the valley in the back and which is nice, but it ended up being a little more than. I know very little grass cut the cut could say I live in the woods. Walk 50 yards and you're out of that and just in wood like like anywhere else. But almost trees can be a bit of a problem on occasion too, it wasn't as see walk free as I thought it was going to be. But it's different.
[01:35:00] INTERVIEWER: Do you ever thought about moving to Colorado?
[01:35:03] William Henderson: Yeah, but not at this point. All my family is here. I go to Arizona every winter for like six weeks. But I'd rather just and I thought about buying a place somewhere else. There are two places, but if you buy a place, you got to go there every year. I'd rather be just go somewhere and rent, because then I know when I stopped going, if I want to start going to San Diego is a beautiful place. Florida, so I'm not going to move. I'll stay here and live here every winter for maybe a month or so.
[01:35:38] INTERVIEWER: What do you feel about your current living situation?
[01:35:42] William Henderson: I'm not feeling very good. I've been very fortunate and the Lord blessed me in many ways. I'm healthy, [NOISE] my children are healthy. I've never been unemployed, I've had good jobs, make very good money. My mother lived six weeks short 102. I've been extremely fortunate, never got hurt in Vietnam. I believe that that's due to a bunch of things. I think the number 1 thing is the Lord blessed me. I've been lucky, I've had good mentors, I've had good friends, family, and then my contributions. But you never no matter how successful you are, it's never always because of what you did, [NOISE] it's a combination of things, and as soon as you realize that, I've known people who got promoted to high places and it went right to their head and they thought it was all because how wonderful they were. No. There's a lot of reasons that when you're successful, or while you're successful, a lot of what you did obviously, but there's other factors too, in my opinion.
[01:36:57] INTERVIEWER: I wanted to ask you, how did your parents feel about you joining the military? Were they supportive?
[01:37:03] William Henderson: Well, they didn't believe I was going to do it until I left, [NOISE] and then they realized that it was serious. Then of course when I became a pilot and all that and went and became a marine officer, they were very proud of that. That was a big deal with them.
[01:37:24] INTERVIEWER: I'm sure because you are the only.
[01:37:26] William Henderson: Yeah.
[01:37:27] INTERVIEWER: That's awesome. This set of questions covers your retirement years to present time. How did family life changed for you when you and your spouse retired and all the children left home?
[01:37:39] William Henderson: Well, my wife retired about three years after me. [NOISE] But what changed was obviously got nothing but free time. Most working people, they just can't wait to retire, and retirement is great, especially if you are financially able. For you folks coming along now, that's what you need. I tell my son and daughter that you need the days of pensions like I have and most people my age have are over. Your future is depending on what you put away, save. I can't stress enough. When you started working and start making money, make sure you put away for the future, because first of all, the future comes a whole lot quicker than you realize. When you're young, you think, 30, 40, 50, that's old. You're going to be there quick. If you don't have some put away, it's going to be tough life. But anyway, [NOISE] with me, a lot of free time and after a month or two, about two or three, everybody is different. But after a couple of months, now you start getting bored, you're looking for something to do. I started doing some other thing. I've volunteered at the VA. I always planned on doing that, so I did that, got involved with some military and veterans outfits, gotten involved with some voluntary charter school in Detroit. You'll find something else to do but retirement, again, there are people who are retired, who have no money, it's tough. There are people who are retired and have money, it's great. Money is unfortunately is the driver and not just our society, in the world. You can get money, life is a whole lot different than when you don't, and you shouldn't make money your guide, I'm not saying it, but you just want to use a little common sense and make sure you always save some money. Because if you don't, you're setting yourself up for a rough time in the future.
[01:39:53] INTERVIEWER: Is there any way [NOISE] to travel or anything you want to do while you're retired that you haven't yet?
[01:39:59] William Henderson: Well, no. I had been to every state in the union for all 50 states. I drove to Alaska about 12 years ago. I don't want to do that again. I all can highway. That was real nice experience. I drove up and drove back. I went to Mexico several. Well, I went to Mexico a lot with General Motors, but on to a couple of resorts down here. But there's so much to see in this country and what's going on in the world with now, with all this terrorism and this foolishness, I nudge. My wife goes to Europe every now and she got her brother lives there, have been living in Germany for about 25 years. But I'll probably just continue to travel. I go skiing in the winter time West, go to Arizona the last five years. In March, I probably started going somewhere else here in a couple of years, but I do like Arizona. But I drive most places. I take off and drive. Why drive? Because I've flown over everything 100 times, and I want to see some stuff on the ground. A lot of times I'll take back row is just to go through some of these little small town in America and it's for you to find out that here is different [NOISE] than almost anywhere. Ann Arbor is a very progressive, very financially, I guess, stable. I think most people here live in pretty well. You go into some of these other little towns out in the middle aisle, one place you'll find it's everybody's not making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 $100,000 a year and the wages at $30,000, $35,000, and they're doing their living okay. You'll learn a lot by traveling.
[01:41:49] INTERVIEWER: How has your life changed since your spouse has passed away?
[01:41:53] William Henderson: No.
[01:41:56] INTERVIEWER: What is a typical day in your life right now?
[01:41:59] William Henderson: Well, I wake up early every morning. I always wake up at about 5:30 to 6:00 o'clock. I go on a computer and read the newspapers and do things on a computer. Two or three days a week me and about four or five people meet for coffee for about an hour. Every Tuesday morning, I volunteer to VA hospital from about 7:30 to about 11:30. I go to a gym three or four days a week. I'm involved with a cornerstone school in Detroit, a private school. I go down there maybe once a month and I'm on a board with them. I'm involved in some veterans events, but that's pretty much it. Locally. When to travel is totally different.
