A Great Day for America!

  

WASHINGTON -- A long-overlooked group of women who flew aircraft during World War II were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.

Known as Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, they were the first women to fly U.S. military planes.

About 200 of these women aviators, mostly in their late 80s and early 90s and some in wheelchairs, came to the Capitol to accept the medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress.

In thanking them for their service, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said these women pilots went unrecognized for too long.

"Women Air Force Service Pilots, we are all your daughters, you taught us how to fly," Pelosi said.

In accepting the award, WASP pilot Deanie Parrish said the women had volunteered to fly the planes without expectation that they would ever be thanked. Their mission was to fly noncombat missions to free up male pilots to fly overseas.

"Over 65 years ago we each served our country without any expectation of recognition or glory and we did it without compromising the values that we were taught growing up ... We did it because our country needed us," Parrish said.

Thirty-eight WASPS were killed in service. But they were long considered civilians, not members of the military, and thus were not entitled to the pay and benefits given to the men. When their unit was disbanded in 1944, many even had to pay their own bus fare home from their Avenger Field base in Sweetwater, Texas.

They were afforded veteran status in 1977 after a long fight.

It's estimated that about 300 WASP aviators are still alive.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., along with Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Susan Davis, D-Calif., led the push in Congress to get the women recognized.

The Congressional Gold Medal was awarded in 2000 to the Navajo Code Talkers and in 2006 to the Tuskegee Airmen.

(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Finally

Haitian Court Frees U.S. Missionary as Group's Leader Remains in Jail

Monday, March 08, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —  One of two Baptist missionaries still held on kidnapping charges in Haiti was released and flew to Miami on Monday, but the U.S. group's leader remained in custody.

Charisa Coulter, 24, was taken from her jail cell to the airport by U.S. Embassy staff more than a month after she and nine other Americans were arrested for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti after the earthquake.

Coulter, wearing a red tank top and sunglasses, declined comment as she quickly got into an SUV that took her to the Haitian airport, where she caught a flight back to the United States.

Coulter's father said his daughter arrived in Miami late Monday and went straight to a hotel.

Mel Coulter said her release brings a mix of joy and sorrow knowing that the leader of the Idaho-based missionary group, Laura Silsby, will be spending the night all alone in a Haitian jail.

"It is good news, but it's tempered," Coulter said. "We're really happy to have our daughter back on American soil. But Laura is still there. So this is really only completing part of the journey for the two of them. My daughter has left her best friend behind."

Silsby, 40, said she was glad about Coulter's release.

"I'm very happy that she left today, and for her freedom, and expect mine to come soon," Silsby told The Associated Press as she left the courthouse where a judge held a closed hearing Monday. She was returned to her cell in a police station near Port-au-Prince airport.

Defense lawyer Louis Ricardo Chachoute said Coulter was released because there was no evidence to support the charges of kidnapping and criminal association. He predicted Silsby would be released soon as well.

"There are no prosecution witnesses to substantiate anything," Chachoute said.

Coulter, of Boise, is a diabetic and had medical difficulties during her confinement. She was treated at least once, on Feb. 1, by American doctors after collapsing with what she said was either severe dehydration or the flu.

fter a court hearing Monday for Silsby, Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said he heard evidence from a police officer who said he stopped Silsby from loading a bus with children near the Dominican Republic consulate in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. That was three days before her group was arrested while trying to cross into the Dominican Republic with 33 children.

"I found inconsistencies in some of Laura's statements," Saint-Vil told reporters, saying he planned to visit the Dominican consulate to resolve them.

The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, has said previously that he warned Silsby she lacked the required papers to leave the country with the children and risked being arrested at the border for child trafficking.

The Americans' arrest came as Haitian authorities were trying to crack down on unauthorized adoptions to prevent child trafficking in the chaos following the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake.

Silsby initially said the children were orphaned in the quake that the government said has killed more than 230,000 people. But the AP found the children had been given away by still-living parents.

