[laughter] ms. cobbs: the telephone was important in parts of the country where there is not a lot of population density. you need a phone to communicate with people if you are very far away from people. a lot of the operators came from the west. in some ways it seems surprising, and in others it makes sense. as you see, joan of arc is riding alongside them, the last time they saw a woman in uniform. they say, we are on our way to france to serve our country. a may have said it differently, to serve our country. this is what the women wanted to show, that they were willing to put their life on the line for their country. it is one of the first groups. the woman second from the right hand side is grace banker, a 25-year-old college graduate from bernard college in new york city. one week she did not know if they would return the letter, and five days later, was the chief operator for the entire u.s. army effort. you did not have women soldiers. it meant you also did not have female officers. who in this gr

ms. cobbs: the women knew when the lines were being tapped. would you put civilians in charge of your most intense military secrets? these women could hear everything going along -- around in every call. if the line was tapped it went dull. they had to be alert to that. they also spoken codes that were changing all the time. uncle, all these codes that would change rapidly. there the problems when -- headquarters was partially destroyed, they could not tell the other women why they had not been answering their calls for the last half hour, and they were not happy with them. if you could tap the line, you could deduce where the general staff might be. they had to be very alert to this type of problem of listening for that, being aware of it. any other questions? i hope you will get to know the hello girls. they fought so hard for their story. and they fought so hard to keep their story going until it could be a knowledge finally by our government. the national archives made that possible. i do hope you'll get the book and read it and enjoyed as