This female pilot was denied equal pay during WWII. Now Arlington Cemetery bars her remains.

[boston bean]

Elaine Harmon and her comrades flew Army planes across the country. They helped train pilots on how to operate aircraft and instruments. They towed targets behind them while soldiers below fired live ammunition during training. Harmon was aware that her service could cost her life: For 38 other women, it did.

But few people in 1944 wanted Harmon or women like her to be part of the military. Not Harmon’s mother, who believed that Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) “were all just awful, just probably loose women” and was ashamed that her daughter would be one of them. Not civilian male pilots, who felt threatened by the female recruits. And not Congress, which voted down a bill that would have granted the female pilots military status for fiscal and political reasons. As World War II drew to a close, the program was disbanded and largely forgotten. It wasn’t until the Air Force began accepting women for pilot training in 1970 that anyone remembered women had flown for the military previously, and it was not until 1977 that the female pilots were finally granted veteran status.

Harmon, who helped campaign for WASPs to get that status, was at the first full veteran’s funeral for a WASP in 2002. It was a world apart from the brief affairs she had attended before, when urns containing a woman’s ashes were unceremoniously placed inside an outdoor structure at Arlington National Cemetery. It made Harmon proud to know that she also would be afforded full military honors when her time came — in April of last year.

Which is why Terry Harmon, Elaine’s 69-year-old daughter, was angered when Secretary of the Army John McHugh reversed the old rule and said that ashes of WASPs can no longer be inurned at Arlington Cemetery.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/06/during-wwii-the-u-s-denied-this-female-pilot-equal-pay-and-gi-benefits-now-arlington-cemetery-is-barring-her-remains/

Infuriating!!!!!!!!!!!

[dhill926]

1. what the hell?

what was the reason....no link.

[boston bean]

3. here it is... I will add it to the OP.. thanks for the reminder..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/06/during-wwii-the-u-s-denied-this-female-pilot-equal-pay-and-gi-benefits-now-arlington-cemetery-is-barring-her-remains/

[dhill926]

7. great...thanks for the link.

interesting story. Typical military snafu....hope they rectify it. And there's a movie to be made, if one hasn't been already...

[Journeyman]

2. Got a link? Curious to read the rationale (or what will pass for rationale). . .

[boston bean]

5. here you go... I added it to the OP as well..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/06/during-wwii-the-u-s-denied-this-female-pilot-equal-pay-and-gi-benefits-now-arlington-cemetery-is-barring-her-remains/

[randys1]

4. Ridiculous

[grntuscarora]

6. I'm dumbfounded.

WTF.

[lpbk2713]

8. Here's Ms Harmon with Pres Obama

Furthest left ...

[smirkymonkey]

9. How dare they?!

Why are so many men so insecure? My sister-in-law is a military pilot (she is now working intellegence, as she and my brother have two young children) and she actually trained my brother, who is now an F16 Pilot for the VANG. These brave women have paved the way for women like her and her peers. They deserve no less than the men that they served with.

[BlueJazz]

10. Any male that is that insecure shouldn't be in charge of anything except their own pitiful life.

I have to say one true thing about most women. They really have it together. If the situation were reverse, some guy would be walking around with a rifle demanding changes OR else. (and making a fool out of himself.)

[TexasProgresive]

11. It is a travesty that the WASPs were not considered in the armed forces.

I didn't know that some were buried in Arlington Cemetery ever. That's news to me.

Fannie Flagg wrote a fictionalized account of the WASP in her novel: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion.

From Wiki on the UKs ATA:

One of the many notable achievements of these women is that they received the same pay as men of equal rank in the ATA, starting in 1943. This was the first time that the British government gave its blessing to equal pay for equal work within an organisation under its control.[12] At the same time American woman flying with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were receiving as little as 65 per cent of the pay given to their male colleagues.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary

[Journeyman]

12. The article makes plain there's rationale for not allowing her to be interred at Arlington . . .

Arlington is running out of room, is tightening eligibility requirements for everyone, and the rules do not allow for inurnment of either the WASPs or tens of thousands of others who served in positions other than active military. Further, WASPs are only eligible for burial at VA cemeteries; Arlington is an Army post and can be quite selective about who they allow.

I wish they could have honored this woman's desires, and maybe someone will step forward to assist the family.

It used to be, military veterans could ask to be buried in any national cemetery. But rules are changing as space becomes scarce. Used to be, if you wanted you could be buried at Gettysburg. It seemed strange, as I walked among the graves a few years ago, to see dates up through WW2. But the rule changed, and it made sense -- only those who fought at Gettysburg can now be buried there. The last burial was in 1997 -- the remains of an unidentified soldier were found lodged in the earthen sides of the railway cut. Because he could not be positively identified as Union, or disqualified for being Confederate, the decision was made to inter him in Gettysburg as a soldier.