Angel Flight

Angel Flight
Image source: https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23845

A chapter of Angel Flight, a women’s auxiliary supporting the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC), first appeared at East Carolina College in 1960. The new organization had been founded at the University of Omaha in 1957 and was first known as the “Sponsor Corps.” It soon expanded nationwide under the name, Angel Flight. Colonel Robert L. Needs is credited with having founded the chapter at East Carolina. Earlier, there had been a group of coeds at East Carolina known as “military sponsors” who assisted the AFROTC in its activities. The 1960 Buccaneer pictured these sponsors in its AFROTC coverage. After receiving a national charter in January 1960, these sponsors were organized as members of Angel Flight. When founded, the ECC campus organization was one of 41 in the nation. The group was first photographed in the 1961 Buccaneer under the label, “Angel Flight,” as part of the coverage of the AFROTC program. By 1970, there were over 120 campus chapters nationwide. A branch was founded at Chapel Hill in 1957, the same year the national organization crystalized. Other branches in North Carolina were established at N.C. A&T, N.C. State, and Duke.

Sometimes compared to a sorority, Angel Flight appealed to coeds with military backgrounds or a strong interest in national defense, and the U.S. Air Force in particular. Cold War anxieties surely prompted some patriotic coeds to join in the hopes of doing what they could to protect the nation. Angel Flight also appealed to coeds at the dawn of the women’s movement seeking new, personally meaningful social roles. In the end, however, as the women’s movement became more assertive and professionally oriented, Angel Flight declined due, in part, to the subservient roles it played vis-à-vis the male dominated AFROTC. Then again, when coeds were allowed at select campuses such as ECU to join the AFROTC, Angel Flight lost some of its relevance as a gender-supportive society. In the process, Angel Flight resiliently morphed into a society more devoted to professionalism and community service, moving away from the “tea and cookies” social roles that once characterized it. In its new form, the society assumed a more assertive identity as Silver Wings, though often with parenthetical reference to its earlier name, Angel Flight.

Angel Flight was open to any female student with an C average. However, membership was selective: each applicant had to have a sponsor in the AFROTC honor society, the Arnold Air Society, who was in good military standing. A point system evaluating appearance, personality, interest, and poise was used to rank prospective members. Those inducted wore uniforms designed by the National Headquarters. While governed ultimately by the National Constitution and its regulations, the East Carolina Angel Flight chapter elected officers to serve as commanders of the group. Mary Elizabeth Powell was the first commander of the campus organization, with the rank of major. At its founding, the ECC Angel Flight group included twenty-one “pledges” or members, each with a rank. However, Angel Flight members were under no military obligation whatsoever. By the 1980s, a new name, Silver Wings, was adopted. The ECU AFROTC program still boasts a Silver Wings (Angel Flight) program

At East Carolina, Angel Flight sought to maintain high morale among cadets in Detachment 600 of the ECC AFROTC program and further its recognition through assisting at dances, parties, and socials. From the start, Angel Flight members also participated in AFROTC community service activities by working with the Pitt County Red Cross in organizing campus blood drives, collecting canned foods for the needy, giving parties for underprivileged children, and participating in the annual AFROTC Marchathon for the March of Dimes. In 1972, Angel Flight helped fund, with monies raised during the year, the Hoa Orphanage in Vietnam.

The East Carolina Angel Flight program also organized a drill team which participated regularly in East Carolina homecoming parades. In 1969, the Angel Flight Drill Team marched in the inaugural parade for governor-elect Robert W. “Bob” Scott, reportedly by special invitation from Governor Scott as communicated to the chapter by President Leo W. Jenkins. The Angel Flight Drill Team was, incidentally, the only all-female unit to participate in the one-hundred unit inaugural parade. Educationally, Angel Flight contributed to awareness and understanding of the AFROTC, as well as topics such as the Air Age and Air Education. In its continued devotion to service, the contemporary program, Silver Wings, well exemplifies the ethic and mission of East Carolina University.

Sources

Additional Related Material

East Carolinian Vol. 44, No. 27
East Carolinian Vol. 44, No. 27

Citation Information

Title: Angel Flight ROTC

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 7/18/2019

To top