Long, long before our current “digital” age when roughly half of the U.S. voting population seems to think it would be a good idea to entrust a blowhard reality TV star with responsibility for our country’s interests and our childrens’ futures, there was a time when Americans took their duties to the nation rather more seriously. One nearly forgotten group of patriotic Americans included the Women Airforce Service Pilots, better known as WASPS, who flew noncombatant missions in World War II, for the purpose of freeing up male pilots slated for combat duty overseas:
They were the pioneering organizations of civilian female pilots, employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The WFTD and WAFS were merged on August 5, 1943, to create the paramilitary WASP organization. The female pilots of the WASP ended up numbering 1,074, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft. The WASP was granted veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.
(Citations are from the original linked source).
Of the 25000 women who applied to be WASPs, only 1900 were accepted, and of those only 1074 became pilots. All had to pay their own way through basic training and buy their own dress uniforms, since none of them was officially “military.”
Thirty-eight WASPs died either in training or active duty during the War. Because they were not considered “military” under then-existing guidelines, a WASP who lost her life was sent home at her families’ expense, without military honors or any mention of heroism. Flags were not permitted to be draped over their coffins. Of the original WASPs , only about 300 were still alive in 2009, when President Obama awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal. As of this year, according to the national WASP Museum in Sweetwater, Texas, only 104 survive.
Due to a constrained interpretation of the law these women heroes last year were denied the honor of formal military burial alongside the pilots they supported at Arlington National Cemetery. No longer:
President Barack Obama on Friday signed a law reinstating the right of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, a group of pioneering female fliers, to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, according to the White House.
They are again eligible for above-ground inurnment and full burial honors.
The WASPs lost the right last year when the Army reinterpreted existing law to exclude them. About 1,000 women were trained as pilots and ferried combat aircraft throughout the United States from 1942-1944 as part of the wartime program.
Some of these womens’ war duties included flying freshly-made aircraft from America’s factories to military bases, towing drones and transporting aerial anti-aircraft targets which ground AA batteries would then fire at with live ammunition. In addition to the WASPs vital contribution to the war effort, their prowess in flying military aircraft served to demonstrate as early as 1942 that women who received training in non-combat flying were just as capable as their male counterparts. During the war, however, Congress voted down legislation that would have afforded the WASPs military status, and the unit disbanded in 1944. Afterwards, the WASPs lived only as a memory for a small group of families:
All records of the WASP were classified and sealed for 35 years, so their contributions to the war effort were little known and inaccessible to historians. In 1975, under the leadership of Col. Bruce Arnold, son of General Hap Arnold, the WASP fought the "Battle of Congress" in Washington, D.C., to have the WASP recognized as veterans of World War II.
This recognition came when President Jimmy Carter signed the GI Bill improvement Act of 1977, granting the WASPs military status for their service, but with fewer privileges than other veterans. One of the privileges denied was the right to be have their ashes placed at Arlington with military honors. In 2002 the cemetery superintendent authorized the placement of their ashes in the cemetery’s columbarium, but last year then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh reversed that policy, claiming the superintendent had overreached under existing law (ironically, John McHugh never served in the military). The law, passed with unusual unanimity in the Congress, championed by Senators as disparate as Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), and signed by President Obama this Friday, permits full burial honors and above-ground internment—that is, it re-affirms that their ashes may be placed in the cemetery. Eligibility for in-ground burial at Arlington is still limited to a select number of veterans.
Second Lieutenant and former WASP Elaine Harmon died last year at the age of 95. Her family spearheaded the effort to get the Army’s policy reversed. Harmon’s granddaughter, Erin Miller, spoke to reporters Friday after the new law was signed by President Obama:
"l had to leave work early because I couldn’t concentrate — that’s how happy I am,” Miller said Friday after the bill was signed.
Her family now must apply at Arlington for a new funeral date. It’s unclear how long they will have to wait. But Miller said she knows it will be less than a year, which is how long her grandmother’s ashes have been waiting on a shelf in her mother’s closet.