John Allen graduated from Tuskegee University in 1966 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He was commissioned a regular officer in the Air Force through ROTC. While in Advanced ROTC, he was trained to fly by Chief Anderson, one of the instructors of the original Tuskegee Airmen in World War Two. His roommate at Williams Air Force Base during flight training was Lloyd “Fig” Newton, the first African-American Thunderbird pilot and later four-star general, USAF.

2nd Lt Allen trained as an F-4 fighter pilot at Davis-Monthan in Tucson, Arizona. He “was assigned to be what’s called a GIB, a guy-in-the-back; the F-4 was a two-seater.” After sea survival, mountain survival, and jungle survival training—which he appreciated and paid close attention to—John Allen was deployed to Southeast Asia for the first of his two tours there. He arrived at Udorn RTAFB in Thailand as a young lieutenant in March 1968.

On his first tour, 1st Lt Allen flew (as a back-seater) about 170 mostly high-altitude interdiction missions in North Vietnam and Laos to bomb supply routes and trails and trucks and ships and troop bivouac areas. After ten-and-a-half months, he returned to the U.S., upgraded to aircraft commander (front-seater), and went straight back to Udorn as a captain. He was made commander of “what they called the frag shop,” which was where all top-secret orders came in “to equip aircraft, for targets, for target briefing.” The trade-off for working at headquarters was that he was allowed to fly any mission he wanted to fly, and with whoever he wanted to fly.

After returning home, now-Major Allen“was an instructor pilot who checked out instructor pilots” at MacDill Air Force Base and was on track to become a general. But he wanted out. He went to law school at the University of Florida, about which he jokingly says, “I got in on affirmative action, fighter pilot affirmative action program.”