Valley resident to receive Congressional Gold Medal

WASILLA — More than 70 years after Jane Soeten learned to fly as part of the Tulsa Squadron of Civil Air Patrol’s Oklahoma Wing to help the war effort, the U.S. government is looking to say “thanks.”

First they’ll have to catch her.

Soeten is not one to sit still for long. At 86 years of age, she’s too busy volunteering at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, standing up for seniors’ rights at borough assembly meetings and training — for the Olympics.

That’s the Alaska International Senior Games in Fairbanks in August. Soeten plans to compete in the long jump, triple jump, javelin throw, shot put, discus and racquetball.

“I might do pickleball, too,” she said. Pickleball is a fairly new game sweeping the nation in which players on a badminton court use wood paddles to hit a small wiffle-type ball over a net. “It’s all over the Lower 48,” Soeten said. “Of course, this is Alaska. It’ll get here.”

Soeten’s never been one to focus on what can’t be done. In 1943, she wanted to help the war effort. So she did — not only learning to fly at the age of 14, but excelling to the point that she helped train other pilots.

“Everybody wanted to do something for their country,” Soeten said. “You know, the women went to work in the factories like Rosie the Riveter. We gathered pieces of scrap metal wherever we could. We took bits of foil from chewing gum and sent that in. We all just did what we could.”

At the time, 14-year-old Soeten was inspired by footage of World War II played at the local theater. “We didn’t have television,” she said. “Instead we listened on the radio. On Saturdays I went to the movies and watched the newsreels.” Soeten decided she wanted to fly.

“I joined the Civil Defense,” she said. “The whole country had one in every town and city. Everyone had an air-raid warden. I became a messenger.”

She learned aerodynamics, meteorology and Morse code. “I still remember Morse code,” she said. She rattles of a series of dots and dashes. “That means hello.”

Putting in her first eight hours of instruction, Soeten remembers her instructor, a Captain Leo Donaho: “He would always say, ‘Atta boy, atta boy.’ I don’t think he ever realized I was a girl!” As a cadet, Soeten would act as a navigator. By the time she was 16, she’d earned her single engine certificate, soloing in a Piper Cub.

“I’d fly anything,” she said. “I took aerobatics in an old Stillman. I’d loop it, roll it, dive it. You could do a hammerhead spin in the Piper Cub — that thing floats like a balloon.”

She remembers checking out with her instructor in a PT22. “That was a hot one,” she said. “It had low wings. Oh, I fell in love with that airplane. It taught me a lot of things.”

Soeten dreamed of becoming a WASP, ferrying planes from the United States to England. “Women could do that,” she said. “Back then, women did not have a place in the Army, the Air Force … they could be nurses maybe, but that was about it.”

However, she said, “I could fly as well as any of the guys did. Pfft — it’s just like driving a car.”

Soeten became so skilled, as a matter of fact, that when busloads of Air Force pilots in training came to the airfield, they had her show them a thing or two. She giggles — “Oh, I was 15, 16. I was showing off like mad. Fortunately, I was not really boy crazy at the time. Not yet. I was too busy!”

Things were different then. “Everything was rationed — you had coupon books, but that didn’t mean it was available. I remember my mother would take lemon drops and dissolve them in our drinks to sweeten them.”

In those days, gas was 25 cents a gallon. “But you couldn’t get it,” she said. “We knew the boys at the station, though.” She laughs. “We’d talk ‘em out of a gallon of gas every now and then.”

The war ended before Soeten got her chance to fly jets across continents. However, it didn’t keep her from flying. Back then, she said, it cost $5 an hour to rent a plane. Soeten helped with logbooks at the Harvey Young airport, and they let her fly for free. “Whenever they re-did an engine, they had to break it in. So I would do that. You’d just take her up, oh about 500 feet or so, and fly a pattern and cut the throttle back as far as it would go.”

Soeten went on to work as an executive director for the YWCA and a logistics analyst for Boeing. Two years ago she moved to Wasilla to be near her daughter. She says the medal is nice, of course, but she doesn’t really see why she’s getting one.

“Makes me kind of wonder about it if they’re giving it to me,” she said. “They haven’t minted it yet, though. I’ll be probably be dead by the time it gets done.”

Earlier this month the U.S. House of Representative voted to award Civil Air Patrol members the Congressional Gold Medal for their volunteer service during World War II.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, who introduced the proposal in the House, praised their legacy.

“The Civil Air Patrol’s valiant efforts in defending our coastline, providing combat services and flying dangerous humanitarian missions in America during World War II embodies the American Spirit of volunteerism. These brave men were an integral part in defending not only our homeland but also our principles of freedom and liberty,” he said.