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No amount of action from the top, however, could result in genuine acceptance of Waacs at base level without whole-hearted cooperation by the privates and sergeants and lieutenants in the field. This cooperation was received from tremendous numbers of men in the AAF, but at some fields it had to be won, not through cajoling from higher headquarters, but by each individual Waac who went quietly about the business of being a good solider and a lady, no matter how frosty her initial reception was. Some men resented the idea of women in uniform; some men hated to see nice American girls - their wives and sisters - placed in the army where they had to go anywhere they were told and do any job that had to be done; some men judged all Waacs by the first one they met, and, if she happened to be a poor soldier or not a lady, loudly proclaimed that she was typical of all women soldiers; some commanders thought that women, for some mysterious reason, would be "more trouble" because they would require all kinds of special rules for their administration.
 
Typical of what resulted at stations where such views were held, particularly by commanding officers, was a situation described by a young AAF captain in a letter written 17 August 1943 to an officer in AAF Headquarters, urging Air Force participation in WAAC recruitment as a means of getting more good clerical personnel for AAF. The captain, pointing out that if such a campaign were to succeed, it would first be necessary to convince men in the AAF of the value of Waacs and to see to it 

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