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For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we're celebrating Maggie Gee, the pioneering aviator and physicist who became one of only two Chinese-American women to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP during WWII. When the United States entered WWII in 1941, the Berkeley, California native was eager to support the war effort and dropped out of her freshman year of college to become a draftperson for engineers working on Navy ships. Gee's dream, however, was to follow in the footsteps of her childhood hero Amelia Earhart and become a pilot. After saving up the $800 she needed for six months of flight training, she moved to Nevada to learn to fly. Soon after, she was accepted into the highly selective WASP training program and earned her silver WASP wings. While serving as a WASP, Gee worked as a tow target pilot at the Las Vegas Army Air Field, pulling targets for gunners to use for practice -- with live ammunition.
Following the war, Gee returned to the University of California at Berkeley, and eventually completed her graduate studies in physics. She worked as a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for thirty years, researching topics ranging from cancer to fusion energy. In 2010, Gee, along with all living WASP pilots, received the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service. Gee passed away in 2013 at the age of 89 and, throughout her long life, she remained committed to making a difference in the world: "Iā€™m very optimistic about the world and people... it will be all right... You can make changes. I think just one small person can make a little bit of change."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Gee_(pilot)

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