Congress approves interment of female pilots at Arlington
According to Reuters, both houses of Congress have approved a bill that would allow more than thousand women pilots of the World War II era to be have their remains interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Senate passed the bill late on Tuesday and the House approved it on Wednesday, sending it to the White House for President Barack Obama to sign into law.
The women performed training and transport missions in the United States during the conflict so male pilots could be sent overseas.
Unlike male veterans, however, they could not be interred at Arlington, the best-known but very crowded U.S. military cemetery, because authorities have insisted their service was not the same as active duty.
From the Associated Press;
“It’s been just 19 weeks since the Army’s decision to kick out our pioneering female World War II pilots was brought to light, and we’ve been fighting ever since,” said Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., one of the bill’s sponsors and a retired Air Force fighter pilot.
The WASPs served in a unit called Women Airforce Service Pilots. They flew noncombat missions to free up male pilots for combat.
During the war, the women were considered civilians. But since 1977, federal law has granted them status as veterans. They had been eligible since 2002 to have their ashes placed at Arlington with military honors. In March 2015, then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh ruled that WASPs never should have been allowed in and revoked their eligibility.
I have to admit that I was ignorant on this subject until it became a political issue recently. I always thought that they were eligible. If Teddy Kennedy is eligible for a spot in Arlington, these women are certainly qualified. But, since it was McHugh who made them ineligible, the whole smacks of political theater – something that the president can point at as an accomplishment in a largely failed presidency.
Category: Veterans Issues
Well, seeing as how McHugh was SecArmy while he was POTUS, King Barry needs to accept the fact that this decision was also tied to McHugh. Mr. Liar McLiarson.
This should be a no-brainer. I’d be curious if there was anyone in Congress who did a “Nay” vote on this one.
Tied to POTUS that is since he is the boss. I got so wrapped around that punk weasel that I didn’t review my work today. Please forgive me on that one teacher.
385-0 in favor (232-R, 153-D), 48 didn’t vote (13-R, 35-D):
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2016/h135
That’s the internet for you. Someone always knows. The truth is out there….
This is NOT the X Files.
Often true. But since the we’re talking the Internet, the truth out there is mixed in with so much idiocy that sometimes it’s damn near impossible to find.
That is true Hondo, Abraham Lincoln even said that you can’t trust everything you read on the internet.
Though, I’m not totally sure he said that because, it was on the internet.
In fact the ladies are way more qualified then teddy ever way..
amazing how Dems say the right has a ongoing war on women
but time and time again it’s the Dems that seem to excel at treating them like shit
Word.
not way but was Lol…
time for me to update my I-pad
They should be interred there. I have no idea why they wouldn’t be considered veterans just because the WAFS didn’t exist back then. The WAFS came out of the WASPS after WWII as part of the WAACs.
While you’re sorting that out, it may rain here in my kingdom.
send some our way it’s supposed to be about 104-105 here at the house today it makes it number three here Lol…
It’s a lovely 87 in beautiful downtown Naco
Quit freaking bragging. (smile)
Already raining in your AO. (Hint: I’m in the middle of a bunch of cornfields not far from you.)
And yes, their contributions and the risks they took certainly make them eligible to be buried at Arlington if they so choose.
I’ve seldom seen as much inept weather forecasting as I’ve been seeing lately. Which brings up the fact that these women flew those planes in all weather environments, because they HAD to get the planes and/or cargo delivered.
It takes some real chutzpah to do that.
I was unaware of this until now. They are veterans in my opinion and deserve this honor.
They actually were not veterans. An insignificant detail – they went through the same fight training, more often than not had more certificates than their male counterparts, and were required to fly those monsters into combat without armament. They more than earned our esteem, and should not have been treated so shabbily.
Had the privilege of knowing several of them. All I can say is they were awesome examples of American womanhood.
I stand corrected.
Not to worry – they are veterans in my mind as well. They were intentionally and carefully precluded from officially meeting the legal definition of veteran. Like the game of not allowing armaments so that they were not “in combat,” in spite of taking enemy fire because they were flying in combat zones.