[01:42:51] INTERVIEWER: When you and your children meet up, what do you usually do together?
[01:42:55] William Henderson: Well, not a lot now because my son's 36 and my daughter's 44. My son's single, he's a pharmacist and they both live here. He graduated from Michigan Eastern and then he went to Michigan for pharmacy school. He's single, I don't see a lot when we talk like I got to call him today. My daughter lives in NR. They both live in NR, and she's got two kids, so I have two grandchildren. My granddaughter just started beautician school in Evita on the campus. That's about a 14-month program, so I'm helping her with that. My grandson just graduated Pioneer last year, and right now, he works for Burger King, and I'm telling him, he's got to figure out something to do because working in these minimum wage jobs is not the answer, you got to get some training or something to make it in today's world, if you want to be happy, that is.
[01:44:00] INTERVIEWER: What do you do for fun? Like personally.
[01:44:04] William Henderson: I go to the gym. I got in the physical fitness when I was in the Marine Corps. It has just been part of my life ever since. I go skiing in the wintertime. Although, last winter I didn't go because I had a back surgery, and I plan on going this one and see how it works out. I do some bike riding. For a while, I was going to the movies about once a week, but I haven't been in the movies now in a couple of months now, I think about it. I read quite a bit and socialize with friends locally and that's about it. I always look forward to a trip every now and then, like I say.
[01:44:45] INTERVIEWER: Are there any special days, events, or family traditions you enjoy or you look forward to?
[01:44:50] William Henderson: No. I look forward to these vacations I go on, the bigger trips.
[01:44:58] INTERVIEWER: When thinking your life after retirement or your kids left home up to the present, what important social or historical events were taking place and how did they personally affect you and your family?
[01:45:08] William Henderson: Well, historical event was, for example, well, one of them well, that was just a year before I retired was 911. That has changed everything. Then Obama becoming the first African-American president, that was a big deal. Historical. Then the things that are going on right now, although many of them haven't taken place yet, but it looks like somethings could take and those are going to be historical or maybe the health care or possibly, God forbid, a war with North Korea or some military conflict if that happens, it's going to be extremely bad. Other things that have taken, I'm very disappointed with our government now. I'm an independent, I vote Republican and Democrat, I'm a big-time unhappy with the government, and we have a Congress that can't get anything done. In the past, if you're a politician, you have to work with the other party as a whole. I would think that'd be the definition of politics is compromise. These guys now, we probably because democrats feel like this, nothing is being done, president can't get anything done. It's like this is very unusual, I've never seen anything like this. It's really some very dangerous times.
[01:46:44] INTERVIEWER: When thinking back on your entire life, what important social-historical event had the greatest impact?
[01:46:52] William Henderson: I would say the civil rights movement in the '60s where black and white civil rights workers went south and the ones that were already in the South, started protesting the starting integrating the schools and restaurants and jobs in that whole turmoil, people were, the main thing, being killed and everything else to get those rights. I always tell a story, a couple of years ago I scoped down through Alabama by myself traveling. I stopped in a restaurant in a little town and most of the people in that restaurant they obviously knew each other and non-locals. I walked in, it was probably 25% black and 75% white. Beautiful fall day late right now and everybody is getting everything. A lot of those people knew each other. I walk in, Hi, how are you doing? I sit down. I just went and looked around and they're all very quiet. A very positive situation I thought, just think 25, 30 years ago, these white people down here fought this integration left and right because there's going to be the end of the world. If the black kids ever started going to school with the white kids or eating in the restaurant. Look at it. Everybody's here getting along just fine. They fought it, they killed people to prevent that. Look what's going on, you look at those SEC teams playing football and basketball. There was not one black player on any of those teams. They would not let a black player because they didn't go to school. Now you look at Alabama and all these teams, 50% of the players are black and half the quarterbacks are black. It's like holy cow, I thought it was going to be the end of the world if this ever happened. All the fans are cheering, and all. It has changed, that was the biggest changes. But that civil rights era was, those five or six years, a lot of people got hurt. People killed, three civil rights workers killed, two Jewish kids, and a black kid in Mississippi took them, shot them, and buried the bodies in a dam. A white woman from Detroit, Violet Blue was down there trying to register voters, they pulled up beside her one night, fired into her car, and killed her. I mean, they fought, blew up a church in Birmingham, Alabama where four or five black girls got killed in a church. It was unbelievable because we never saw them up here. There was racism up here, but nothing like that. That was the biggest change.
[01:49:43] INTERVIEWER: Thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
[01:49:50] William Henderson: Well, my accomplishments, I'm proud of that, but in realizing that again, it wasn't all about me, but also that I never have done anything overtly to hurt anybody. I think it was a Dalai Lama made a statement about somebody but something that fake whenever you can help people make sure you do and they will start to walk off the stage. But then he turned around and come back and he said, but if you can't help, don't hurt them and that's a pretty profound statement when you think about it. I think Mother Teresa made a statement; life is the gift that God gave to you, your gift to God is how you live their life, and I believe in both those sayings. The fact that I've been able to succeed and I give to charities and all as a result of my being successful, I believe in giving back.
