 She said that when she was up there, it was just her and the machine, the hum of the machine. There was no discrimination up there. None of that mattered up there. All that mattered up there was her and the machine. And I think that that is something that even I could take forward. When I'm doing my job, when I'm focusing on those things, the fact that I may be one of a few or, you know, not like the others, I can put that to the back of my mind and just focus on what it is that I'm tasked with doing. Colonel retired Meryl Tingestal. She is the first and only African American female to ever fly the U-2. She wasn't looking at it from an I'm-of-the-first perspective. She just wanted to be a good pilot, right? She wanted to do a good job. She wanted to accomplish the mission, of course, like any good airman. She cares about those coming behind her. Even since our interview, I've had the chance to speak to her and connect with her and ask questions of her, mentorship type questions. She checks in on me, sees how I'm doing. She genuinely cares. And I think that that's important. And as mid-grade officers, that's something that we can take forward. No matter how we progress in our careers or the great things that we do, we need to remember to look after and take care of our people. I think that sometimes when thinking about someone who has broken barriers, barriers like that, who's been the first to do something, I don't know, I expect some person that's just going to maybe not be down to Earth or maybe they will think that they are as amazing as we think they are. And I didn't get the impression that she felt that way at all. When I told her about what her accomplishment meant to me as an African American female, she seemed like really kind of caught up guard even to this day that she'd had such an impact on someone like me. It didn't even cross my mind that I would have the opportunity to build such a bond and strong relationship with someone like Ronald Tengastal. Good morning. I'm Dr. Chris Stamper from Air Command and Staff College. And wow, what an opportunity and a bittersweet moment in my career this is. Bittersweet because the next eagle was one of the junior pilots in my last flying squadron. So I have now gotten to the point in my career where I am as old and in this case older than some of the extraordinary individuals we bring in for the gathering of eagles. This individual I would also consider a friend. Not the text you every night before you go to bed friend, but the kind of friend you meet all too rarely in your life. The kind of friend that when you later cross paths in your career just wants to sit down and catch up. In this case, I had a head start. I recognized her name on the list of potential eagles and asked if there was any way I could be involved with her visit. This was before she knew I worked here at Air Command Staff College. Merrill and I met back in Mayport, Florida in the 1997 timeframe as members of the HSL48 Vipers. Based on her chapter in Soaring Above, I would call these Navy years her formative years. And after reading the chapter and confirming that I was not responsible for any of her negative lessons learned in her formative years, the gathering of eagles groups was kind enough to bestow this honor upon me. Merrill finished flying her career in the Dragon Lady, an aircraft appropriately named after a mythical creature. Merrill is also a sort of mythical creature, a one-of-a-kind, a unicorn, the only African-American female U-2 pilot. But dare I say, I knew this about her back in 1997. She was the consummate professional, always eager to take on the next challenge or opportunity. She'll talk about those challenges of being a minority in this line of work, something I honestly never considered when flying with her. I looked in my flight logbook the other night and thought, well, none of the flights were or had life-altering implications. I knew that I always had to bring my A-game when I was scheduled to fly with her because I knew she would bring hers. She is one of those people who brings out the best in others. I knew I would have my work cut out for me on any given flight, trying to outfly her, and I always looked forward to the challenge. So without further ado, someone who has blazed their own trail on her own terms and a personal friend, Colonel retired Meryl Tengizdahl. Chris! That was beautiful. Thank you. So thank you for being here today with us, ma'am. And before we get started, I just want to wish you a very happy birthday. Oh, I see I was coming out of the gate with that, I see. