Gen. Wilma Vaught worked the crowd at the American Legion`s 74th annual national convention with the skill of a politician.
But Vaught, a retired Air Force brigadier general, was not looking for votes. She wants money and recognition, and not for herself.
Vaught is president of the Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation, a Washington-based group authorized by Congress to build a memorial for women who have served, or are serving, in the U.S. armed forces.
The memorial will be at the Arlington National Cemetery entrance, at the west end of the Potomac River bridge across from the Lincoln Memorial.
”It is the most monumental site still available in a city of monuments,” Vaught said
After her formal presentation Wednesday, dozens offered good wishes, and some handed over checks. The foundation has an information booth operating throughout the convention.
The checks are important: By law, the memorial must be built without federal funds, and there is a deadline of November 1993 to raise the $14 million needed.
More than $1 million has been donated, so the foundation has to raise about $30,000 a day between now and the deadline.
Vaught, who grew up in Downstate Chrisman, graduated from the University of Illinois and entered the Air Force during the 1950s at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul.
She served as a comptroller for various Air Force units and was a brigadier general when she retired in 1985.
Plans for the memorial include some computer technology. The names of more than 60,000 of the 1.8 million servicewomen have been entered into a database along with information on military history and the women`s individual stories.
By typing in a name, a visitor will be view that servicewoman`s data.
”There is a need for the memorial, for women who have served and did not get the recognition, for women who had to blaze the trail for the rest of us,” Vaught said.
Vaught also showed a video presentation about women in the military to American Legion members in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, 301 E. North Water St.
The 13-minute tape tracked the history of 1.8 million women who have served since the American Revolution and ends with a chilling interview with Maj. Marie Rossi, an Army helicopter pilot.
In the interview, taped during the Persian Gulf war, Rossi spoke of the dangers of her job as well as her willingness to take those risks.
Rossi died a few days after the interview when her helicopter struck an unlighted tower during a night operation in Saudi Arabia.
Later, walking through the hotel, Vaught passed out business cards to well-wishers with the memorial group`s phone number: 1-800-4-SALUTE.
”More frequently than not, we are finding a lot of enthusiasm,” Vaught said of the memorial project. ”But getting that converted to money is the trick. That is the hard part, and that is what we have to do to make this thing successful.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, American Legion delegates elected Roger A. Munson, 66, of Mentor, Ohio, national commander. He is a businessman who served in the Navy during World War II.
