{"id":82776,"date":"2018-11-10T11:05:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T15:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=82776"},"modified":"2018-11-10T10:54:06","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T14:54:06","slug":"better-late-than-never-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=82776","title":{"rendered":"Better Late Than Never"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"trb_ar_h\">\n<div class=\"trb_ar_hl\">\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-70451 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Sky-over-Sedge-Meadow-pond-Aug-13-2016-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"359\" height=\"269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Sky-over-Sedge-Meadow-pond-Aug-13-2016-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Sky-over-Sedge-Meadow-pond-Aug-13-2016-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Sky-over-Sedge-Meadow-pond-Aug-13-2016-444x333.jpg 444w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Sky-over-Sedge-Meadow-pond-Aug-13-2016-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 359px) 100vw, 359px\" \/><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"trb_ar_hl_t\">&#8216;A go-getter and a pioneer&#8217;: Waukegan woman who served as World War II pilot awarded posthumously for her service<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_main\">\n<div class=\"trb_ar_la\">\n<aside class=\"trb_em trb_embed\">\n<div class=\"trb_em_m\">\n<div class=\"trb_em_r\">\n<div class=\"trb_em_r_cc\"><span class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_au\" style=\"line-height: 1.5\"><a class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_au_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/chi-yadira-sanchez-olson-staff.html#nt=byline\">Yadira Sanchez Olson<\/a><\/span><a class=\"trb_ar_by_cl\" style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"mailto:yasanchez@tribpub.com?subject=Regarding:%20%27%27A%20go-getter%20and%20a%20pioneer%27:%20Waukegan%20woman%20who%20served%20as%20World%20War%20II%20pilot%20awarded%20posthumously%20for%20her%20service%27\">Contact Reporter<\/a><span class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_pb\" style=\"line-height: 1.5\">\u00a0Lake County News-Sun<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There&#8217;s a photo of Ms. Christensen at this link: \u00a0<a style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/suburbs\/lake-county-news-sun\/news\/ct-lns-waukegan-wasp-honored-st-1110-story.html#nt=oft13a-1gp1\">https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/suburbs\/lake-county-news-sun\/news\/ct-lns-waukegan-wasp-honored-st-1110-story.html#nt=oft13a-1gp1<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Janice Charlotte Christensen of Waukegan died on April 26, 1965, without a veteran&#8217;s recognition for her World War II service in the Women Airforce Service Pilots.<\/p>\n<p>Known as WASPs for short, the more than 1,800 civilian volunteer young women flew almost every type of military aircraft as part of the experimental program that lasted two years.<\/p>\n<p>Near her grave at the North Shore Garden of Memories cemetery in North Chicago on Friday, Capt. Christensen was honored by U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider in a ceremony that formally recognized her status as a World War II veteran.<\/p>\n<p>Schneider offered words of appreciation for the woman who learned how to fly at what is now Waukegan National Airport when she was 29, then helped establish the Waukegan Civil Air Patrol Squadron in 1942 and was accepted as a WASP in 1943.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_ar_sponsoredmod\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThey were the elite and helped the war effort. They were brave,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n<p>Though it was unavailable to be affixed Friday due to the morning\u2019s wintry weather, a WASP medallion from the Department of Veterans Affairs will be permanently placed on Christensen&#8217;s grave at the North Chicago cemetery soon so the public can pay their respects properly, Schneider said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that Janice and WASP like her were denied veteran status after their service \u2014 a mistake not corrected for more than 30 years,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cBut it is truly inspiring to me, and to everyone here, that our community has come together today to pay our respect to her and all the other WASP (personnel).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until 2009 that veterans in the WASP program were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_ar_sponsoredmod\"><\/aside>\n<p>Christensen never got to see her service recognized, but her relatives said she would have been pleased with Friday\u2019s ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were proud that my sister Janice joined the WASP (program). Her job was to take planes from where they were manufactured to where they were needed,\u201d said Dagmar Joyce Noll, Christensen\u2019s sole surviving sibling. \u201cShe knew that what she was doing was helping to win and end WWll.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the story is at the link.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Janice Christiansens is probably not the only WWII WASP pilot who has been overlooked. \u00a0I think ChipNASA could probably supply us with a directional link to a roster of them. If you have a relative whose efforts went unrecognized please speak up.<\/p>\n<p>They flew in all weather, under all conditions, to get the job done, and because they loved to fly, like their counterparts, the British transport pilots who ferried all planes of all kinds in all weathers from factories to air bases in England. \u00a0They all faced great hazards that would probably ground a lot of current pilots, and did the job they were hired to do because they loved to fly.<\/p>\n<p>It was not a hazard-free job, either. Some of these transport pilots died doing that job. So let&#8217;s give them a nod and lift a glass to all the air transport pilots, women and men both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;A go-getter and a pioneer&#8217;: Waukegan woman who served as World War II pilot awarded posthumously &hellip; <a title=\"Better Late Than Never\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=82776\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Better Late Than Never<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,226,121,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-veterans-in-the-news","category-war-stories","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}