2025’s “Top” Ten Losses: Nancy Leftenant-Colon (#6)
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (82390)
United States
January 26, 2026 12:46pm CST
Great news: the covid test was negative this morning. 
Also great news: the cars started right up like it wasn’t BRRRRRRRR degrees outside (or YEOWCH IT’S COLD degrees centigrade 
). Lunch was good, pills are taken, laundry is running…and now it’s time to salute another great we lost last year.
#5: Nancy Leftenant-Colon
I’ll start by sharing my brush with greatness. If you google Brenda Robinson, you’ll see that she was the first-ever African-American female pilot to land on an aircraft carrier (and only the second woman to ever do it). She did that in VRC-40, when she was also my education officer. 
With that background, you can understand why I’m delighted to share these unsung heroes with you. Nancy Leftenant-Colon didn’t get to land a C-1A trader on an aircraft carrier, but she was just as big a trailblazer in the military.
I mentioned the Tuskegee Airmen earlier this month with the loss of Harry Stewart. Leftenant-Colon’s brother was a Tuskegee Airman, killed during World War II. Despite the segregation, she and five brothers joined the military.
Oops, did I say “segregation”? Leftenant-Colon helped end that! She was the first military nurse in a desegregated Army Nurse Corps unit, in 1948. Hooray!
When the Air Force split off from the Army she decided to go into the Air Force. She served in both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts as a flight nurse.
There’s no telling what she had to put up with in her time in the military. I know how hard it was for a woman in the “liberated” 80s so I can only imagine what a (a) Black (b) woman had to deal with in the 50s!
Salute, Major Leftenant-Colon. Thank you.
Nancy Leftenant-Colon
Born Nancy Leftenant, September 29, 1920, Goose Creek, South Carolina
Died January 8, 2025, Amnityville, New York (natural causes) (age 104)
A news station’s obit:
Also great news: the cars started right up like it wasn’t BRRRRRRRR degrees outside (or YEOWCH IT’S COLD degrees centigrade ). Lunch was good, pills are taken, laundry is running…and now it’s time to salute another great we lost last year.
#5: Nancy Leftenant-Colon
I’ll start by sharing my brush with greatness. If you google Brenda Robinson, you’ll see that she was the first-ever African-American female pilot to land on an aircraft carrier (and only the second woman to ever do it). She did that in VRC-40, when she was also my education officer.
With that background, you can understand why I’m delighted to share these unsung heroes with you. Nancy Leftenant-Colon didn’t get to land a C-1A trader on an aircraft carrier, but she was just as big a trailblazer in the military.
I mentioned the Tuskegee Airmen earlier this month with the loss of Harry Stewart. Leftenant-Colon’s brother was a Tuskegee Airman, killed during World War II. Despite the segregation, she and five brothers joined the military.
Oops, did I say “segregation”? Leftenant-Colon helped end that! She was the first military nurse in a desegregated Army Nurse Corps unit, in 1948. Hooray!
When the Air Force split off from the Army she decided to go into the Air Force. She served in both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts as a flight nurse.
There’s no telling what she had to put up with in her time in the military. I know how hard it was for a woman in the “liberated” 80s so I can only imagine what a (a) Black (b) woman had to deal with in the 50s!
Salute, Major Leftenant-Colon. Thank you.
Nancy Leftenant-Colon
Born Nancy Leftenant, September 29, 1920, Goose Creek, South Carolina
Died January 8, 2025, Amnityville, New York (natural causes) (age 104)
A news station’s obit:Your browser isn’t supported anymore. Update it to get the best YouTube experience and our latest features. Learn moreRemind me later
9 people like this
7 responses
@rebelann (115710)
• El Paso, Texas
22h
both the 50s and 60s were hard on anyone of color ..... I was too young to notice all that though plus a lot of my playmates on the bases we lived on were from mixed marriages of all sorts so it never occured to me how hard they had it especially from civilian types
My salute to Nancy and her family for all their services over the years. RIP
1 person likes this
@rebelann (115710)
• El Paso, Texas
21h
You've got to be kidding, how can any intelligent person think what happened to them or Native Americans as 'good"'??? Of course from the aspect of native Americans those people of color probably had it a lot better because they weren't senselessly slaughtered as so many Native Tribes were.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (82390)
• United States
21h
We’ll never know and never understand. I go to places like Black Wall Street in Tulsa or the churches in Mississippi and Alabama that were bombed and cry…but that’s never happened to me, so I can only cry…more so because people DON’T know or understand and think it was somehow “good.” 
1 person likes this
@BACONSTRIPSXXX (16837)
• Torrington, Connecticut
21h
Wow I had no idea , god bless her
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (82390)
• United States
18h
Amazing, isn’t it! Our true unsung heroes!
1 person likes this
@BACONSTRIPSXXX (16837)
• Torrington, Connecticut
8h
@FourWalls I love reading post like this. good stuff
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (82390)
• United States
2h
Not the lady here, but another trailblazer. And thank you I’m so glad to feel better!
@LindaOHio (211985)
• United States
5h
Good for her; and she lived a long life. RIP
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (82390)
• United States
26 Jan
Well,, now you HAVE heard of her and aren’t you glad you did!!!!! 
1 person likes this
