The Women of Avenger Field

Recently, I stood in an airfield in Sweetwater, Texas, and looked up. I was wondering what it would have been like to take off from there in a small plane, flying into the dust of West Texas and the chaos of World War II, as my grandmother had. The land around me had the palette of a well-used watercolor set and the topography of a paper towel: gray and brown, flat forever. It is dry all year round, except when it suddenly pours. The wide, featureless landscape makes for big, blustery winds and difficult orientation.