Stupid. But, they did what they did in spite of all the obstacles.
As one of them shared with me years ago – they were ready, willing and able to fly those aircraft even though there were rules against them doing so.
Small correction – believe I read hat not one was lost due to enemy action, all who died did so in accidents, bad weather etc. One thing I am not clear on – my understanding was that their ashes have been eligible – continuously – to be interred at the Columbarium, it was only a full-body burial they did not have. That is essentially what every other non-combat vet has, I believe? Someone who knows the facts should chime in here.
Negative. Until 2002, WASPS were eligible for neither in-ground burial nor inurnment of ashes at Arlington. From 2002 to 2015, they were eligible for inurnment of ashes but were not eligible for burial. In 2015, the SECARMY ended inurnment eligibility for WASPS because allegedly “Federal law required it”. (FWIW: having read the portions of Federal law governing National Cemetery burials, I’m skeptical of the SECARMY’s claim. Best I can tell, the additional restrictions in place regarding Arlington burial vice other National Cemeteries are an Army creation and are regulatory in nature, not legal; I’ve not been able to find those additional restrictions pertaining to Arlington in Federal law anywhere. And if they’re Army administrative regulations vice Federal law, the SECARMY can authorize exceptions – particularly for those individuals whose service Congress had deemed qualifies them to be considered “wartime veterans”.)
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=63621
Published accounts indicate that the new law (assuming the POTUS signs it) only restored the right of WASPS for inurnment of ashes at Arlington. What I’d love to know is whether the new law also applies to members of the US Merchant Marine who served during World War II. Like WASPS, they were deemed veterans by law. However, they were also denied Arlington inurnment rights until 2002, and were also again denied that right in 2015 along with the WASPS. I’ve not seen anything published account that indicates whether this bill addresses those individuals, nor have I seen the actual text of the bill passed by Congress.
Well, if this is the text of the bill that was passed by Congress it looks like the World War II USMM vets are likely still screwed.
https://mcsally.house.gov/sites/mcsally.house.gov/files/WASP%20Air%20Act.pdf
Too bad Rep. McSally (or her staff) couldn’t have drafted a bill that actually righted the wrong for all instead of taking care of one group (WASPS) while ignoring the same wrong done to another group some 250x larger (wartime USMM sailors) altogether.
OWB: actually, since 1977 they have legally been declared veterans under Federal law. Congress mandated that their service be considered as active duty for VA benefits purposes in Public Law 95-202 (see Section 401 on page 17 of the following URL).
http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/95/202.pdf
A Federal court case in 1988 extended the same recognition to members of the US Merchant Marine who served during World War II, ruling that the SECAF had “abused his authority” in failing to find their service equivalent to that of the WASPS.
Thanks for the correction, Hondo. If I knew that (and should have, considering who I was hanging with at that time) apparently I forgot about it. Let’s hope that my memory is not equally defective in regards to the warm regards I have for the women who did that duty.
Clearly more proof that stupidity reigns in DC.
Long overdue. Unfortunately, I can’t blame the Army or the administration on this one. Previous law, while granting veterans benefits, did not grant them permission for internment in Arlington as the ladies were civilian employees and not “uniformed members of the armed forces”.
There should have been no doubt about allowing WASPs to be interred at Arlington – they did so much during WWI (along with the WAVES, SPARS, WACs). They answered the call, and put their lives on the line to support those that went in harm’s way.
McHugh was a freaking assclown for revoking their eligibility.
McHugh is the same no talent assclown who told Army Times, “My office has nothing to do with the QMP process at all. Nothing.”
But if you look at the QMP Directive 2014-06, it is signed by, one each, John McHugh, Sec Army.
So a shitweasle, lifelong politician, who never served a day gets to decide who is and who is not a veteran. He might think differently if he had ever flown a four engined heavy bomber thru icing condition over the north atlantic in winter. WASP’s did it and more than a few were lost.
Read this guy’s bio on wiki, he never had a job in the private economy. Never received a paycheck from a Non Government source.
Like I said, a shitweasel.
