08/21/2026
Women in Military
They had waited decades for their country to recognize what they had done -- and it took a special kind of leader to finally give them their due.
In 2009, President Barack Obama signed S.614 into law, awarding the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's highest honors, to the trailblazing women of the WASP -- the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who flew military aircraft for the United States during World War II, ferrying planes, towing targets for live-fire training, and testing repaired aircraft so that male pilots could be freed for combat.
It was dangerous work, and thirty-eight of them died doing it -- in service to a country that, for years afterward, would not formally call them veterans at all. Not until 1977 did President Jimmy Carter sign the legislation recognizing their military service. The Gold Medal came more than thirty years after that, enacted as Public Law 111-40 -- the nation, through the signature of a president determined to set things right, finally saying what these women had earned.
When President Obama signed the bill into law in the Oval Office, a handful of the surviving pilots -- women then in their late eighties and beyond -- were there to see it done. Others would gather the following spring at the U.S. Capitol, more than two hundred strong, many in the World War II uniforms they had flown in, to receive the medal itself.
At last, America saw the faces of the women who had answered its call -- honored not as an afterthought, but by a president who understood that a nation reveals itself in whom it chooses to remember. Most of the women who earned that medal did not live to receive it. But those who did lived to hear their country finally call them what they had always been: veterans who had served their country, and been willing to die, for it.
To share the incredible story of these heroic women with a new generation, "Fly Girls" tells the true tale of the WASP for readers ages 10 and up, available at https://www.amightygirl.com/fly-girls-women-pilots
There is also an inspiring picture book about Nancy Love, the founder of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, "Love Is in the Air" for ages 5 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/love-is-in-the-air
For an excellent book for adult readers about the women of WASP, we recommend "The Women with Silver Wings" at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-women-with-silver-wings
There is also a bestselling historical fiction novel for adults telling the story of a young WASP pilot: "The Flight Girls" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780778369226 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/2EQPQzY (Amazon)
For more books for young readers that honor the service of women in the military, visit our blog post "The Price of Peace: A Mighty Girl Recognizes Veterans" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12356