[01:51:05] INTERVIEWER: Great. That was awesome. Let's freshen up. At any time if you want one. Also, please remember that you can decline to answer any questions or terminate the interview at anytime for any reason so we really enjoyed learning about you in the fall. We're so happy to see you again. This time we will be asking questions that will help us produce 3-5 minute video about your life. We'll ask you some questions more than once so we can portray that best answers in the final product. We may also ask to film you at a location outside of Skyline later in the try. For our video project, we want to focus on how your upbringing influenced your life choices and your pride and your military service. The first set of questions focused on your upbringing and your expiration. Where did you grow up? And what was the time period?
[01:52:02] William Henderson: I grew up right here in Ann Arbor. My family home was right over within 200 yards of the big house. Watching then it was about maybe a quarter of a mile from Pioneer High School. I was born in that house and I was living in that house till I was 21, till I left and joined the military. I grew up right here in Ann Arbor.
[01:52:26] INTERVIEWER: We know that you are to Pioneer. How would you describe yourself as a student?
[01:52:33] William Henderson: I was about a C student, but I really didn't apply myself, my mother really wanted me to go to college and I was yeah, I'll do that. But I used to routinely get reports home from school I could do much better and I didn't really study a lot. But I did end up graduating from Pioneer on time and ended up going to college. But I could've done a lot better than I did I just didn't apply myself.
[01:53:07] INTERVIEWER: Did you engage in any sports or out-of-school activities?
[01:53:10] William Henderson: I swam in high school and in junior high I played some football, but I'm worked quite a bit to my last couple of years in high school paper routes and all of that. Well, after I graduated, I worked at the Michigan Union for awhile while I went to college.
[01:53:29] INTERVIEWER: Did you have any challenges as an African American growing up in Ann Arbor?
[01:53:34] William Henderson: Not really. Ann Arbor at that time, or like today was a pretty liberal city. It was ahead of its time. In fact, Ann Arbor was a lot smaller than one high school. My class had 650 students, the school was like 2000 and Pioneer was new. I was like the third class to go in there, so it was a brand new school, state of the art. At that time in Ann Arbor, 99% of the black people in Ann Arbor knew each other. It was a very small population. We're spread around the city in like two or three different neighborhoods. But because of two junior high Slauson and Tappan in one high school and families just knew each other. Ann Arbor was fairly liberal town. It wasn't like the South where you couldn't go here and you couldn't go there. There was some racial discrimination. I don't want to make it sound like there was none, but there was but I'm not really over issues. Everybody got along.
[01:54:41] INTERVIEWER: Everybody got along.
[01:54:41] William Henderson: We did get along.
[01:54:44] INTERVIEWER: What was your view of war growing up?
[01:54:48] William Henderson: Growing up, the only war that really was going on when growing up was Korean War and that was like two years and in fact I was seven when the Korean War started and it ended by the time I was nine. The only thing we knew about war then was which saw in the movies because you didn't have coverage of war like you do now.
[01:55:14] INTERVIEWER: Describe any experiences enabled your decision to pursue a career in the military then?
[01:55:20] William Henderson: Well, I became a boy scout at 12 or whatever the age was and scout master was had been a Marine. He was young guy. He was only 23. But at that time, that 23, he's an old guy or not old, very mature adult. Well, he'd been a Marine and then a couple of friends of mine brothers were Marines in some of the war movies glorify the Marine Corps and so I always thought about it as a young kid. Then when I went to college, I was walking across campus as a freshman and there was a Marine Recruiter there for Officers Program. I hadn't really thought much more about when I saw him, I went over and talked to him in so once you take the test was only an hour exam. I took the exam, passed it and that got going and the Marine Corps and those are the key factors. As a kid friends who had brothers and then a boy scout master and then that experience on campus meeting that Corps recruiter, which is just by accident and that changed. I signed up for the Marine Corps when I was 17. I graduated from high school when I was 17 and so that was a big factor.
[01:56:42] INTERVIEWER: There wasn't really like a patriotic feeling?
[01:56:45] William Henderson: No. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:56:50] INTERVIEWER: These second set of questions focused on your early military life and your experiences in Vietnam. Well, first, so where did you go to a college and what decade and what was your major?
[01:57:01] William Henderson: I graduated Pioneer in 1960. Like I said, I just turned 17 when I graduated, went to Eastern and graduated in 1964 four years later, signed up for the Marine Corps and as I said as a freshman in college, well, what's required me to go to boot camp for two summers in that four-year period. My major in college was sociology and he had a double-major, sociology and history, which I never really used. Except you had to have a college degree and become an officer and Marine Corps. It helped me in that respect. But so that was a '64. I graduated and went in the Marine Corps like three months after I graduated in September '64
[01:57:50] INTERVIEWER: How did your college experiences lead you to a life in the military?
[01:57:55] William Henderson: Well, the college experience, like I say, signing up as a freshman and then two summers in boot camp, got me really committed. Again, you had to have a degree to go in, so camp people go to college, they spread out. They may go in graduate 6, 7 years later because of other circumstances. Well, I was committed to getting out in four years, so affected me that way. I could make more money going into the Marine Corps than I could have as a teacher or going into social work or anything like that. The Marine Corps motivated me and we'll do more or less motivated and demanded that I graduate in four years. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:58:44] INTERVIEWER: Kept you on track.
[01:58:45] William Henderson: Exactly.
[01:58:48] INTERVIEWER: Did any national events influence you to join the military? Or was it just a personal decision?
[01:58:53] William Henderson: Just personal decision.
[01:58:55] INTERVIEWER: What branch did you serve it and why did you choose this branch?
