WASHINGTON -- Congress will be honoring a group of women that some call the original Fly Girls.

Many of these women were the first to fly for the U.S. military -- they volunteered during World War II for training missions and to deliver planes from factories to bases.

Wednesday, they'll receive the nation's highest civilian honor -- the congressional gold medal -- for their service 65 years ago.

"Once they struck Pearl Harbor, everybody was together, you know. Everybody was patriotic. You wanted to do something, and I didn't want to work in an office," Betty Budde.

Eleven hundred young women volunteered to fly military planes during World War II. The Fly Girls trained in El Paso.

Fewer than 300 are still alive and only half of them are in Washington, D.C., to receive the honor.