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for having me here. It is definitely an honor. Chris, I can't believe 20 years ago we were flying H-60s and now we're here. Wow, there's hope for everyone. To the Eagles, it's been an honor and a pleasure to know all of you and know your stories. Right now I'm among greatness. It's very humbling. So we'll go ahead and jump right into it. Yes. Quite often, how we're raised, who impacts us as young people helps to influence the people that we are as adults. So tell us a little bit about you. What makes you who you are here today? So I was born and raised in the Bronx. Primarily grew up in a single family household. In the Bronx, go Yankees. I am Yankees' family. Single parent household by the age of seven. I'm my mom and when my mother and father got a divorce, my mom started working in the bank and then went from there to the post office to make ends meet. Worked the night shifts so I spent a lot of time with my grandmother and my aunt being raised and being nurtured by them. So a very female dominated household. And did that impact your career choices, any? It did not. I think my career choice was around 7 or 8 when I watched a lot of sci-fi. I found it interesting. Star Trek was definitely something near and dear to me. I loved to see the crew of the enterprise exploring, going boldly where no one has gone before. And that was something that just resonated with me. So the crew, which is such a diverse crew that worked together towards a mission that was something that I wanted to do. At that point I knew I wanted to be an astronaut. I knew at 7 years old how my journey was going to go. And I progged that out. I knew I was going to be good in math and science. I wasn't sure, but I knew I was going to work hard at it. And I knew I was going to be an engineer of some sort and I knew I was going to fly. And I started that. That was the framework for which I began the journey. So you said that you knew that you wanted to fly. And you started out in the Navy. They're not really known for flying. So what led you to the Navy? Wow. All right. So in college I was actually an electrical engineer major. 18 credit hours. I was on the basketball team. I was actually an Air Force ROTC for two years. And doing work study, program, and a whole bunch of things. And as I was doing ROTC for the Air Force, I found that maybe the Air Force was not quite for me. And it's funny how it comes full circle. And I started doing research about astronauts. And during my research and going down to Pensacola, the Navy just was something that was more near and dear to something. I was like, ooh. I kind of liked the Navy. The swimming part worked through that. And then I decided to join the Navy after I graduated. But that was a little challenging itself. When I went back to New York, a lot of the recruits I talked to were not interested. They said, hey, we could get you any other slot, but we can't use pilot slots. And I said, no, I'm not interested. And I actually talked to an Army recruiter. At one point, I was going to join the War and Officer program, the fly helicopters. And the gentleman I was dating at the time was a corpsman in New Arizona. And he called the recruit out in San Diego. And they called me up and they said, if you could come out here and take the test, do well, we'll get you a pilot slot. And I'm like, I'm down. So I took a, you know, I'm a poor college student coming out. So I took a five-day bus trip across country to Yuma, Arizona. I do not recommend that for anyone. There's quite a bit of characters across country on a bus. And I went out there, stayed at Yuma, Arizona, got to meet a lot of the Marine Corps out there, Harrier pilots. I actually started working as a pizza deliverer. Every time I went to the flight line, ooh, I bothered them like no one's business. Hey, can I get the aircraft? Can I check it out? But eventually, I went over to San Diego, took the test, did well, they started my package. Came back to the East Coast and about six weeks later, I got picked up for off-chicada school. And what was that experience like for you at OCS? The experience was a lot of things, a little bit frightening, exciting. Drill instructors, Marine Corps drill instructors are very squared away. They know what they want, and they're going to get it out of you one way or the other. So there were five of us. There were five black pilots in the program. Aviation Officer Canada School was, in the 1990s, changed off OCS. So we had a lot of Navy submariners, CBs or future CBs that were there. So the pilot group was very small. But we were very tight-knit, and the drill instructor still treated it as it was AOCS. So my drill instructor did look like Louis Gossos Jr. from Officer and the Gentleman, and he was mean. Oh, wow. Incredible. You said there were five of you at training, people of color, five African-Americans. Yes. Did all of you complete the program? No. So one gentleman did not make it. The rest of us did. So there were four of us, I believe, and when we went to flight school, two of us made it after flight school and continued on, and got away. And did that stand out to you in any way? Did you even recognize that you were, even then, one of a few? Well, in the 90s, there was a push by the Navy to recruit minorities into the aviation fields, those who were qualified. So I remember going to Corpus Christi, and there were a lot of African-Americans there. It was quite refreshing. At the time, what I remember, there were five females there that were going through the program, and at the end, I was the only one who successfully completed. The other four had two had to try it out because of medical reasons, and then two for flying. And then so, can you tell us