The ceremony was held to honor the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) of WWII. And when the war was winding down, the WASPs were dismissed and their jobs were given back to male military pilots.
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But Harmon’s family fought the new ruling after she died a year ago at the age of 95.
The women, who test-flew repaired military aircraft, trained combat pilots and towed airborne targets that other pilots fired at with live ammunition, received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009, but the campaign to get them into Arlington exposed even more people to WASPs’ role in history.
In fact, 38 WASPs died serving their country. At first not considered fully-fledged members of the U.S. military, they were granted the status of veterans for the first time only in 1977. She flew the AT-6 Texan, the PT-17 and BT-13 trainers, and co-piloted the B-17 Flying Fortress.
The legislation was sponsored by Congresswoman Martha McSally of Arizona, herself a retired Air Force pilot, and Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa.
“While certainly worthy of recognition, [the WASP service] does not, in itself, reach the level of active duty service required” said the site, claiming the eligibility criteria were “more stringent, due to space limitations”.
It was decades before the women were retroactively granted military status. Congress recognized the group as such in 1977, opening up veteran benefits for the living members of the group.
In May, President Barack Obama signed legislation allowing WASPs in Arlington.
After Harmon saw the first such funeral, The Washington Post reports, she knew that’s what she wanted. That was until previous year, when the Army chose to make WASPs ineligible for Arlington, citing dwindling available space and saying that WASPs shouldn’t have been included in the first place, WRC reported.
It is hard to be granted in-ground burial at Arlington because of space limitations, but ashes and above-ground inurnment is easier. “But eligibility for placement of ashes, or above-ground inurnment, is not quite as strict”.
“This says something about how strongly the women of America, and, thank God, an terrible lot of the men, understand what these women did in the war”, says Rickman. “But look, when we are totally out of space. why would we not want to have the story of the WASPs as part of that legacy?”
Since then WASPs were able to be inurned at Arlington. A post from January 5 of that year on the cemetery’s website explained that move was due to an increasing lack of space in the cemetery, as the Monitor reported in May.
The family began circulating a petition on change.org – which ultimately gathered more than 170,000 signatures – and making visits to Capitol Hill.
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On Wednesday, Harmon’s ashes will be inurned at a funeral service with military honors. “In a way, we’ve already grieved, and this now is about closure”.