Chachoute said the Americans only came to Haiti to help the country. "Firstly, there was no criminal conspiracy; secondly, there was no child snatching," he said.

The Baptist group planned to take the children to the neighboring Dominican Republic to an orphanage that Silsby was creating in a former hotel.

The judge released eight of the Americans on Feb. 17 after concluding parents voluntarily gave up their children in the belief that the Baptist group would give them a better life. But he decided he still had additional questions for Silsby and Coulter.

What Do You Think??

Obama lays out 'roadmap' to restore Gulf Coast

By CAIN BURDEAU
ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 4, 2010, 7:09PM

NEW ORLEANS — The Obama administration on Thursday laid out a plan to deal with the catastrophic dangers of rising sea levels, hurricanes and erosion on the Gulf Coast, and backed efforts to invest in restoring barriers islands and wetlands in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Experts hailed the policy document as the strongest sign of support for coastal restoration on the Gulf Coast ever endorsed by a White House.

"It's a terrifically important document if it's followed through on," said Mark Davis, director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane University in New Orleans.

The document, called a "roadmap" for the coast, said the nation's energy supply, crucial ports and waterways, vital habitat for fish and wildlife and the Gulf Coast's "rich cultural legacy" were at stake.

"Unless we stem the rapid rate of ecosystem loss in the region, the ecosystems and the services they provide will collapse," the document said.

At risk, the paper said, was "not only the economies of Louisiana and Mississippi, but also the economy of the nation as a whole."

Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife at the Department of the Interior, said the White House understands the problems on the Gulf Coast.

"Finally, this issue has received the highest priority with a White House and a president that has said we are going to take charge of this," Strickland said. He is one of several high-level Obama officials who crafted the document as part of a working group looking at the Gulf Coast's unique problems.

Already, there are several multimillion-dollar programs to stem land loss in Louisiana, but they have been unable to keep up with erosion.

Since the 1930s, the Mississippi River delta has been slowly falling apart and eroding due to levee construction, oil drilling hurricane damage and other factors. Louisiana has lost about 2,100 square miles of coast and loses about 25 square miles a year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

With sea levels on the rise due to global warming, experts warn that much of south Louisiana and Mississippi are at risk of being lost for good.

The administration said it would work with state officials to develop long-term solutions to pay for the massive multibillion-dollar ecosystem restoration project, which would be one of the largest ever undertaken.

Cutting the red tape

Over the next 18 months, the administration said, it would cut through red tape, finish critical reports looking at what can and cannot be saved, fill in data gaps to gain a complete scientific understanding of the problem and do a better job of using Mississippi River sediment, most of which washes out to the Gulf of Mexico.

The sediment in the river is important because scientists say it can be diverted into sections of the coast that have been cut off from the Mississippi. The Mississippi's mud built the Louisiana delta over the past 7,000 years but the delta began falling apart after levees were erected.

The report also said it was vital to protect Mississippi's barrier islands and coastal wetlands because they "served to absorb or reduce some of the impacts from coastal storms." Last year, Congress appropriated $439 million for barrier island restoration and other ecosystem repair work on the Mississippi coast.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the report "clearly demonstrates a positive shift in direction, but must be coupled with aggressive action on the ground — turning dirt. There is no time for delay."

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., praised the Obama plan as carrying out an "integrated, comprehensive approach that accelerates our work in coastal Louisiana and builds a true partnership with the state."

Still, there were questions about the administration's approach, which advocated that restoration of the delta was possible. There are scientists who believe policymakers need to emphasize relocating towns and communities and stop beachfront development because of sea level rise.

"The science is clear that ecosystem restoration — at the level that will be possible — will provide limited storm protection to infrastructure and communities," said Rob S. Young, a coastal geologist and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.

Davis, the Tulane professor, said the White House's document left many questions unanswered about how the restoration work would get done and with what money.