a little bit about what your first operational aircraft was in the Navy and what your flying experiences were like? Yes, the H-60. I love that aircraft. H-60, when I selected, I went in the aircraft with weapons. In the back of my mind, I said, I still want to be an astronaut, but I'm going to have a good time getting to this goal. So I went in an aircraft that had weapons. I didn't care if it flew low or slow or high and fast. The H-60 at that time had a penguin missile. Later on, hellfire missile, flare. You can laze torpedoes, sonobuies. Things were dropping off that aircraft. We had countermeasures. The air crewmen in the back, M-60, which later went to GAL-60. I like to drop things off the aircraft and shoot things in. Yes, I enjoy that very much. Can you tell us about some of your most impactful missions in that aircraft? It was such a plug-and-play aircraft. So the mission, it was a majority H-S-L anti-submarine warfare, but we did search and rescue. We did over-the-horizon targeting. We did calm relays. So I really enjoyed my first mission to the Mediterranean, which turned into a Gulf cruise primarily just because at the time Saddam Hussein was acting up a little bit and we had to show force. We were on the shotgun cruiser, so I was on the Normandy CG-60, and we were with the GW battle group. I enjoyed those missions. I enjoyed just doing recce and platform 4, just ships in the area, smugglers. It was just very enjoyable for me overall. There's no part of the mission I didn't enjoy. I enjoyed medevac missions if we had a couple of people at the time that were injured and taken to the carrier. I loved doing carrier ops. Overall, there was nothing about the H-S-L-60 I did not like. And will you share a story about one of your missions that resonates the most with you or that you still remember to this day? The one that I flew with the aircraft commander who almost made some forged choices. Oh, that sounds like a good one. I think it was a workup. I was just a newly helicopter second pilot. We called him H2P's. I was with the first deployment. You fly, you are with two aircraft commanders who teach you. The first deployment, we were doing a workup cycle. We had a mission. It was as the workup, we were looking for a submarine. I just remember it was a training mission, but we were working. It was a seven-hour sortie. In helicopters, we flew about three hours. Then we regassed on the ship and then we continued flying. This aircraft commander, while we were doing the sortie, he was a little impatient because we knew where the sub was. We had it located, but we needed a visual contact and it was at night time. Foggy over the sea, it was out in Norfolk. At the time, we wanted to go into a hover to actually locate it. We had been given new guidance that we could not go below 50 feet because it had been a mishap prior. In the aircraft, he decided that we were going to do what's called a couple approach. We would do an automatic hover, an automated hover to the location. As a new 2P, I was a little slow getting the checklist out and he was getting frustrated with me. As my head was buried, unbeknownst to me, he started the descent. He continued the descent and got disoriented. I couldn't tell because it was nighttime and I felt a small bump and I looked up and we were descending rapidly through 20 feet. I had a couple of choice words to say after I yelled power. I grabbed the collective. My air crewman in the back had no idea because he was outside looking for the submarine. He had no idea but when he looked in, he said we were at six feet about to go into the water. For the next three hours, the cockpit was silent and I was angry. I said, man, this guy just tried to kill us. I said, all because we're doing a training mission. It taught me a lot that day one, in an instant, if you're not paying attention, things will go sideways very quickly. You take everything seriously and just because you have an aircraft commander with you, do not assume that he knows everything and he's perfect because I'm a new pilot and I'm excited and I want to put that good foot forward. Did I trust that pilot again? Absolutely not. I watched him like a hawk. We were also shaking up. We didn't even debrief when we landed. I said, I do not want to talk to you right now. That really set the tone for how I would conduct myself on any mission, whether training or other. This is for real. We had just talked about it previously. That was something that was just eye-opening for me, mission-wise. That's how I treated it. Thank you for sharing that with us. I'd like to talk a little bit about what brought you over to the Air Force. You said that you love what you were doing in the Navy. I've heard plenty of interview from you where you talk about how your heart is truly Navy. It is. I love both the Navy and the Air Force. I would never speak ill of any service, especially those two. The Navy built that foundation for me and that foundation allowed me to excel in leadership roles in the Air Force. The Air Force, even with its challenges, they recognized just what I had to offer and the diverse background that I had to offer. I love that both