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Profile In Courage
Sweet Virginia
Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Doing The Whirly-Jig
"I Do Have To Watch Out For My Complexion, Though"
Sexist Beer Ad Gets The Boot • "To Kill a Mockingbird" Named Most Inspirational Book
Despite Rough Childhood, Very Hungry Author Is Now Very Happy
Vogue Model/Photographer/Muse Suspected Of Spying In Wartime
Badass British Broad Led Thousands Of French Fighters To Glory

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Highsmith
09/24/09

In reply to Profile In Courage
Mon dieu! Here's another most amazing woman you've never heard of

[www.amazon.com]
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superjoop
06/08/09

In reply to Sweet Virginia
I was in the Peace Corps with an older Polish man who was a real character - an amazing musician who had attended the Viennese conservatory and kind of a dirty old man. Anyway, he used to tell all sorts of crazy stories about himself but he never talked about the war. Then one evening during a weekend training meeting we were all watching "Shining Through" (I know - terrible movie, but our choices were limited) and someone said that the SS uniforms looked stupid and he said that actually they were very accurate. He then volunteered that he was a member of the Polish resistance whose job was, along with three others, to prisoners out of SS and Gestapo custody!! Well none of us took him too seriously because like I said, he was sort of a character. Fast forward 12 years - he passes away and in his obit it confirms the story saying he had been responsible for breaking literally hundreds of people out of Nazi custody.

So it just goes to show you that being a dirty old man doesn't preclude you from being a hero. I'm sorry I doubted him.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
06/08/09

@superjoop: my great-grandparents were part of the danish resistance. anyone that resisted and helped others was very brave.

there is a book called number the stars (by lois lowery i think) that is really similar to how my grandma (momor)grew up and remembered the war.
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kapoosta
06/08/09

In reply to Sweet Virginia
I wish I knew more stories like this. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. Growing up, I only thought of them as heroes. They had no choice but to survive, though. It took me a while to start to understand the impact people like Ms. Lake had. Without them, my grandfather would have bled to death in a ditch he dug himself. People risked their lives and their children's lives to save strangers. Without them, I never would have been born. Thinking about the goodness of people like this brings tears to my eyes, as sappy as that is.
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Wibbles
06/08/09

In reply to Sweet Virginia
Women like this women is why when my Holocaust Denier Co-Worker says that only 1,000 Jews (and only Jews) or less visited the Camps.

Do the words Nacht und Nebel (amongst other things) mean anything to this man?
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AuntieEm (robots from the year 2000 > zombies)
06/08/09

@Wibbles: people who deny it happened blow my mind. how can they possibly not believe it happened?!?!?

My grandfather helped liberate Dachau. While he was there he wrote a letter to his parents about the horrors he saw there. (boxcars full of naked bodies so starved that their thighs were the width of his wrist)the letter was published in the local paper. a few years ago a student at a local high school used the letter in a project and it got published on the internet. I tried to find it the other day and found a link to my grandfather's letter being used on a website doubting that the holocaust even happened. they published the letter and then after it wrote something about "did this even happen? who told this Sgt. to write this? is this even a real person?" It made me sick to see.
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NefariousNewt
06/08/09

In reply to Sweet Virginia
Not everyone who fought for liberation in WWII wore fatigues or carried a rifle. She deserves our respect, admiration, and the thanks of a grateful nation.
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curiousgeorgiana
06/08/09

In reply to Sweet Virginia
What a great story. My great-aunt and uncle were in Poland during the Nazi invasion and managed to help around 20 Jews escape before they were captured and sent to Buchenwald (where my uncle died). The courage of people like Ms. Lake amazes me. I don't think I would have had her strength.
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kapoosta
06/08/09

@curiousgeorgiana: I want to say thank you to your great-aunt and uncle. If they were in Ukraine, my grandfather may have been one of those Jews.
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picardia
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Another book interested people might check out is FLYGIRL by Sherri Smith. A novel about a black woman in segregated Louisiana who makes the huge decision to pass for white and fly for the WASPs -- it's wonderful reading about both the complicated racial issues involved and this woman's gung-ho love of flying.
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Little Green Frog (Wise Latina)
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
I would not use Amelia Earhart in "Night at the Museum 2" as a compliment. I saw the move Sunday and I cringed every single moment of it. The perkiness, the "moxie", the over and over kissing of Ben Stiller. Ugh. Miss Earhart would NOT be proud.
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Majrhoulihan
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Oddly enough, I think you have to be taller than 5'1 now in order to be a military pilot (I think it's 5'4?).
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bowleserised
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
I've raved about a book called Spitfire Women, which tells the story of many of these women, and others, before. Diana Barnato Walker, for one.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

I hate it when people tell me Katie Price is an icon for women just because "she's a business woman". I think of these women instead.
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Flackette Goes Retro
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
If anyone wants to know more about women in WW II (in the services and at home) I recommend "Our Mothers' War" by Emily Yellin. She talks about all groups, even the prostitutes who were used then given shit by the government. (I'm in no way affiliated with this book - I just like it).
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NefariousNewt
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
I heard about this over the weekend, and all I can say is: long overdue. W.A.S.P.s were indispensable in freeing up male pilots for front-line combat positions. They filled so many different roles from ferrying planes from the factory to testing new models. Frankly, some of them would have made damned good front-line combat pilots themselves, if the military had been made more progressive.
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NefariousNewt
05/26/09

@NefariousNewt: And on a side note, Jackie Cochran pushed to have female pilots considered for the Mercury program alongside mail pilots, and came up with a list of 13 candidates, but the idea was quashed at the highest levels. Lyn Sherr, I think it was, wrote a book on it.
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Ratinski
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Whenever someone is referred to as being WASPy, I wish this is what was meant by it. These women were and continue to be incredible.
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sympathyforthebasementcat
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Fly like a butterfly, sting like a WASP.
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CurtCole
05/26/09

In reply to Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality
Finally, a legitimate reason to not hate Kay Bailey Hutchison. Thanks, Jeze.
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