On Sunday morning I happened upon CBS’ “Sunday Morning”. The topic was the 60th anniversary of D-Day. The subject of their tribute? That unsung hero of WWII, the American woman.
Yes, on the 60th anniversary of the greatest amphibious assault in human history, which saw more than 10,000 men killed, injured or captured, “Sunday Morning” chose to profile women who served on the homefront.
With interviews and voiceovers, “Sunday Morning” portrayed the women as the true heroes of the day, and the war. The show also portrayed men as having hated the newly influential role women were playing. The narrator ominously referred to “mysterious” deaths of WASP pilots and proclaimed that suspicion rested upon disgruntled men who simply must have MURDERED these heroic women because they couldn’t accept that they were stepping out of the kitchens and into roles of prominence and influence. Here is that segment:
Some men resented women coming into the workforce. Harassment was not uncommon, but it was rarely reported. Sometimes the resentment could have been deadly. In WASP, for example, some women had suspicious accidents. It’s uncertain how many involved foul play, because most incidents were not investigated — for fear that the WASP program would be disbanded.
“In my own class, there were two girls and an instructor that went up in a twin-engine plane. And they crashed and were all killed,” recollects Goodman. “They never found out why.”
Just shocking.
My two-year-old son had the last word, though. When the producers did condescend to show stock footage of U.S. troops marching off to war, he pointed to the TV and said, “Men!” The lad knows what’s what, which is more than can be said for the show’s producers.