about both services. But how I got to the Air Force, after I finished my fleet tour, it was coming up on the shore tour and I was actually slated to go to HSO 40, which is the FRS or the RAG as we called it. At the time, I was talking to a detailer who was a friend of mine and I told him, I said, I'm really interested because in the back of my mind, I still wanted to be an astronaut. In my mind, I was like, how can I make my resume stand out from others? At the time, we didn't call it branding. How do you brand yourself? That's how it was. How do I stand out? How do I make myself look better? And I called my friend, Dana Gordon, and I said, hey, Dana, I'm looking at something with the Air Force. I want to know how the other branch of services work. And I would love to do that. Is there anything out there? And he was like, well, no, and continued on. And then I got a phone call from him and he said later on, maybe about a month later, he goes, hey, Merrill, there's a job that's come up. It's a flying job. With the Air Force, I don't know what it is. And I said, I'll take it because I knew it was flying. And I said, I'll do it. And what I later found out was that it was to be initial cadre for the T-6 aircraft to fly with both Navy and Air Force students. And I couldn't have been happier because it gave me a chance to see how the Air Force did business, what AFIs really meant, just to have that breadth of experience. So that's what I did. And I did that after training at Randolph, as well as Corvus Christie and the T-34. I went to Moody Air Force Base for three years and really got immersed into the Air Force. And it's great. There are differences. So not bad differences, just differences. And it took a while. There were four of us there, Navy lieutenants. And it was just very interesting to see. So at the end of my assignment, I knew that NASA was still on my mind and I was going to go to college to do a master's, do a PhD program because I still wanted to be an astronaut. And one of my bosses at the OSS, because we were at the third flying training squad and that's no longer there at Moody Air Force Base, he said, you should come to the Air Force. We need people like you. We need, you know, we need up-and-coming leaders. And he said, come to F-117s, U-2s. And I was like, huh, that sounds good. Unbeknownst to him, my husband now, husband talked to me about the U-2s and I was like, ah, no. You know, because no offense, honey, you weren't a pilot at the time. And I said, okay, let me think about it. So I started looking at what the U-2 mission was and I said, man, it's similar, plug-and-play, sensors. Okay, so no weapons, but a lot of interesting sensors. A lot of Doppler stuff that resonated with me from my engineering background. High altitude pressure suits. Something that would still, for me, look good, maybe in my future applications in NASA. So I was like, oh man, this is a good idea. So I applied for an inter-service transfer as well as applied to the U-2 program because it was a separate package. It was an interview process, two weeks. And actually, I got a rejection letter from the Air Force and they said, thanks, but no thanks. And about the same time I received from the U-2 community, we would love to have you out there in interview. So I said, ah, another service that doesn't talk to each other. I said, great, so I called up AFPC and they said, hey, if you go out in interview and you get picked up, we will accept you into the Air Force. And I said, okay, I'll be calling you back soon. So talk to us a little bit about what it's like to fly that aircraft. The U-2, it's a phenomenal aircraft. It is, I always say it's a beautiful aircraft, high altitude. You have to be on your A-game all the time when you're flying that aircraft. There is no sleeping on an aircraft. It flies slow, it flies high, but it will kill you quicker than anyone if you're not paying attention. I've seen guys with 3,000 hours in the U-2 be humbled after one landing because it's like they're a new student. Every aircraft is built differently. It responds differently. And it's always a challenge. And when you put the pressure suit on, it's just something additional that you have to overcome. So flying an aircraft is not for the faint of heart. That's why there is an interview process. Some people, they get into the suit and they go, no way, this is insane. I always say the U-2 community, I love my brethren and my sisters, but we're a little not quite right because we love it so much. And it just takes that certain person that wants to put themselves in those physiological conditions to fly the mission and to see sites that only so few get to see. I mean, it puts a smile on my face as I think about it. So it's a wonderful thing. And what are some of those sites that only a few of you get to experience? You know, you start seeing the curvature of the Earth. The sky turns a darker color. You get the sense that, you know, you're one person in this huge universe. And, you know, whatever problems you have are just so small and insignificant compared to what is out there. So it always makes me happy and to go up there and enjoy those sites