 I still get so excited every time I get to go fly. The feeling is kind of hard to explain, but the second we lift off the ground, all my worries just go away. It doesn't matter what kind of day I had or how stressed I am at work or about other things in my life, you just feel really calm. And you know, being able to see the world from a different view always allows me to kind of step back and truly be thankful for what I have and for my life. I'm First Lieutenant Megan Scala and I'm the youngest female Blackhawk pilot in the 34th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade. I joined the Minnesota National Guard for a lot of different reasons. A big reason was because I felt like my faith was leading me. I felt like God was telling me to join, which was super weird and very out of the blue for my family because none of my family, none of my siblings or anything have ever been in the military. But I think I joined because I knew I had a purpose and I thought that my purpose was to serve other people, to help other people. And I would have never thought six years ago when I first enlisted that I'd now be flying missions as a UH-60 Mike Blackhawk pilot. And I finally feel like I've realized like this is it. Like this was my purpose. So far this deployment has definitely been a challenge for me. This is my first time being in a platoon leader position. So there was definitely some growing pains at the beginning with just learning my job in general and mostly just learning what kind of leader I want to become. I think that the biggest thing I've learned is if you take good care of your soldiers that they will definitely take good care of you as well. You know, while I don't know too many other female pilots on this deployment, all the ones that I do know are just incredible. They are absolute rock stars at their job. They inspire me every day. They inspire me to never be afraid. They inspire me to stand up for myself, speak up more. And basically they just inspire me to continue to share with other younger girls that they can become pilots too. They can become crew chiefs, maintainers, flight engineers. You know, really they can do anything that they put their minds to. I think it's kind of hard to see myself as a role model for those girls because I know that I still have so much to learn myself. And when I look at the women who are my role models, like the Wasps from World War II, who they flew almost every type of military aircraft, they're extremely intelligent, hard-working and determined women. And I look at them. I think that that is the kind of woman that I want to be like. I hope that one day I can be someone's role model. You know, I think I just want to be remembered for being the hard worker.