When History Finally Calls Your Name

How a radio broadcast, a folder of old photographs, and a little providence brought one World War II volunteer out of the shadows and into a stadium full of people

On October 10, tens of thousands of football fans will pack Valley Children’s Stadium in Fresno, California, to watch Fresno State take on Boise State in one of the biggest games of the Bulldogs’ season.

At some point amid the rivalry, the marching bands and the roar of the crowd, the game will pause. The attention of an entire stadium will turn to 96-year-old Elaine Lynn.

More than eight decades after she joined the Civil Air Patrol as a teenager during World War II, Elaine will finally be formally recognized as one of CAP’s wartime members honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.

What makes the moment even more extraordinary is that, until a few months ago, almost no one knew her story. I certainly didn’t.

In May, I was in California’s Central Valley promoting my book, The Dangerous Shore, which tells the largely forgotten story of how ordinary Americans helped defend the United States during the darkest days of World War II.

One of those stories belongs to Civil Air Patrol.

CAP was only days old when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Soon, civilian volunteers were flying coastal patrols looking for German U-boats, carrying messages and supplies, searching for missing aircraft, watching borders and forests, and even towing targets behind their airplanes so military crews could train.

CAP drew an extraordinary cross-section of Americans: World War I pilots, lawyers, businessmen, mechanics, even a cardboard salesman I found in my research, and others unable to enter the armed forces but still determined to serve.

So they found another way.

Soon, young people were given a place in that mission too. The Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program opened a door for teenagers fascinated by aviation and eager to serve, introducing an entire generation to flight.

Elaine was one of them.

Decades later, I happened to be talking about people just like her on the radio.

My friend Paul Loeffler arranged the interview. Central Californians know Paul as the Voice of the Fresno State Bulldogs, but through Central Valley Honor Flight and his Hometown Heroes radio program, he has spent years listening to and preserving their stories.

Before an event he was moderating for me in Clovis, Paul arranged for me to appear with Ray Appleton on KMJ. We talked about The Dangerous Shore. We talked about the home front. And, naturally, we talked about Civil Air Patrol.

Somewhere nearby, Elaine Lynn was listening. She heard those three words. Civil Air Patrol.

And suddenly the radio was talking about her.

Elaine found a ride to the event and sat in the audience as I told stories about Americans who, when their country needed them, found whatever place they could fill.

Afterward, Paul pulled me aside.

“There’s someone you need to meet.”

That someone was Elaine.

She was holding a file folder. Inside were photographs and treasures that had survived more than eighty years. There she was in her CAP uniform, standing beside a North American AT-6 Texan, a teenager serving her country during wartime.

The history I had spent years researching was suddenly standing in front of me, holding photographic proof of itself.

I have come to believe that providence often works through very ordinary things: a radio dial, a ride to an event, a friend saying, “There’s someone you need to meet.”

Elaine began telling me her story. She remembered the assignments she was given. She remembered being frightened sometimes. And she remembered doing the work anyway.

That detail has stayed with me.

We tend to misunderstand courage when we look backward at history. Eighty years later, photographs make everyone appear impossibly brave. We already know how the war ends. The people inside those photographs did not. They were scared. They simply went anyway.

Elaine also told me she rarely heard anyone speak publicly about CAP’s wartime service. That made me smile, because even CAP members today like to refer to their organization as “the best-kept secret.”

Maybe it has been kept long enough.

Today, CAP volunteers still conduct search-and-rescue and disaster-response missions, aerial reconnaissance and homeland-security operations. More than 33,000 young people participate in its cadet program, with opportunities in aviation, cybersecurity, rocketry, space and leadership. CAP also has a new NASA partnership focused on the next generation of aerospace and defense professionals.

And on one of my favorite modern notes, CAP aircraft help NORAD prepare to protect the skies over major events like the Super Bowl, playing the “intruder” so fighter crews can practice detecting and intercepting aircraft that enter restricted airspace.

The mission has evolved.

The idea behind it has not.

Give people a way to serve. Give young people a chance to discover what they can become. Then trust them with something meaningful.

After meeting Elaine, I contacted my friend Frank Blazich, a historian whose work was instrumental in the effort to secure the Congressional Gold Medal for Civil Air Patrol’s World War II members.

In 2014, Congress awarded that honor collectively to CAP’s approximately 200,000 World War II members.

Frank examined Elaine’s photographs, uniform and service information. The pieces matched. Elaine Lynn was one of them. And now, more than eight decades after she put on that uniform, Air Patrol will formally honor her.

Her day will begin at Castle Air Museum in Atwater, where Elaine will be honored among more than 80 historic aircraft. I will speak about their service, the home-front stories behind The Dangerous Shore, and why remembering people like them still matters.

And there is one aircraft there that will make the day especially poignant.

Castle has a North American AT-6 Texan—the same model Elaine flew and the same type of airplane beside which she stands in one of those photographs. It is not her airplane, of course. But more than eighty years later, that connection is hard to miss.

Then we will head south to Fresno.

That evening, Elaine’s story will move from an aviation museum to a packed stadium.

There is something wonderfully fitting about that. Some of the young people in those stands will be teenagers themselves, not far from the age Elaine was when she climbed into an airplane and found her own way to serve a nation at war.

The Greatest Generation earned that name not because every person performed some enormous act of heroism, but because millions of ordinary Americans accepted responsibility for one small piece of something much larger than themselves.

They asked a simple question: What can I do?

And then they did it.

That question st ill belongs to us. So does another responsibility. We have to notice. We have to ask the questions while these men and women are still here to answer them. Open the file folders. Look at the photographs. Learn the names.

Elaine Lynn did not suddenly become worthy of recognition when we discovered her story. She was worthy all along.

We simply finally caught up with her.

On October 10, when a stadium full of people rises to recognize Elaine, I hope she looks around and takes it all in.

Because more than eighty years ago, a teenage girl answered her country’s call.

And at long last, America will call her name.