[01:58:58] William Henderson: I served in the union Marine Corps. I did 10 years active duty in the Marine Corps. But then when I got out of the Marine Corps, I'm jumping ahead now. I joined the marine reserves for a couple of years, but then I switched to the Air Force, the International Garden, which is part of the Air Force. But again, what influenced me to go into Marine Corps at 17 and active duty at 21 was those things I mentioned earlier on influences of some individuals in my past.
[01:59:31] INTERVIEWER: Describe the military training program, those two summers you had. How did the training change you're physically and how did it change you emotional?
[01:59:40] William Henderson: Well, when you go into Marine Corps, the Marine Corps, another thing was always the elite service. Now the others won't tell you that, but that's the fat, so that was a more of a challenge. When you go to boot camp, had seen a few movies with a little bit about boot camp. But when you go to boot camp in the Marine Corps, it's a very rude awakening and very quick. To summarize it, flew to Washington DC in immediate their partners, hundreds of guys who are coming in to go to boot camp, Quantico, which is 30 miles from Washington DC. There's a marine there and go up to the front and there'll be some people out there that directly where you're going to go and all I see it go up the airport at the terminal and there's literally hundreds of guys up there who are recruits like I was and there's these buses pulling up near loading up, filling these buses with recruits. Then there's people coming in and train stations and other places around but you don't see them. But anyway, make a long story short, there's a big convoy buses going down to Quantico, probably 10 or 15 bus and they're doing this all day.
[02:00:59] William Henderson: Quantico was like 35 miles away down in Virginia. There's a DI on that bus and just a bunch of guys you don't know anybody people who just sit and start talking. Well, when yet and he turned around a couple times and he told us to quiet down in not-so-pleasant terms. Everybody quiets down for a while, but then they start talking again. Pretty soon when we got to Quantico because we don't know how long this bus rides going to be. We're just looking around. We get to Quantico and here's the marine statue of raising the flag and he would Jima, that's at the main gate. When we went through that gate, his demeanor changed. He turned around and slammed is they don't call hats and you don't call it a hat and you call the cover and the Marine Corps, he's turned around and he slammed his cover on the front seat and cursed us out and told us that knock it off, I won't use the language he used. Now we knew were here. [LAUGHTER] We go through the gate and we go with the base is miles long and go through the gate and go through the main part of the gate and the base looking at all these building and pretty soon we're going back up in the woods. Where are we going now? Well, we go up and there's this little camp about 6 mills backup and jungles of Virginia. When we get there, there's just another little settlement. That's the bootcamp, all these quanta huts, it's like a little town. All these buses are pulling in. As each bus pulls in, first of all, you see hundreds of guys walking around in formation going here in the civilian clothes. When we pull in this DI gets off the bus and three more DIs get on the bus. But they're dressed in their helmets and their field gear and boot and they get on the bus. Now it's really in the fan, get off the bus and out in and screaming at you and you're like, whoa, [LAUGHTER] they have these yellow footprints planted on the ground as they do that Marine Corps boot camp, get on the footprints. Everybody standing there form up in a formation, you're swimming clubs and they're walking around yelling at you and okay. Now we're going to take we're going to go and eat. He went over and walking formation over to the mess hall to eat. Come back in and there are buses still coming in and up 1,100 people 1,100 guys come in. That's what we found out there. Well, that first day you're getting hair cuts and they're throwing new uniforms at you and it's a shock and nobody talks to you in a normal tone of voice. It's all a lot of yelling and screaming. That's your first day there.
[02:04:10] INTERVIEWER: What was like a typical day like at Quantico?
[02:04:12] William Henderson: Oh, it you'd wake up every morning. They wake up at 05:00 in the morning and the way they woke you. Have you ever seen the movie Full Metal Jacket?
[02:04:20] INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I've seen.
[02:04:20] William Henderson: That's Marine Corps boot can answer 99% correct just like that. Anyway. [LAUGHTER] You'll wake up every morning at about 05:00 and the way they wake up, they just come in this little Kwanza hut with about 60 guys, what a Kwanza hut is. They got big garbage cans and they're spotless, shined and each end and they come in as cement floors and to do this 3DI one of them comes in from one end, the other two come from the other end. They flash on the lights and they've picked these cans and they throw up right down the middle and they're bouncing off the cement floor. Yeah. He jumped out of you're rack. You've got your underwear on t-shirt and shorts, and you stand at attention and they come through there. We're going to do this and this, and you got 10 min to get dressed and be out in the street now, anyway, the first night you're sitting there thinking, what am I gotten myself into? I got seven more weeks of this I don't think I might be able to make it. But anyway, you adapt eventually. But anyway, and you get up in the morning 05:00 for it's dark fall out in the street and boots and trousers and a white t-shirt and he started doing calisthenics industry together and this is going to see platoons all doing the same thing. Then they take you over to what they call a grinder. You march over there and you run around this thing in a formation for five or six times, come back. You go in and make sure everything's cleaned up. You have some clean up duties and all that and then you go to classes and you go to training, obstacle course and rifles train, marching, and do a lot of marching there. About two or three hours a day, a couple of times a day, an hour each time they take you over and you start drilling on that parade. As you see, platoons over doing it. The day is like five in the morning until about nine at night. Got something doing all the time in after you've been there a couple of weeks, you've started getting into it. The DIs lighten up a little bit. There's some humor is injected into it. But it's the same. Then hold seven weeks, five to nine, and then you come back and do it another summer before you graduate. Then once you graduate from college and now officer, so you're treated totally different after that.
[02:06:54] INTERVIEWER: Describe some of the challenges you face being one of the only African-American pilots.
