Fred Cherry graduated from Virginia Union University as a biology major in 1951. He entered the Air Force as an enlisted man, then was commissioned at Second Lieutenant in October of 1952 after he qualified as a pilot. He flew 52 combat missions in an F-84 during the Korean War. He flew 50 combat missions during the Vietnam War before he was shot down in an F-105D Thunderchief northeast of Hanoi on October 22, 1965, becoming the 43rd American and the first African American captured by the North Vietnamese. He was released from captivity on February 12, 1973, and retired from the Air Force as a Colonel in 1981.