Posted on 01/03/2016 1:57:22 PM PST by Kaslin
Another one of those “clean out the basket” stories from while I was away comes to us from the hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery. There was a quiet change made to the guidelines for interment there roughly one year ago which impacts a small but rightfully vocal group of citizens and their families. It involves the few remaining members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (or WASPs) from World War II. It seems that the Army is no longer accepting the remains of the female pilots for burial alongside the Honored Dead who rest there. (Fox News)
The ashes of World War II veteran Elaine Harmon are sitting in a closet in her daughter’s home, where they will remain until they can go to what her family says is her rightful resting place: Arlington National Cemetery.
Harmon piloted aircraft in World War II under a special program, Women Airforce Service Pilots, that flew noncombat missions to free up male pilots for combat. Granted veteran status in 1977, the WASPs have been eligible to have their ashes placed at Arlington with military honors since 2002.
But earlier this year, then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh reversed course and ruled WASPs ineligible.
After Harmon died in April at age 95, her daughter, Terry Harmon, 69, of Silver Spring, Maryland, was dismayed to learn that the Army had moved to exclude WASPs. She said her mother had helped lead the effort to gain recognition for WASPs.
I’m not sure what McHugh was thinking when he made this move, or more to the point, how he explained it at the time. I suppose there could technically be an argument to make saying that the WASPs weren’t officially part of the military and didn’t fly combat missions so they should somehow be classified differently, but it’s a weak and rather offensive one. True, they were defined as a “paramilitary” unit and they were specifically assigned non-combat missions to free up the men to fly in combat. But as has been documented repeatedly, they were granted veteran status nearly forty years ago and clearly aided the war effort in a direct fashion which involved flying military aircraft.
I rather doubt that McHugh was doing this because he’s secretly part of the He Man Woman Hater’s club, though the decision casts him in a very bad light. More likely, he was examining the quickly diminishing available space for burials at Arlington and making a ham handed attempt at finding ways to make the land stretch further. That excuse probably shouldn’t be given too much weight, though, since there are barely 100 WASPs left alive today.
The land issue at Arlington isn’t going to go away no matter how this fracas is resolved. Some relief was achieved last year when space for more than 50,000 additional urns of ashes was added and 27 acres to the north of the current fields was opened up. That new real estate will allow for 30,000 additional graves, which is a great start, but we are still burying an average of 7,000 veterans per year there so it’s far from a permanent solution. Also, just getting those 27 acres was a battle because people were fighting against having some of the old growth trees in the area taken down.
Arlington is an actual problem in search of a solution and I believe one can and must be found. It’s going to take a combination of willingness and sacrifice on the part of both the government and private citizens, but a path can surely be carved outward to extend the grounds of Arlington… not through government fiat, but the good will of a nation willing to offer up the proper honors to our heroes. If we can’t solve this one then the nation may be culturally past the point of no return.
bkmk
Probably some sort of political payback.
We need to open up an Arlington II somewhere with lots of land and a historical connection to the founding of the country.
>>Arlington is an actual problem in search of a solution and I believe one can and must be found.
How about National Cemeteries placed so that you are never more than 100 miles away from one? I’ve made it known that I want to be buried in the one here in north Florida.
Sorry ladies, but being a WASP pilot should not qualify you for Arlington.
Yeah, but Clinton and Obama will plant their political hacks there.
They deserve respect for their service to their country but if merchant marine are not qualified, then they should not be either.
Merchant marine had to be an extremely dangerous job in the early years of the war.
I recall reading about the rules for being buried at Arlington, vs being cremated and interred. I was kind of surprised at how restrictive it was. But when you read about the number of combat vets that will be passing in the next twenty years that land is going to be sucked up pretty quickly.
I don’t have an answer, but this is going to be a bigger issue over the next few years.
Bump!
Last time I heard, only high government officials, and those w Purple Hearts or MOH are being buried at Arlington.
Please tell Terry about this Cemetery https://dvs.az.gov/southern-memorial-cemetery.
There was only 1,074 of them and 38 lost their lives while flying.
In addition to being used to ferry aircraft overseas they also did odd jobs like towing gunnery targets.
They were granted veteran status over 30 years ago and up to last year were allowed a space for an urn.
Yeah, we got ol' M. Larry Lawrence dug up & shipped back to Californistan in the middle of the night.
Eschoir was beside himself.
We also think that the Big He was schtupping the widder woman...
The fracking Murmansk run would have turned my hair white...
I attended a burial in 2015 of a family member (a colonel's wife) at Arlington. The widower does not fit your description of those being buried there either. However, the wait time for being buried was about 3 months from date of death because of backlog.
As far as I know, Robert E Lee had only one farm for the Yankees to take to make a national cemetery.
This is hyperbole. The decision to allow or exclude WASPS from burial in Arlington isn't the thing that will push us over the edge of no return.
That said, they are non-military, so should not be buried at military cemeteries, in my opinion. WASPS were not ferrying aircraft into combat zones, but within the United States and rarely, Canada.
If we allow WASPS to be buried there, why not allow members of the Civilian Air Patrol to be buried in Arlington? I have heard that if you were in the Merchant Marine, you could be buried in military cemeteries, but haven't been able to confirm it. And they certainly had their lives on the line more than the WASPS did. Although forty or so were killed in WWII during training, that has to pale in comparison to the numbers of men killed in training alone. (I have heard 15,000 were killed in the USA in training aircraft alone from 1939 to 1945...don't know if that is accurate)
No disrespect to WASPS, but I simply don't think they should be buried in military cemeteries. I think we should acknowledge that they worked hard, did service that was necessary and could be dangerous, but I think it should be kept in context. I would suggest that even though they received military flight training, their crashes and injuries should come under industrial statistics, not military ones, even taking into account that military planes were more complex and prone to failure.
Shameful, but not surprising.
I did see one statistic that said that the amount of military deaths in combat did not exceed the annual deaths due to industrial accidents until 1943, and while it doesn’t sound right, if you take the statistic that says 85,000 workers died of all causes in industrial accidents between 1941 and 1945, I suppose that could be true.
"Any member of the Armed Forces who dies on active duty Any former member of the armed forces who served on active duty (other than for training) and whose last service ended honorably..."
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