The Hello Girls

Guest: Elizabeth Cobbs, PhD, Author, “The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers,” Melbern Glasscock Chair, Texas A&M University, Senior Fellow, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution They were America’s first women soldiers. On the front lines in France, they ran the telephone switchboards that allowed men in the trenches to get battle instructions from their commanders. One of the female telephone operators even received a Distinguished Service Medal from US Army General John Pershing. But when the Hello Girls came home, the government denied they’d ever been real soldiers, refused to give them bonus pay or veteran’s benefits or even military funerals.  Award-winning historian Elizabeth Cobbs’ new book, “The Hello Girls,” preserves the story of America’s first women soldiers and their fight for recognition after the war.