[02:06:59] William Henderson: One of the only what?.
[02:07:00] INTERVIEWER: African-American pilots.
[02:07:01] William Henderson: Oh, yeah. Well, before that, in that boot camp I just talked to told you about out to be 1,100 candidates two were black. Me and one other guy and I didn't even know he was there till about three weeks into the program and I saw another platoon going by and there's another guy. I didn't face discrimination because they treated all the recruits the same. I didn't face discrimination in that, but just being the only African-American there's some of the DIs were African-Americans, probably 10%. But I didn't face any discrimination in boot camp. Once I graduated, went into as an officer you go to back to Quantico but now you're totally different place on the base. You are now an officer you're living big barracks with all these other guy about 200 other guys and there were five companies of 200. About 1,000 2nd lieutenants and out of thousands second lieutenants we are like six of us who were African-American, but they were in other companies. I got to know them but they were ahead of me. I was in a junior company at that point. I was the only African-American in my company, which is about 200, didn't face any discrimination that I didn't feel as I faced any discrimination. Well then when I went to for flight training, put in for flight training, that was like a year later. That's a long drawn out process, went to flight glide down to Pensacola for flight training. Again, the only African-American in classes and around me. Take that back. There was one other guy who was just a little ahead of me. He was a navy, but he had attended some classes with me. Well, now I'm going through flight training and I did really well in flight training, so I got selected for jets instead of helicopters. Had to have higher grades to get into the fighters than you did the helicopters. In flight training, probably 40% of the people don't make me quit on their own or they wash out for different reasons. Well, I got selected for jets now I'm when a class of about 30 guys and we leave. The first three months you're in Florida. Now we're going up to Mississippi for six months. Well, that's during the time of the Freedom Rides and Martin Luther King and all the discrimination and I'd never been south before I went to flight school. I go up the Mississippi, I was married and we go up there, me and my wife about a week ahead of time just to look around and see if we can find its like couple hours from Pensacola four or five and no more than a couple of hours, about three or 4 hours. We go up there and looking for a place to live to get a feel for that town. Because we're going to come up like maybe two or three weeks later. The first thing I see coming into town is a picture of big billboard with Martin Luther King. Picture of him with like four or five people. It's sitting at a desk, Martin Luther King and a communist training school that was on the billboard. Here we go. We go into town, were looking around, make a long story short. I couldn't find housing. My classmates could. They're all white. I couldn't find houses. We finally come up to your station up near the base commander calls me and he knows I'm having a problem finding a place to live, make a long story short. They hooked me up with a black woman who had a real nice home we live with her in it turned out to be a good deal. All my white classmates moved into apartments around town and all that. There's the first discrimination that really over, well then lot of times I'd be in a class of 30 students when we're all, but he's not because we'd been together for three months and we're going through the program, so we're all close. Like I said a couple of times I was sitting in a classroom with 30 of us in a class and instruct me being light skin, hair cut off. The instructor would come in and give us a lecture on something and I remember one time we were sitting there anyway, he was talking to us about this landing pattern there at Mississippi. The runway here and you call a beam the runway and talking about look for some things on the ground to fly over to set yourself up for a landing. He says, once you've come up, get a beam the runway, you look down, you'll see the nigger shack. Start your turn at the nigger shag. All my classmates are central. He didn't realize. Well, I guess if after a few minutes he looked, he finally saw me or realized so at the break, he apologizes. [OVERLAPPING]
[02:12:36] William Henderson: There was another time me and three of my classmates were sitting out on the end of the runway, they call it a runway watch and instructor sitting there and he talked about a crash that had happened a couple of weeks before we got there and the instructor and the student were both killed. I mean, he was at the hospital when they brought him in for some reason he was in. I guess he'd gotten burned up pretty bad and he said, yeah, they were burned up, look like niggers in flight suits. Not realizing. There was other times in class where maybe four or five classes in an auditorium so maybe 200 students, near 150 students in there. Instructor gets up well, looks around. Well, I guess I can tell this joke and tells a racist joke. Again, all my classmates are shaking their head. Well, somebody must have told this guy. Eventually, we had a Black student out there. During the break he standing and talking to some of my classmates and he comes up and taps me on the shoulder. He was a senior officer and he was more senior than me and he apologized for the joke he told. Well, I tell people about some of those saying that, why didn't you do this or why didn't you say something? Well, because until you get those wings on your chest, you keep your mouth shut. Because here's an example. Let's say, you were the instructor that told a joke or a near shack or whatever and I went to your commanding officer and said, hey, he told his joke so on. The commanding officer calls you in and choose you out about it. You three are other instructors. You come back, well, I just got chewed out by this CEO because of what I did and you talking to some other instructors. Well, now when I go me when I go fly again with one of these other instructors, all of a sudden they find something wrong with the way I'm progressing. They give you a down, what they call a down, you flip fail at flight meaning you got to fly it again. I get it down. The next flight I fly with you instead and you give me a down. Now I got two downs and now I'm probably going to be out of the program. You keep your mouth shut when you get your wings. Once you get those wings, which is a big deal, a year-and-a-half of this intense training, now you don't have to take that stuff anymore. But until you get those zip it.
[02:15:26] INTERVIEWER: Obviously you served in Vietnam. What was the time period and where were you stationed?