I await more descriptive names from some of our more talented members.
I’m embarrassed this is even a thing. How could these women not be qualified for burial at Arlington? If running out of space, take an abandoned military facility wherever and convert it to a beautiful, state-of-the-art cemetery. There are plenty of such places in close proximity to established towns/cities throughout the country. Gonna cost a boatload of money? Yep, it will. I’d like to think this nations’ veterans are worth the price. This should never have been a thing.
Reminds me of Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich who was killed in the helicopter crash that took the lives of the crew and spec ops Marines aboard. Initially denied burial at Arlington(because he was active duty for training, and I don’t believe he’d served on Federal orders), it was eventually approved. The phrase “We really need a Common Sense Officer around here” applies in both cases. Yea, ultimately sanity prevailed, but it kinda stinks to have to go through the goat rope.
The only thing about this that concerns me is the fact that not even my father was eligible to be buried at Arlington according to their rules. He enlisted in the AAF in July 42 and separated in 46. He reenlisted in 47 or 48 and retired in 66. Because he never received certain decorations, he was told he wasn’t eligible for Arlington at the time because they were running out of room. I’m told that rule has once again been changed but now the point is moot. We lost him last year and he is buried with my mom at Fort Custer who passed in 1989.
These ladies aren’t eligible for in-ground burial at Arlington, either – only the inurnment of their cremated ashes. All honorably discharged vets (last period of active duty other than for training) are eligible for that.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Funerals/Scheduling-a-Funeral/Establishing-Eligibility/Columbarium-or-Niche-Wall
Well, that’s now all vets except for the US Merchant Marine vets of World War II and other other groups from World War II deemed vets by Congress but who are not specifically covered by this latest legislation. They may well still be left “out in the cold”.
The primary restrictions for Arlington are for in-ground burials, and are given in the link which follows. As a military retiree, he should have been eligible.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Funerals/Scheduling-a-Funeral/Establishing-Eligibility/Ground-Burial
Back in the 1970’s, I don’t remember exactly when, I was told he wasn’t eligible because Arlington was quickly filling up. The reason I knew this was because one of my dad’s former coworkers and good friends of the family was buried there. He had been a B-17 gunner over Europe and had the decorations to be qualified to be there. It was pointed out to me that the current rules would have allowed him to be buried there but there was no point in it as he is now with my mom. Funny thing though, he was air/sea rescue in the Pacific theater flying on PBYs and told me several stories over the years about taking supplies to guerrillas in the occupied Philippines. He told me about six months before he died that he never had to kill anyone. I was pretty happy about that, but I know it was dangerous as hell. I guess I’m pretty lucky to have been born.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NXkWkCbCTcs/TPfP0Lozx3I/AAAAAAAABHI/3EYOYmozsYo/s1600/haney-velta.jpg
I don’t know if the photo will show up, or not, but this was Velta Benn. The WASP photo was dated Dec. 7. 1944. She was the Designated Pilot Examiner who granted my initial Instrument rating. She possessed significant command of an aircraft.
Such were the women who moved airplanes from factories to duty.
Thank you for sharing that, I love history!
One thing we can all agree on, is we owe a great debt of gratitude to everyone who has honorably and faithfully served, and just because the pompous asshats in DC are not familiar with those terms in no way lessens our respect for those who put our Country’s needs above their own. We thank them for their service, and offer a heartfelt apology for the disrespectful actions of the so-called leaders of our once-great Nation.
Slow Hand Salute.
And another kind of “salute” to Washington…
Long overdue. Should never have been a fight.
Glad it was finally decided in their favor.
CRAP! There goes the SHIT ALERT ALARM again on my anti communist alarm clock. You again, Lars!!!! The very one I promised I would ALWAYS remind other readers of you idiotic thoughts you wrote earlier on this very web site. You know, the times you stated, “People who are afraid of Communism are foolish”.
Fritch and others did it. Why can’t you come clean and admit on public record that your blithering was just that, and you had NO logical reason to utter such a remarkable insult? Do we have to beg you? Are you just that ego driven to never admit a mistake on your part?
