​May 14, 1942.  The hard-fought battle to create the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was over.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the legislation the following day, and the race was on.   But how would the pioneers find a way through the maze of a new phenomenon? 
  
Exemplary performance, of course. 
 
And the power of persuasion.   To persuade women to volunteer, to persuade families and friends to accept the wishes of their loved ones, and to persuade the American public to support women in uniform.  

​The WAAC chose patriotism as their major recruiting theme.  

​And that was enough at first. 

​1943.  How come it took so long?
 
After all, hadn’t women

• practiced home defense on the frontier since Colonial days, provided civilian laundry, cooking, sewing, and nursing services to the U.S. Army since the American Revolution, and enlisted legally with full military rank & status in the Navy & the Marines during World War I?

 
Moreover, didn’t Congress establish

• the Army Nurse Corps in 1901, and the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in May 1942? 

 
​And what about

• the “Hello Girls” of World War I -- 223 telephone operators who were bilingual in English and French and who--at the request of General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing--were sent to France;
• the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) -- 1,102 civilian women pilots during World War II who thought they, like the women of the WAAC, would eventually be granted full military status in the Army;
• and the--