"Will we be soldiers, officially air women on equal wing with male pilots?" Barbara asked.
"No. Actually, since Washington doesn't want anyone to know about us, we'll have to pretend we're a women's basketball team!"
Barbara thought that was pretty unfair, besides silly. But she liked basketball. She'd play any army game she had to, to fly in the war any way they'd let her.
"Officially," Jackie explained, "we'll be civilians flying for the U.S. Air Force. No paid-for uniforms and for less pay than the men. We'll have to wait for Congress to make us 'soldiers,' if that boys' club ever does. It's not a perfect deal, but at least we'll finally be an organized unit and do our jobs flying in this war."
"Are you a WAF now?" Barbara asked.
"No, but if you can keep a little more alphabet soup in your head, I'm director of the WFTD. That's the new Women's Flying Training Detachment. A kind of second women's pilot program in the Air Transport Command.
"You see, military brass doesn't ever seem happy until it cuts things up into little pieces and gives them all pigeon holes and names and initials. So I'm director of flight training for the WFTD, for the huge salary of a dollar a year. Good thing my cosmetics business is still doing well and I'm married to a rich man."
After learning how she could join the WFTD, Barbara said she would need a little time to turn her new airport over to her partner. They agreed to talk again the next day. Before hanging up, Barbara remembered something.
"How about Leila? Can mothers join the WFTD?"
Jackie hesitated a moment. "I'd rather not take mothers, but definitely can't take blacks. Not that I'm prejudiced against them. But it's been discussed among the brass. They feel that there's enough static from male pilots that women will be doing their jobs in the war. Adding black women pilots would be too much for some of the fly boys to handle."
"Makes one wonder what we're fighting the war for," Barbara said.
"So far, we can't say it's for civil rights, much less women's rights," Jackie agreed. "But I'm afraid we can only fight one war at a time."
"Even though we're fighting two right now... in the Pacific and in Europe."
Only upon putting down the phone after talking to Jackie did Barbara realize she had been overheard. Leila had come into the office and heard Barbara's responses to Jackie's words.