Flygirl

After Ida says goodbye to Lily, she goes to a bar to get “enough warm bodies around [her]to not feel quite so alone” (254). At the bar, she runs into Audrey Hill and Randy, two women from her original training base in Texas. The women are celebrating; they’ve just heard that the Allies stormed Normandy and are hopeful that the war will be over soon. Ida tells them that she is going to officers’ training in Florida, but Audrey and Randy tell her that that’s just for show, the government has no intention of having WASP militarized. Besides, when the war is over, there will be no more need for WASP. Audrey and Randy ask Ida why she became a WASP in the first place, and Ida says that her country needed her. Audrey asks her: “Really? Did the army ask for you? Did President Roosevelt send you a letter requesting your help?” (258). Finally, Ida admits the truth:“It beat sitting at home collecting silk stockings while my big brother was getting shot to bits in the Philippines” (258). Audrey and Randy joke that they all became WASP for men in one way or another; Randy joined because her father always wished she was a son, and Audrey joined because her ex-fiancé didn’t believe she could do it.