Cynthia Cartier - Wings

“What’d your mom tell you?”

“She just said she’s sorry for us if we’re sad that he’s gone. She tried to say more, but couldn’t.”

“Well, honey, people do things sometimes they think will make them happy and they hurt other people in the process. You’re dad made choices that were about him. They had nothing to do with you, or Tommy, or your mom.”

“Does it work, those things people sometimes do to be happy?”

“Not usually.”

“Do you think my dad is happy?”

“I don’t know. But I can tell you this, someday you’ll understand it all. It won’t make it easier, though. I just want you to remember that life is good and bad. If you leave the bad alone and keep the good in your heart, you’ll be happy.” Liddy tickled Bonnie’s side and kissed the top of her head. “Think Tommy and your mom have that ice cream churned up?”

“If they do, it’s probably gone.”

“Tommy likes ice cream?”

“Yes, but not like my mom.”

Liddy grabbed Bonnie’s hand and pulled her off the swing. “Let’s stop them before it’s too late.” And they walked into the house.

The weeks of training went by quicker than Liddy was expecting they would, and she was really comfortable and happy to be herself. Exchanging letters with Reid filled her with all kinds of excitement and anticipation. His letters came more and more often and were sometimes pages long and other times quick notes—she could hear his exhaustion in those. Without having to ask all of the questions that lined up in her mind, he answered many of them.

Liddy answered every letter as soon as she could sit and put pen to paper or she started writing in her head, while she was flying. With each letter, she wrote more of the things she’d wished she’d had the nerve to have written in her first letter to Reid, beginning with how glad she was that he chased the cattle car down and that she regretted sending him that sorry first note.

Reid wrote back and teased her that he had laughed out loud, which she believed he really did, when he read it because it wasn’t very bold for an HP like herself. Liddy felt her face flush and redden when she read that, He’s right—it wasn’t , she knew that.

Liddy was glad he didn’t give her a break on that one so they could joke about it, and she wrote back to him, Hey, guy, I said I regretted that first letter. Give a girl a break would ya’? You made me go all red-faced that you thought I had written something so… Not very bold.

Liddy knew he would enjoy the fact that he could make her blush from thousands of miles away. ‘My courage has never been that great, about some things, when my feet are on the ground, but I think you intend to make me all over brave, don’t you?’

They wrote about good things. Liddy didn’t tell him how much she had ached for him when they were at Avenger, and now even more that he was where he was, doing what he had to do. She would someday, but now he needed to hear just good things, to feel good things.

Every letter, both his and hers, had something about Reid’s leave in the spring. Liddy couldn’t wait for that day when she would spend time with him. What would it be like? What would they do? The two of them together, it would be a date wouldn’t it? How strange .

When Liddy graduated from pursuit school, she joined the other WASPs, including Jenna Law-Charles, where they both would serve from New Castle Army base in Delaware. Liddy was suited up for her first hours of paid civilian flying for the Army, and she entered the ready room to check in for her first flight assignment.

Some of the women were reviewing maps while others napped, using their parachute packs for pillows. When Jenna saw her, she hopped up from the floor and crossed the room to greet Liddy, “Glad to see you made it, Hall.”

“Was there any doubt?”

“Didn’t hear about one run-in with you and the powers that be in Palm Springs. Are you losing your edge?”

“Never!”

An assignment officer entered and addressed the WASPs, “Listen up, these planes need to be received by 1900 hours to catch a carrier going overseas. This is a very long flight. For those of you who’ve just come in, it’s highly recommended that you limit your fluid intake. You will have only one refueling stop, each way, so unless you have figured out how to use the tube, I suggest you take this matter seriously. Have a safe trip.”

This would be the longest flight Liddy had ever flown, and the newest plane with the exception of Jerry Bluff’s Fairchild back home. She spun Jack’s watch in her palm before she shoved it deep in her pants pocket, as a rush of adrenaline ran through her and she immediately had to pee.

The day she ferried her first Mustang was one that would stick with Liddy for good, and she couldn’t wait to tell Crik about it. She didn’t write much to Reid about her flying. Her excitement over ferrying fighters seemed so trivial to Reid’s experiences in the same planes. So she wrote about what she saw when she was up and who she met or visited with on the way.

In a cargo plane, the women were taken to the North American factory in Columbus.

P-51 Mustangs were picked-up and Liddy couldn’t get over how Jenna and the other gals were so cool about the ships. Strapped in for the twenty-four hundred mile flight to Travis Air Force Base in San Francisco, the women took off like they were the queens of the air.

The temperatures rose and fell as they crossed the country, but the sky was clear and it was as though the heavens had laid out a carpet for Liddy. As the ferry formation flew over the Rocky Mountains, she marveled at the mass of the range. It was covered with snow, but the granite broke through here and there and it was all set against an icicle-blue sky. Liddy had never seen a landscape that held such power.

She was startled when she heard Jenna’s voice over the radio, “Hey, WASP Liddy Hall, wait for us would ya’?”

Liddy hadn’t realized she had tapped-in and gotten ahead of the others. “Oh, boy, sorry. Guess I’m just a little bit jazzed. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes it is.” Jenna smiled at the delight in Liddy’s voice. “Enjoy the view, but let’s keep it tight up here.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Liddy teased.

When the WASP arrived at their refuel, they exploded from the cockpits as soon as the planes rolled to a stop and made a mad dash toward the buildings.

Two enlisted men watched the scene and one of them asked the other, “Where’s the fire?”

Every day that followed was a series of transports, pick-ups and deliveries. Flying as a WASP in the military was like being a pioneer in a new land. Liddy knew what they were doing was important for the war, but it was also important for the country and all her American sisters. The war was tearing away at the boundaries that had kept women and minorities from living bigger than the culture had been comfortable with.

Women were working in ever-increasing numbers, doing factory work that was oftentimes dirty and dangerous. Old ways were being tested and the results couldn’t be denied. Women were capable and it was now on the record. Whatever happened after the war, steps had been taken forward. Still, constantly on the minds of those in the march was the lingering hope that the steps forward would not be taken backwards in the future.

Beat-up Warhawks were delivered by the WASPs to Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. Liddy hopped down from the pit and reflected on the times she was living in. As she walked across the TAAF, she looked into the faces of some of the first black men who would fly for the Army. The men looked at the WASPs, and the trailblazers acknowledged one another with a nod and a smile.