Local WASP ‘cautious’ after House votes to restore burial rights
Women Airforce Service Pilots are one step closer to having a military right they were promised restored after a unanimous vote by the U.S. House of Representatives.
A bill to allow the female WWII pilots to have their ashes interred at Arlington National Cemetery passed the House with a 385-0 vote Tuesday. A date for a Senate vote has not been set.
Florence “Shutsy” Reynolds, a WASP living in Connellsville, said she is feeling “cautious” about the vote.
“It’s a wait and see,” she said. “It’s encouraging. I was delighted to hear about the House of Representatives. I was ecstatic to hear it was unanimous.”
The female pilots were called on for service because of a shortage of pilots and a war that had just expanded to two fronts. Many of the WASPs’ male counterparts did not accept them, and the women often experienced sabotage, Reynolds said.
They were not considered military until 1977. In 2002, they were granted the right to have their ashes interred at Arlington. Last year, that right was reversed by the U.S. Army.
“The promises they don’t keep is the part that annoys me the most,” she said. “It’s a matter of honor. It’s a matter of integrity.”
Arlington National Cemetery is the only national cemetery controlled by the Army. All others are controlled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
She said the Army gained control of the plot that became the cemetery after the Civil War. It was once the estate of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. After the South lost the war, the estate was claimed as military burial grounds.
“This was to rub his nose in his defeat by taking his estate and burying on it Union soldiers,” she said.
She called that play “grade-school revenge.”
“The culture hasn’t come too far since then,” she said.
She said she and her fellow WASPs knew they were living in a man’s world when they joined the service. The women would often fly planes as test pilots that were not considered fit for the men. They did not have life insurance because they were not considered military, but three of them were shot down and killed.
“If you knew what we were flying, you’d think (burial at Arlington) was a small reward,” she said. “But the WASPs were ‘expendable,’ so it was OK,” she said, quoting the men in military leadership positions during the war.
To her knowledge, she said only one WASP wanted to have her ashes interred at Arlington. Her friend, Elaine Harmon of Silver Spring, Maryland, had plans and arrangements made to have her ashes interred there. She died the month after her right was retracted.
“All of a sudden, they don’t want us there,” she said. “We were the first. We were the pioneers.”
Harmon’s family has been keeping her ashes on a shelf since then, hoping the bill will reverse the Army decision.
“I’m waiting until the last shoe drops to see what they do,” she said.
Reynolds said that if the bill passes the Senate, she is not confident that WASPs interred at Arlington, including Harmon, will receive full military honors.
“When they do have the internment, I’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll be in my uniform and I’ll see what they do with it this time.”
She credits women who advocate for women’s rights for the social progress that has come since her youth. The culture is changing, she said, but women’s rights have not “made a home run” yet.
Of the 1,102 WASPs, only 112 are still alive.
“So our ranks are getting very, very thin,” she said.
But Reynolds plans to see the fight through until the end for her fellow WASPs.
“I’m going to be the last one standing. I made up my mind,” she said. “Why not?”