The Opinion of Karen and Tom Lantz
Forget the new-ish Christmas carol. Grandma flew her chopper by a (rein)deer. No wonder the late Texas Governor Ann Richards liked to cackle, “The rooster struts around and crows, but it’s the hen that delivers the goods!”
Betty Haas Pfister delivered the goods: warplanes, in World War II. Congressman Sam Farr helped award her and 1,073 other WASPs – Women Airforce Service Pilots – the Congressional Gold Medal. Betty was Rosie the Riveter, with wings.
To free male pilots for combat, WASPs flew warplanes for delivery to war zones. They trained some male pilots. (Tragically, during Betty’s flight training, her Navy pilot brother died in action.) WASPs also towed targets for antiaircraft-gun practice. Thirty-eight died.
In 1944, with the war going well, the Army brass chivalrously disbanded the WASPS – during the almost-game-changing Battle of the Bulge.
Meanwhile, Augusta Chiwy delivered the goods during the Battle of the Bulge. On this anniversary of that weeks-long wintry bloodbath, Ambassador Howard Gutman awarded our Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service to the tiny African-Belgian nurse. Augusta hop-scotched between sniper-bullets to drag wounded soldiers out of the snow in the besieged crossroads town of Bastogne.
After the fascists’ surprise attack, she teamed with the surrounded town’s only doctor to nurse our Army’s 101st Airborne Division. The lightly-armed 101st heroically dammed the tsunami of Panzer tanks dissecting and threatening to surround the Allied lines, and knifing toward the Belgian port of Antwerp, our lifeblood-supply artery. Augusta saved the lives of hundreds of wounded GIs.
A Christmas-Hanukkah miracle helped turn the tide: the shroud of clouds lifted and P-47 Thunderbolts flashed down from the sky – among other fighters, bombers and supply planes, until General George S. Patton’s tanks could thunder into Bastogne from France. (We frankly don’t know if Patton was the first American to say, “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium.”)
That punctured the week-long encirclement, and helped trump fascism’s last desperate gamble of the war. Patton pinned a Bronze Star on his hard-praying chaplain.
But a bomb blew up Augusta’s hospital: a horseback-riding academy. (Please, no remarks about the equine excrement nurses put up with.) She was missing in action, presumed dead. After 67 years of continuing reports of a black angel at that critical road junction, Augusta rose from the dead to collect her medal.
Betty became the first stewardess with over 1,000 hours of pilot’s flight time. (Remember the disaster-film spoof, “Airplan?” She wouldn’t have had to inflate that “automatic pilot” to deliver the goods.) She bought a $750 Army surplus P-39 fighter. In 1950 and 1952, she won the yearly All Women’s International Air Race. You may have seen her famously-“racy” (for its time) photo in her pilot’s jump-suit.
Betty moved from New York to Aspen, Colo., where she flew gliders and balloons. A grandmother of five, she organized the county Air Rescue Group, and flew helicopters on numerous Rocky Mountain rescue missions.
Our parents were examples of Betty and Augusta’s Greatest Generation. Mom had 72 hours to orchestrate their “for the duration” wedding, before she and Dad shipped out. Dad could tell us what grades he got in Navy officer’s training at Harvard, he said – but then, as the old joke went, he’d have to kill us.
So, forgive our misquoting the Christmas angel, “Peace on Earth – (there’s a first time for everything) – and goodwill to men (and women and kids).” And when 48 percent of Americans live in or near poverty, to paraphrase the Army commercial, please “Be all that you can be, ‘cause we need you (however you can serve.)”
For example, Assemblyman Luis Alejo grew up picking strawberries. But U.C. and Harvard lent him better tools to work hard and effectively, to help make the American Dream a reality. Sadly, the American Dream’s not the American Way any more: just 17 percent of poor kids get the tools to reach the middle class.
Why should we take that lying down, and “follow politics” as though it’s just a spectator sport? Like Assemblyman Alejo, why not run the extra mile, become the next Greatest Generation to combat evil, and make American politics follow us for a change?
Finally, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah and Happy (Solar) New Year. And, for our Buddhist amigos, Happy Lunar New Year: “Gung hay fat choy!” Happy Kwanzaa. Have a blessed Ramadan in 2012. And Happy Winter Solstice to all you practicing Druids out there.
And, speaking of American fighters: to take liberties with the new-ish Christmas ballad, don’t get run over by a jump-suited Grandma (in a P-39). Betty passed away in Aspen last month at the age of 90. But, if we know Betty, Grandma’s already testing out her new wings.
Because one of these years, a 93-year-old little black angel will want a ride home for Christmas. And Betty’s just the one to deliver the goods.
Karen and Tom Lantz
Hollister