[02:15:32] William Henderson: I went over in October of 1968. I came back in November '69. Marines went to Vietnam for 13 months only other services went for 12. I don't know why, of course and not because we got to do anything tougher than everybody else. But anyway, October 16th to November of '69, I started out in a place called Chu Lai. The name was the big port, big city. Chu Lai was like 80 miles South of Marine airbase surrounded by the army for protection for the base. Vietnam was divided into cores. I think there were four. I core, which is the Roman numeral one, we called it the I core was right, the Northern part of South Vietnam near the DMZ. We were as far North as you can go. I started out in Chu Lai and I flew out of Chu Lai. On our missions we'd fly North support the Marines and Bob going by on the Ho Chi Minh trail and allows. I did that for seven months from October to around April or early May of '69. Then I was sent with the infantry, 1st Marine Division as a forward air controller, control air marine crown units. Certain size have a pilot assigned to them to control the air for them. I did the first seven months flying and the last six months on the ground. Came back in November of '69.
[02:17:16] INTERVIEWER: What was your rank during this?
[02:17:18] William Henderson: I was a captain.
[02:17:19] INTERVIEWER: A captain. Could you describe some of your challenges or most difficult experiences in Vietnam?
[02:17:27] William Henderson: Yeah. Well, first of all, everything you worked 24 hours a day. There was no such thing as well at a certain time we don't fly anymore. We flew around the clock. You might take off at two or three o'clock in the morning or four in the morning for a night mission or the other days you'd to fly during the day. You flew out every day. Normally once, sometimes twice. The thing is and like in any war, you're getting shot at every day. You're always in the back of your mind, especially the night missions you're thinking about if you get hit and you go down, they got to try to rescue you and that if you live through it but you won't be getting rescued until daylight, if at all so you're always in the threat of getting killed. A lot of times you'd have a mission that was going to say take off at one or two in the morning and so you try to get a couple of hours sleep. Well, you're laying and you can't nine o'clock, well, I'll try to get a couple of hours sleep, but you can't because you're laying there and tossing and turning, thinking about in another hour they're going to be coming to get me to wake me up, to go brief this mission and go fly to mission. There was that challenge. At night you take off out of Chu Lai and let's say your target was a half-hour, 45-minute away and you're looking down and you can see firefights going on, tracers and bombs going off certain places and you're on your way over to your target, which made a lot of times and they were bombing the whole chain then trail over in Laos. In your thinking and you go with two planes. I was the flight lead, so I myself and I have a wingman and now we're heading over to our target. You get over there and you check in with airborne FAQ and there might be three or four other flights ahead of you. What they would do is they tell you they put you in a stack. They tell you to go to a certain altitude and then your wingman when you tell him to go 1,000 feet higher than you say put you in at the top of the stack, you turn your legs out so here everybody is certain. There might be 10 airplanes which you can't see each other because your lights are out, but we are all 1,000 feet apart. While you're sitting there waiting your turn, he's working in another flight below you and you can see the trace just coming up though you can't see them the flight because your lights are off, but you can see tracers coming up and you can see bombs going off and you keep working your way down. These other flights might be Marines, Air Force, Navy, one of the three services.
[02:20:27] William Henderson: Pretty soon you work your way down and now so you might be sitting down orbiting for 20 minutes watching longest gunfire and you're thinking holly cow, there's a lot of guns down there in the night. Finally, you get down to the bottom of the stack and eat my call sign was homicide. He say, okay, homicide, tell me what you got and you tell him you got two F4. What's your carrying? It's two or three other piece of information and you say, you've already seen where the target is. I'm going to mark it again or whatever. He read back some information to you. Read back the target elevation. He'd read back the highest mount because this isn't in the highest mountains. If you get hit, which way to go towards a friendly area, hopefully in two or three other piece of information. Then he'd say, let's go to work. Now you'd lead, you always made two passes. You carry bombs called cluster bombs. When they opened up, all these little hanger needs came out and they went they went off and look like a doughnut sprinklers on those sparklers on the crown big doughnut. I'd go in and drop those and that was to hopefully hit the guns or get them to keep their head down. My wingman, he'd come back down and he'd just straight bombs. He dropped all his bombs, he takeoff and head home. The lead would come back around with just straight bombs and come in and drop those and then catch the wingman in your hidden bank. If your wingman made one run, slightly you made two. When you're doing this you're coming down the chute is dark obviously and the guy who have forehead a radar operator in the back, so he's calling out air speeds and divings in your altitude. As you're going down, you can see the tracer has gone by. Or look in the view mirror you can see him behind you because they're shooting at the sound. They can't see is something that they're shooting into sound. As you're going down, you're dropped and you feel the bombs come off, the airplane gets lighter and you pull up heavy breathe and come back and do it again and then get the hell out of there. You did that every day and the only way you knew Mondays? Every Monday we took a big yellow pill, a malaria pill. You knew it was Monday because they set the pills out for you to take when you went to chow. This one on seven days a week daytime, you really couldn't see him shooting at you because of the tracers. He lit up but she couldn't see him as well in daytime. There was that challenge. Then when I went with the infantry underground was a totally different program. It's life or death.
[02:23:31] INTERVIEWER: Is there any events or stories that you still think about today?