because I know a lot of people don't get to do that. And also it's very quiet because it's single seat. So I enjoy the peacefulness. You hear yourself breathing the humming of the engine. Not many people get to do that. Did you have any impactful missions or anything that kind of resonates with you from flying that aircraft? You know, every mission for me, it was just impactful. You know, the JTACs. You know, we would, you know, flying missions in OEF and OIF, getting to talk to the guys on the ground, knowing that you, in some way, you're providing or asking, what do you need? How can we help you? How can we support? If they need the imagery or information, we could provide that. You know, just like angels above doing what we need to do. You know, every, for me, every mission was, it was something special. It would, if someone was taken, they'd say, hey, can you stay on station? We need to try and triangulate or do something. And it would kill me if I couldn't do it or if nothing was found, it would frustrate me to know, you know, TC, I know you guys were working your butts off and a lot of the bad things were going on down there. So it was just something that, you know, I was glad to be able to be part of that and to help. So in the video, I mentioned about how important it was to me as an African-American woman that you were the first and only to fly this aircraft. And I mentioned the fact that it seems that you were just like, what? I was just doing what I do. You talk a little bit about it. I will say that's probably a big blind spot for me. I'm very oblivious to you're the first African-American female or, you know, you've done this first. I'm just a person that says, this is what I want to do and I'm going to do it regardless. I'm not looking for any firsts. I just want to do the mission. I just want to fly the aircraft because the aircraft is challenging. The aircraft is, it does not look at someone because of color or race or gender. It is just an aircraft. It's just a piece of machine. And either you have the skills or you don't. It does not discriminate. It just shows you who you are. Yeah, so I never think about it. But we talk about this a little bit. I do have the word with all that at least when I started flight school and I knew there was a push for minorities in the program that we were being scrutinized. So everything that we did had to be on point and no one wanted to show any weakness or fail because what one person did that would represent the whole. So it's funny because I talked to a captain of mine that worked for me in the Pentagon and he is at the Navy War College as an Air Force officer, which I had worked on him pretty well. And he called me one day and we talked about the pressures it is to the pressures there are to when you speak every time to be on point 100% of the time. There's just this internal pressure to always be like that because we always feel like we are being watched. And I said that will never go away. I'm like sorry, you got to just take that load. And I think sometimes you feel that as well and I think other minorities out there whether they're Asian or whether they're women or African-Americans, they feel that 100% of the time. So we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. So what's your advice? Suck it up and keep doing that. You got to keep putting 100% out there. You got to be the best all the time. And sorry, you lead the way. Thank you, ma'am. I will take that nugget with you. Suck it up. Embrace. I mean, yes, perfection. You got to strive for it. You're not going to reach it every time but you have to strive for that. And we've talked a little bit about diversity being first, being only all of that. Many of my classmates will be moving into leadership positions from here. They're going to be charged with leading diverse groups of people. Do you have any advice for them on how to navigate leading diverse groups of people? So for me, we talked about the most diverse group of people I had was my last duty station in Pentagon. And I had an office that people were Filipino women. My secretary was a black female. And when I look at diversity, just not through that, but my master sergeant was a cop on the nuclear side. One of my AFI writers, he was a soft guy from the south. And I loved that group of people. As a leader, I always wanted to make sure that we had very open dialogue with one another, very raw conversations. And I wanted to hear everyone's opinion, even if I didn't like it. I tried to set that atmosphere where it was okay to speak your mind and to give me your perspective. In some instances, in some jobs that I went to, when people saw me, they looked, in particular my first command tour in the Air Force. When I went to Plant 42 at Lockheed, I was with most of the men that worked on the U-2 had been working on the U-2 longer than I had been alive. And these are people from World War II era and Vietnam era, and they had their way of seeing the world as a little different. So when I walked on that plant, the music stopped. And they were like, who is this? Just because I look younger, as a black female, they were just like, and this is the new