THE WOMAN IN MILITARY SERVICE
FOR AMERICA MEMORIAL
WIMSA
OR
THE MEMORY GATE
is the 37,000 square feet structure
commemorating women in service,
located at Arlington National Cemetery
in Washington D.C.
The Memory Gate
was dedicated on
October 18, 1997.
The ceremony was attended by
an estimated 30,000 servicewomen
and their families.
Finally, the many women
who have courageously
served their country
are receiving credit
just like the men.
It is a tribute
to the 1.8 million women
who have served in the armed forces
since the American Revolution,
from army nurses in field hospitals
to fighter pilots flying missions.
IT�S ABOUT TIME!
The memorial is important
because most people consider
those who served their country
as being men only.
They are forgetting
that woman have contributed
from the very beginning
to the military protection of our country.
The memorial will change
the teaching of history.
Molly Pitcher and Deborah Sampson
stand out as heroines
of the Revolutionary War.
Deborah Sampson
disguised herself as a man
and fought under the name
of Robert Shirtliffe.
Many girls followed Deborah�s lead
and disguised themselves
in order to serve their country.
How many of us can say that
we have not heard of Clara Barton,
who can be easily compared
to that trailblazing English woman,
Florence Nightingale,
who worked so diligently to bring
sanitary conditions to operating rooms.
The Army Nurse Corps
was established in 1901,
and was followed closely
by the Navy Nurse Corps.
The Navy altered the face
of the military forever in 1917,
when they enlisted
12,000 women to serve as yeomen
~ military office workers ~
with the Marine Corps
close on their heels.
Female units were known as
WACS,
WAVES,
SPARS
and
WASPS.
One of the first Naval yeomen in 1917,
Freida Mae Hardin
proudly shared the following
with those in attendance.
"In all my 101 years
I have observed
many wonderful achievements,
but none as important or as meaningful as
the process of women taking
their rightful place in society."
It is important
for present and future generations
to know what women have accomplished.
History should include
in detail
the tremendous contribution of women
to the security and safety of
the United States of America.
Let the memorial remind the nation,
and all who visit The Memory Gate that ~
women never had to be drafted!
They all volunteered eagerly
and were proud to do it!
FLY GIRLS OF THE SKY
By Christine Lyons Holzwarth
Gooney Birds, Thunderbolts,and Flying Fortresses are the fighters,
bombers and transport planes
that not only helped
America win World War II,
they helped break
the gender barrier in the skies.
From 1942 through 1944,
a small but daring, high-spirited corps
of about 1000 women served the country
by testing and ferrying planes,
training male pilots
and even towing targets
for antiaircraft artillery practice.
These American wonder women were
Women�s Airforce Service Pilots,
better known as WASPs.
�WASPs worked as an extra pair of hands
to free men for combat,�
writes Ann Baumgartner Carl in her memoir
~ A WASP AMONG EAGLES ~
published by Smithsonian Press in 1999.
A pioneering test pilot,
Ann was the first woman to fly
an experimental military aircraft,
the P-47 Thunderbolt
and a jet fighter the Bell YP-59A.
WASPs logged
60 million miles
during the war.
Their salary a mere $250 a month,
but without benefits of any kind
because they had no military status.
(Can you believe it?)
In fact, when a fly girl died,
as 38 did while serving,
colleagues had to pass the hat
for their burial.
(Where were you, Uncle Sam?)
Stationed at Wright Field in Ohio,
Ann put an array of planes
through their paces ~
among them the B-29 bomber
and the AT-6, which she named
the dancing plane.�
On rainy days Orville Wright,
who lived in Dayton,
sometimes dropped by the base
to talk about planes.
�What kind of girl are you to want
to fly an experimental jet?� he asked Ann.
�A girl who, instead on practicing the piano,
had to go out and see what was happening
in the woods,� she answered him.
�Then one day I saw an airplane fly.�
The Woman�s Air Corps
was disbanded in 1944,
but not before inspiring
other women aviators.
�When we started flying,� Ann recalls.
�most women didn�t even
have a driver�s license.
Now we pilot anything that flies!�
COMMENT:
I don�t know about the rest of you,
but I wonder a whole lot
about we marvelous macho men.
So many truly wonderful girl things
happen that go by relatively unnoticed,
and we have no way of knowing
what she might have accomplished
were she not suffocated in the past
by our male oriented civilization.
Woman shares in man�s work,
and more often than not,
does most of the work involved,
but she seldom gets the pay,
the promotion,
the credit
or the benefits she deserves.
Move over, Machismos!
She is every bit as good as we are!
Wait a minute!
There she goes right on past us ~
right to the top of the food chain
where, if I am not mistaken,
she has always belonged!
I�m choking on her dust!
How about
the rest of you guys?
FEMALE CYBERSPACE