[02:23:36] William Henderson: Over there, yeah couple we lost. When I was in the unit, we had three airplane shot down in at six months, one was a daylight flight. Well, new pump pilots were real close and pilots and then radar intercept guy in the back. They had flight that went out in broad daylight, they got shot down, both ejected, two parachutes. You never come down together. Pile comes down here, the radar radio comes down over here. There's separate when you go down right away every helicopter and it's in that area. Airplane down comes to that area to try to rescue people. Both these guys are underground alive, they're waving and you're talking on radio. An Air Force helicopter or search and rescue, Jolly Green Giant comes up and tells everybody else we got the rescue. They pick up the pilot, but now they can't find the radar guy. They call army helicopter who had seen it come back pointing out again. Whereas they could have gotten to begin with. They come back, they pointed by. Now he's laying on the ground and he's not waving or any of that anymore. They go to pick him up. They drop a rescue guy down to getting and they started taking fire. He's dead. Parrot rescue guy picked up the bodies, guiding, pulling them up in the helicopter. Helicopter task starts taking heavy fire. They cut the cord and drop them back into the trees. The rescue guy and the body bringing some more jets to bomb around the area to get these VC out of there and they rescue the paramedic. A couple of hours later they pick up the body of the pioneers and navigating the real. If they had picked him up to begin with, instead of them trying to claim that this Air Force unit, they've left that Army helicopter. He hadn't been alive today. But they had a big sign in front of their squadron area which was near us. How many rescues they had. We're here we'll take charge and we're going to learn a new rescue. Both these guys want to add, one of them ends up dead guy named Dan minute hand from was from Massachusetts that's the story I always think about and there's others, but yeah, a lot of things like that.
[02:26:20] FEMALE_1: We're going to interrupt if you could stop for a moment. We just need to get a few things for something. [NOISE] You should be closer. I know you can probably hear, but [NOISE] you should be [NOISE] hopefully this [inaudible 02:26:37] tell you just need to make sure it's not in the frame. Sorry for the interruption, but we wanted to have you pause because we were going to make noise. Other things going on. Presume.
[02:26:54] INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
[02:26:54] MALE_1: Thank you.
[02:26:54] INTERVIEWER: Ready.
[02:26:56] William Henderson: Yeah.
[02:26:59] INTERVIEWER: Was it challenging traveling while raising a family?
[02:27:04] William Henderson: Not particularly. It would be at this age for me, but when you're younger, it's just me and my wife. I didn't have any children. Normally what we do is that I go ahead and get housing and then she joined me. I know it wasn't, no.
[02:27:23] INTERVIEWER: Act 3. I will ask a set of questions focused on your life after the military in your pride in your military service. What did you value most about your time in the military? About your career?
[02:27:36] William Henderson: Well, it gave me a lot of structure to my life. I always had some structure because my father was a fairly strict guy. He was a good father when he was very strict but the Marine Corps get you focused real quick on the way things should be done, the way they think it should be done, which you pretty soon adapt way you think it shouldn't be done. It put a lot of organization in my life. It also installed a work ethic in me. I had a work ethic before, but even more focused. It gives you a sense that we live in a society that people always want to do this when they have issues. It's never them. It's always somebody else has made me do this or put me in this bad predicament. It gives you more sense of, hey, you're responsible and you look in the mirror if you're doing well or if you're doing poorly in life is because of the person you see in the mirror. It's not the people around you. Anyway, it gives you focus. It gives me a lot of structure and also a real sense of accomplishment. Because first of all, not everybody can be a marine officer. Even less people can be a Navy pilot.
[02:29:05] William Henderson: Things that I accomplished since his landing on an aircraft carrier. The things that I saw as a fighter pilot that I can talk to you about all day, but you can't relate to it. The experiences were awesome, especially since I never got hurt. Then it's sent me up for really to be for some excellent jobs as a civilian. When you go to a corporation or a company to look for a job and your resume shows that you were in the military that always helps an officer in the military that helps even more a pilot in the military it just enhances your experience. I tell kids right now. Only one out of four kids 18 years old in your crew, only one out of four can even go in a military in a day it's changed because they either don't have the intelligence, they have issue with the law. They're not physically fit. There's a fifth one. I can't think of what that is. But normally. Intelligence. They don't have a high school diploma. Back in the '60s, the military took everybody. Almost everybody. Now is very selective. I see people now wandering around with nothing to do anything. First of all, people, if you go in the military, everybody who go in the military is not fighting for homeless. There's a lot of jobs that are very safe in the military and you can get some excellent training and all that and that's what it did for me. Although I had to go through a war because at that time [NOISE].
[02:30:49] INTERVIEWER: Why did you decide to leave the military?
[02:30:52] William Henderson: Well, at the time, I had a good job offer as a civilian, but I was gone for a 20-year career. I'd made major when I got out, so I was on my way. But [NOISE] after Vietnam, the Marine Corps along with the other services, because of that war, the military was going downhill and the war was unpopular for a lot of reasons and the Marine Corps was at a low period. They were taking draftees. When I went to Marine Corps I was a volunteer. But because of Vietnam, they started taking draftees in and they did a good job. I'm not saying that, but a lot of draftees didn't, so there was a lot of racial problems. In the early '70s, late '60s, early in Vietnam there were race riots, small, I'm not talking about like burning basic. But there was a lot of racial thing and then I had a good job offer so I said I'm getting out. But I kept the 10 years still like I said, joint or reserves, and then in the Air Force and kept me so I got still got credit for those 10 years.
[02:32:06] INTERVIEWER: What did you do after you left the military discharge, your responsibilities, how your military service parity for this work, and how long you engage them?
[02:32:14] William Henderson: Well, I became a pilot for General Motors, so I had to have that pilot background from the military for that so that's how the military prepared me for that. I went to work for General Motors as a corporate pilot, find executives around and big flank department lot of good airplanes. But I also joined the Marine Reserves. On weekends, I was kept the military thing going. But a Marine Corp prepared me for both of those without that pilot experience I couldn't have gone to work for General Motors. Anyway, I went to work for General Motors and I was a copilot and then eventually after three or four years, you'll work your way up to where you are the captain of the airplane. I ended up working for General Motors for 28.4 years and went from being co-pilot to Captain, to Chief Pilot where I was in charge all the pilots to the director of flight operations where I was in charge of the pilots and the maintenance. I think 180-person flight department. The Lord blessed me, I was blessed. I had good mentors and luck. I was very fortunate.