commander. And I was like, yes, I am. But what they found out later is one, I just, I'm very honest. At times I can be vulnerable. But I wanted their input, and they gave it to me. And I was articulate, and I spoke back to them. And I had an engineering background. And after six months, that perception went away. So the same thing as in a diverse community, you have to be open. You have to be willing to take that input. You have to know your stuff as a leader. You can't fake it because they'll read through that very quickly. But you have to be honest if you don't know, and you have to show that vulnerability because then they'll be able to help you. If you're cocky about it, or your ego is too much and gets in the way, I don't think you will have a hard time being successful. And it will not be as fun for you or the people who are under you. And then you just have to know your people well. So I tried to have something in common with the group of people I've led, as small or as big as it is. And for each person I talked to, to learn nuggets about them, learn nuggets about their personal life. In my last office, it was small enough that when we went TDY, or someone went TDY, we would send pictures of the food that they were eating. So we had food porn that went out. And it was fun, and it was, my deputy loved to eat a lot. So it was something that connected us and that bonded us together. And throughout all our differences, when we argued at the table, we still had a commonality among us. So that's what I would recommend for those out there. Find that common ground and use that towards your advantage. Use that to motivate and keep people together. Because there's going to be times when you argue with them, and you know, it shouldn't get to the point where I'm taking my ball home, but sometimes it happens. But still come back to that common place with people. And as we near the end of our time here today together, it goes quickly. It's very enjoyable. Is there anything else you'd like to share with my classmates and I? Anything else? It's not a trick question, ma'am. I know. I know you think I'm always trying to lawyer you, but I know because you just said back there, I would like to treat the witness as hostile. So... We talked a long time ago. I don't have anything. I'm trying to remember anything else. It's not coming to me right now. Okay. So we do have time for a few questions if there are any. Ma'am, major racer, Flight 31. I just wanted to ask you a question about your thoughts on organizational change and innovation in a unit that's gotten a mission that's as established as the U2 mission is. What are your thoughts on how we can encourage relevance in today's Air Force and long-established missions like that? I think the U2... Good question. I mean, I think the U2 is still relevant. I mean, you just have to be... The U2 is a platform that we could switch up the mission set slightly just based on the sensors. So how we stay relevant is just being open-minded to... Oh, I see Jack walking over there. To being open and being flexible to as the face of the enemy changes or where we're going out in the future that we're there ready and prepared to take on whatever challenges they are. Where's Jack? Hi, Jack. Ma'am, Scott Patton, Flight 21. Thank you for coming out and talking to us. So you had a dream and it led you down a path that probably didn't take you exactly where you wanted to go. Can you talk to that in the sense of how you probably achieved different or greater things going that way and what that means to everybody else in the room trying to achieve their dreams and goals? Right. So I mean, I didn't become an astronaut, but I did some damn cool things. And I'm okay with that. It's not about the destination. It's about the journey for me. So I enjoy every single part of it. And I'm just, again, just so surprised that I'm up here talking about this. If someone, if Elon Musk came to me and said, hey, I want you to do X, I'd be like, I'm on board, right? Except maybe the mission to Mars because I have a six-year-old now who's sleeping. And my son finds me. He's loving the speech. So, you know, now that I'm retired, I just find other, you know, I love to share this story. I love to share this with people in more of a fitness atmosphere to motivate people to, you know, you may not get to that goal, but you've got to try hard. And I'm here to help you some way to realize that and to make you stronger and make you get over those obstacles in any way possible. Is it Jack? It is Jack. Jack, do you have a question? Yes. Oh, you do. Can you tell us how long the usual YouTube missions were? Usually, YouTube missions are over nine hours depending on what area you were flying in. So, typical missions lasted anywhere from nine plus hours, nine to 12 hours. My longest mission was about ten and a half. Then is there another question back there? Do you have a question back there? What are you most proud of? Wow, that's a good... Oh, children give some good questions. What am I most proud of? Gosh, serving with men and women who, you know, who want to fight for our freedoms. That's what makes me proud. There's so many