You’ll NEVER get a pass for your remark. You don’t deserve one. Your opinion on this singular issue is offensive to every person who not only made sacrifices on the battle field, but saw friends killed and maimed. Apparently that is irrelevant to you.
Jarhead. Some people get all caught up in distinguishing between socialists and communists. I don’t, any more than I fret over the distinction among Titoists and Marxists, Stalinists, and Trotskyites. There was a time when I gave a shit, but then the semesters ended and I jettisoned my care. The fact is that the exercise is rather silly, reserved for political science professors and the adherents of one or another flavor of anti-capitalist bullshit. Theory is great but, as a practical matter, the enemy of both socialism and communism is capitalism. And that’s enough to lump the two together and despise them both.
Market socialism is a market economy. That is not complicated. A market economy is a capitalist market. The difference is it does not let the market control things the market is terrible at deciding. Like political questions such who we wage ware with or who our president and other elected leaders should be.
91% of all political campaigns are won by the person that spent the most money.
Our elected officials are bought in the marketplace.
And when we let our politics be driven by the market under our perversion of capitalism then capitalism becomes a threat to freedom and democracy itself.
It is also really bizarre that you would claim Americans should fight and die because of these words but you cannot be bothered with learning what they mean.
I stand by what I said. I absolutely 100% am a proponent of market socialism. Market socialism does not let money decide things the market is terrible at deciding. Like our elections.
I am not a communist. Market socialism has a MARKET ECONOMY. It is not communist.
Communism is a dying ideology. Communists are not a “threat” in the world and your irrational fear is ridiculous.
There are only only two communist nations left. Cuba and North Korea. Cuba is transitioning to a market economy right now. And the only reason North Korea has not collapsed is because of a black market economy that helps distribute goods and services that the communist economy fails to effectively distribute.
Vietnam has largely transitioned to a market economy. China already has. And Laos has began transitioning a decade ago.
And your perverse need to follow every one of my posts with a irrational rant about your childlike intellectually stunted and ignorant irrational fears is deranged.
And piss off for thinking I do to get a “pass” for what I said. I EARNED the right to believe what I believe. I served my country. I do not need you worthless permission or approval.
I consider our current perversion of capitalism not only be an existential threat to our democracy. It has already DESTROYED it. A recent Yale study proved empirically that the preferences of the American voter has had a statistically NEGLIGIBLE impact on our national policies for the last 30 years.
Our country is no longer functioning as a democracy. Our government is bought and sold in a market driven by financial incentives, many of them foreign financial influences, not the will of the American people.
And your idiotic and ignorant unwillingness to see how our capitalist system is a perversion of our democracy is part of the problem. YOU AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE WHY WE LOST OUR DEMOCRACY.
You absolutely disgust me.
All socialism involves slavery. ~ Herbert Spencer
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.~Winston Churchill
In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as “we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology”. The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point.~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since, as Swift says, it is futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into, we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a power-directed system of thought.~Roger Scruton
The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!~Ludwig Von Mises
Just a few examples of the thoughts of those who also understand that Lars is full of shit.
Yeah, but 68W58, the poodle is out of work, out of school and bored. That’s why he keeps showing up – to get some attention. Nothing else.
I love how lefties argue that, in response to our government being corrupted, we should give more power to our government?.
P.S. Lars “our Democracy” matters less to me than the Constitution. If “our democracy” decides it wants something counter to the Constitution, I know where my duty lies.
I suspect that Lars’s claims about his own military service are as reliable as anything else he says. He sure doesn’t seem to have taken the Oath to heart.
And the insults and obnoxious remarks will be the next things he throws out here.
No, Taylor, you’re probably not. In polite terms, you’re a “fellow traveler”. In more blunt but more accurate terms, often attributed to either Stalin or Lenin, you’re what’s called a “useful idiot”.
I can grudgingly respect a committed Communist who openly advocates communism – even while I work to destroy him. However, I have little or no respect for someone who is too damn stupid to see he has been hoodwinked into aiding those who would destroy freedom and enslave the world.