[02:33:27] INTERVIEWER: What do you value most about your new career?
[02:33:31] William Henderson: Well, value most. I'm going to say this, but the financial piece of it, when you make good money and it gives you that opportunity to do a lot of good things. I'm not talking about strictly being greedy because of my financial situation with the military and with General Motors, I got two pensions. I'm able to give back and do things in the community as after I've retired to do things in the community to help other people and being a little generous with finances. Money is power in a society and it's just the way it is. If you don't have any you don't have any power. If you get money, you get some power, not over other people, but it gives us, we all have pressures from society no matter how high you go. But if you have your own money, you have less than those pressures.
[02:34:36] INTERVIEWER: Well, hobbies and interests to keep you busy?
[02:34:39] William Henderson: Well, I volunteered at the VA Hospital. I've done that ever since the day I retired, I've been up there 50 I just read the last 15 years. I go up one morning a week. It used to be two, but one morning a week I volunteer up here in the operating area, would take patients in for surgery, and deal with the families. Strictly volunteer for that. Then I'm involved with some schools in Detroit. Cornerstone School which is a charter school system and they tried this volunteer work with them. There's some fee veterans organizations I'm involved with and just volunteer work. But I'm also big in physical fitness. I got a couple of gym memberships, so I work out in the gym about four days a week so I keep busy that way.
[02:35:28] INTERVIEWER: Do you still see some of the people that you've trained with in the Marine Corps?
[02:35:34] William Henderson: Not in the Marine Corps but here in Michigan. The guys I was with him at Michigan Air National Guard. I see those guys quite often. They're all retired like me at this point. But we still have contact with each other now that the base itself rigid.
[02:35:51] INTERVIEWER: In what ways, if any, do you think your military service changed you or affected who you are today?
[02:35:58] William Henderson: Well, I said military service made me who I am today. I was a very quiet and like I said, I graduated at 17, not because I was smart because I ended up starting school when I was four. But anyway, so I was always a shrinking violet. I was always the little guy, the younger guy, all the way compared to my cheers. Back at that time, six months or a year, it didn't make quite a bit of difference in your maturity level so I was always the outside or standing on the fringe. But then when I went in the military, I was in very good physical shape so even when I went to the military, even then I was one of the smaller guys. But when it comes to the physical fitness stuff, which was a big thing in the Marine Corps. I was always at the top and the class. The thing I saw in the Marine Corps, most of your senior generals, they were either tall guys, so they feel short guys. Nothing in-between. Anyway, the Marine Corps I excelled. I excelled in the Marine Corps physically and mentally, I guess. It made me who I am today. If I hadn't gone the Marine Corps, I probably got to college and become a school teacher, and done some I thought about being state policeman. But there weren't many black state or fact there were no black state police. But when I first came on the Eastern, I think the first black state placement of Michigan was like 65 or 66. I can't swear to that, but so it made me what I am today in many ways.
[02:37:43] INTERVIEWER: If you were asked, would you join the military in our generation?
[02:37:49] William Henderson: Yes. It depends on each individual. Let me say this. I say this to people all the time. Family members. I've tried some of tough who are standing around doing nothing and doesn't look like you're going to have much of a future. You ought to think about going in the military. There's other people who are, let's say if you're a student and you're got designs, don't want to go to medical school, go to college and beyond, whatever, then pursue that. But there's other folks and I'm not seeing the Marine Corps or the military is just for people who are standing around doing nothing. You live with the ROTC and the University of Michigan. These are U of M students probably you got to be pretty good to be at U of M and get a degree and they go into military. When they graduate some stays, get out. But it all depends on your situation. But let's see people, most folks don't have any clue about that. I think you're going to military, you're going to war and you're going to be living in a foxhole fight in all the time and there are some people in that think infantry, that's what you do. But I'll give you an example, air traffic controllers. You become an air traffic control in the military, you got a guaranteed job when you come out four years later making a lot of money working for the FAA. That's one example. There's computer programs. There's so many education programs in military. It's unbelievable. You go in the military and serve four years, you get out, they're going to pay for you to go to college, most of it, our trade school or whatever. There's a lot of advantages and you make good money in the military nowadays, they pay, they live well. There's a lot of advantages, but I wouldn't say everybody should go to military depend on individual.
[02:39:44] INTERVIEWER: Looking back on your military service and your career GM, What do you, what do you think you're most proud of?
[02:39:52] William Henderson: I think my military service, even though like I said, I was blessed. I went very high up in GM was an executive level. That was good. But the military is more challenging, much more challenging. I would say my accomplishments in the military would be mean more to me than the Marine. They both mean a lot to me but the military more so.
[02:40:21] INTERVIEWER: I think we're good [LAUGHTER] That was good. That was awesome.
[02:40:26] MALE_1: Thank you [OVERLAPPING]
[02:40:29] William Henderson: I would just suggest that you use you guys think. I'm not recruiting for the object. A quick look at a lot of different options, in the civilian world, there's a lot of great action, but you don't right after military because there's some great things you can do in the military and come out of the, well, good shape.

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2022

Length: 02:40:50

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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Legacies Project