things. My son makes me proud, at least pointing to himself. You know, my son makes me proud. I was a person who was probably not going to have children. I didn't think about that. My husband wanted two and I said zero and I said, okay, we'll try for one during my staff tour. I flew for the first 18 years and I decided, you know, we're going to give this a shot and that's one of the best things I've ever done. This kid keeps me on my toes and reminds me that he's half my DNA and sometimes it's very surprising the things that come out of his mouth. Good morning, ma'am. Major Denny Flight 23. I know we had the tension in the room earlier regarding the Air Force and Navy issues, so I'm going to steer clear of that. But we do have to talk about another issue, which is your flight experience based on being six feet off the water at night at zero airspeed all the way up to the upper limits where you switch from calling it an aircraft to a spacecraft. So my question is, do you consider your heart and heart and soul of souls in the rotary wing or fixed wing? Oh, this is going to be awkward. Where's Jack? Bring him back. You know, I love every aircraft for... I can't. I love every aircraft. I love flying low and slow. I love flying high and slow. I love flying a T-38. I mean, everyone is different in its own way. Flying nap in the air, flying on the back of the boat. Gosh, there's something exhilarating about that. Being on a flight deck, trying to get a trap in with the helicopter, it's... I can't choose. Each aircraft and its uniqueness, it depends on the day, it depends on the mission. I love them all. Yes, that's my answer. I can't decide. One more, one more. Hi, ma'am. Jack's mom here. I just want to know how you balanced family life. As you got up into your career, it seemed like you kind of started your family a little bit later and you started it about the position where a lot of us are heading into. So any tips or tricks you've got are welcome. Yes, so... I did not know how it was going to turn out, but it turned out beautifully. Again, I flew for the first 18 years of my career and it was when I was at my staff tour at Norwood Northcom that we had Flynn. I was 41 years old when that happened. I was in pretty good shape. I was running half marathons. I think my husband, he was a little bit tentative at that time saying, hey, I don't think the timing is right, but the timing is never right for kids. There's never a good time and I remember saying to him, I'm going to be in this room. You either come or you don't. So five months later, Flynn was there and I was like, I thought that 41 was going to take forever and I was like, man, this is quick. So how do you manage? There really is no balance. My husband, to his credit, took a year off from his job at Lawrence Livermore where he's a health physicist. He's also a Navy reservist. And really when I was doing my staff tour, spent full time raising our son for the first year. And that was very interesting because I knew he was doing... You were doing ACSC in correspondence at the time. And I remember coming home and he was like, Flynn didn't sleep all day. I couldn't do my studying. And I'm like, well, I'm sorry. So I mean, we worked that balance and we knew once we were going back to Beale Air Force Base, we lived in an area that was an hour away from Beale two, two and a half hours away from Lawrence Livermore and we started some treacherous commutes for the next two years while Flynn was in daycare. And it wasn't easy. I think between us, we were frustrated a lot. But we worked through those things. But we knew we had to have the best care for Flynn and to make sure he was good. We didn't have family around us. We did have friends, but our parents are a little older. My mother-in-law is 92 and my mother is 78, so we knew they were... And my mom is ailing, so I knew they could not participate as much. But we made that work and we continued to. So it was very unbalanced for a while, especially when I went back to Beale as a deputy ops group commander. There were days at 5.30, the ops group commander was a great man, but he liked to pontificate starting at 5 o'clock. And there were a couple of times at 5.30, I'm like, sir, I'm out. I got to pick up my kid from daycare, and I knew it would take an hour. And he's like, but I haven't, sir, I'm out. And I said, and he had no children. So I had to explain to him, hey, there are some importance, and he was understanding about that. So how do you balance? It's just a teamwork effort. There are times when it will be imbalanced if you have other family members to help, great. But we've made it work so far. And my son's giving a thumbs up. And now that being retired, my husband's still in the reserves. You know, I have the opportunity. You know, we're in a place where at 5, he's at 4 or 5-ish. He started school and I can walk him to school and still do my job and be there to support him while my husband continues on with his career. So it's a little bit of give and take. Well, ma'am, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate all of your insights and your experience. And to all the Eagles for this week. Thank you.