Hondo, don’t get him started. WE are not his therapy group, nor are WE his disenchanted groupies.
Nothing to fear from communism; no, of course not.
This is from a 2011 article about the atrocities foisted on the Vietnamese people by the Viet Cong government, much of which is still going on today.
‘An even more staggering claim of “through all this close to 3,800,000 Vietnamese lost their lives from political violence, or near one out of every ten men, women, and children. Of these, about 1,250,000, or near a third of those killed, were murdered” is made by R.J. Rummel at, Statistics Of
Vietnamese Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources.
Here’s another quote:
Compare that to their Communist counterparts: Red China’s GDP per capita is 70 spots lower than Taiwan’s, behind Turkmenistan, Algeria, Libya, the Maldives, and Iraq. North Korea is almost off the bottom of the scale, behind Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Haiti. In human-development terms, Red China is also 70 spots lower than Taiwan, behind Tunisia, Peru, Grenada, and Azerbaijan. North Korea’s human development is, for obvious reasons, impossible to calculate accurately. And compare the American-backed, free Asian republics to Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh’s paradise is 122nd in human development, behind Syria, Iraq, Moldova, and Gabon, and in 126th place in GDP per capita, behind the Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Dominica, and Albania. This is just the inevitable result of traditional Communist purges of land owners, teachers, and intellectuals.
Much more important than economics, look at their relative freedom. Taiwan and South Korea have free elections, independent judiciaries, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech. Neither the People’s Republic of China nor the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have any of these. Nor, of course, does Vietnam, whose Communist party continues to control “elections” and the courts, and continues to arrest and torture political and religious dissidents.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417468/if-south-vietnam-were-free-today-josh-gelernter
Note that the author says, in plain English, ‘continues to arrest and torture political and religious dissidents.’
Nothing to fear from communism, huh? Yeah, sure – and I have a seaside condo on Mars.
Cross-posted from the Conroy thread:
I challenge Lars to repeat that shit to my father-in-law. I’ll have the camera rolling as Lars gets his ass stomped flat by a quiet 61-year-old 5’5″ slim-statured southeast Asian gentleman with diabetes.
He fought the Cong, NVA, and Khmer Rouge. He got better at fighting after he received training from Americans. He killed communists to defend his hearth, home, and kin. In the end, it wasn’t enough, as the superpower helping him, his countrymen, and their neighbors to the north and east to resist the communists decided to abandon them.
The communists who took over sent him and his family to a “reeducation facility” (known internationally as the Killing Fields) as “enemies of the people,” not because he had fought against them, but because he’s half-Chinese and could read and write in two languages (Khmer and French). The communists made him watch while they gang-raped his wife. They made him watch when they shot his 4-year-old son in the back of the head. He eventually escaped with the help of a communist who got a little too careless and wound up a little too dead to need his AK anymore, broke his wife out, and made it across the Thai border, where my wife was born. A few months later, they got off a plane in San Diego, and stayed here ever since, becoming naturalized US citizens along the way.
Come on, Lars. Tell that man that he’s “foolish” to fear communists. You’ll survive, but only because he considers you not worth killing.
“Are you just that ego-driven to never admit a mistake on your part?”
Short answer: yes. Lars has repeatedly flaunted not only his stupidity and dishonesty, but also his pathological need to portray himself as infallible and the smarter than everybody else. The asswipe could be a fucking case study.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? The poodle keeps checking to see if anyone is paying attention to what he said, like the self-centered desperate slug that he is, and when no one has responded to what he said in more than 6 hours, he pokes – er, strikes again.
I wondered how long it would take. He is pathetically predictable, not only in his need for attention but in his blaming other people for answering him, with responses like this:
‘And your perverse need to follow every one of my posts with a irrational rant about your childlike intellectually stunted and ignorant irrational fears is deranged.’
How transparent can you get?!?
WHO is deranged, poodle?
And another respectable topic is destroyed by the troll. Too bad that so many play his stupid game. Oh, well. My scrolling finger needs to be exercised occasionally.