 Good afternoon and welcome to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. I'm Colleen Chogan, Archivist of the United States, and I'm pleased you could join us for today's talk from Eileen Bjorkman about her new book, The Fly Girl's Revolt, the story of the women who kicked open the door to flying combat. Thirty years ago, Jeannie Levitt, then Jeannie Flynn, became the first female combat pilot to serve in the U.S. Air Force. We have a series of photos of her in the National Archives from when she started fighter pilot training in the summer of 1993. In one of the pictures, she's standing proudly with a model of an F-15E strike eagle with a big smile on her face. She knew she was making history. With combat experience under her belt, today Jeannie Levitt is a major general in the U.S. Air Force. Eileen's book and the discussion today is about the long struggle for women pilots to reach the point of being recognized as equal partners in the U.S. military. Most of the women who paved the way for General Levitt and the combat pilots of today are not household names, but their grit and determination led to greater opportunities for women and a stronger U.S. military. Eileen Bjorkman is a retired Air Force colonel. She was an Air Force flight test engineer and is now a civilian pilot and the author of The Propeller Under the Bed and Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin. Joining her for today's conversation is Margie Clark Boruska, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, a C-141 pilot and a member of the first class of women to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy. Now let's hear from our two accomplished guests. Thank you for joining us today. Well, thank you for the introduction and thank you, everybody, for attending today. And good morning or good afternoon, depending upon where you are. You heard in my bio that I'm a retired Air Force colonel and I get asked a lot, did you go to the Air Force Academy? And I always say, well, I graduated from high school in 1974 and women couldn't go to the Academy at that time. They didn't start going until 1976. And a lot of older people will say, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And a lot of younger people say, really, there was a time when women couldn't go to the Air Force Academy. I say, yeah, there was a time when women couldn't fly airplanes. There was a time when women couldn't do a lot in the military. And it was really my generation of women that can make that final push to kick open the doors to flying combat. But there's a whole history there from the 1940s up through the 1990s of women who served in various capacities to show that women belonged to the military and that eventually they could be in combat as well. So there have been a lot of books written about the women, some women aviators who flew in World War II. And there's been a lot of recent books written by women, younger women who've flown in combat. But there really hasn't been a whole lot written about my generation of women, the women who flew in the 70s and 80s. And like I said, made that final push. So the book really focuses on that era. But there are a few chapters that talk about some of the earlier times as well. So I'm going to start by slides to advance here. So I'm going to start by going very quickly through some of that earlier history and then talking about aviation opening to women in the 70s. And then some of the things that happened in the events that really the final push happened in the 90s before the combat ban was eventually repealed. So a lot of you may have heard of the women's Air Force service pilots. They were a group of women, civilian women, who ferried aircraft around the country. They towed targets. They did various missions to free up male pilots to be able to go over into the combat theater. There were two groups, one led by Nancy Hartness Love, one led by Jacqueline Cochran. The two groups merged in August of 1943. So just right at 80 years ago now. And the group actually disbanded before the war ended. The good news was that they were not as loot. They were not losing as many male pilots overseas as they expected to, which was good news. But it also meant that the women's services weren't really needed anymore or needed as much. And so they actually disbanded before the war ended. And this was very, this was, you know, what all of the women who were serving during the war expected to happen. The wasps were never actually in the military during the war. They were a civilian group, but there were thousands of women who were actually serving in all of the military branches during the war. And at the end of the war, they expected to all go home because Congress had passed the law that allowed them to serve just during the war. But there were a lot of people that wanted to keep the women in, especially the senior, a lot of the generals that had seen what these women could do. And so they lobby Congress to allow women to remain in as a small force that could be expanded on if needed again in the future. So a law was passed in 1948 that allowed women to have a permanent presence in the military in the United States for the first time. There had been for a number of years women serving as nurses in the military, but this was the first time that women were allowed permanently in the military in roles other than nursing. There were a lot of limitations though that were placed on the women. The most important or impactful limitation was that women were prohibited from flying aircraft in combat or serving on combat ships. And so the actual language said that they could not engage, they could not engage the enemy in combat in an aircraft. So that wording, we'll talk about that a little bit later, that wording was a little bit problematic. So the services themselves did not allow women to fly anyway, even though there was actually no prohibition on women flying, all the women who had been washed, some of them did join the military after the war, but they were not allowed to fly. They were allowed to take on support roles. By law, the women were limited to 2% of the force. The highest rank they could hold was Colonel. And there were a very small number of women that were allowed to be colonels. They were kicked out if they got pregnant or if they had dependent children, even if they married somebody who had children, they weren't even their own children and their husbands weren't considered dependent. They did not get benefits for their husbands the way husbands automatically got benefits for their lives. During the 50s and 60s, women also fought to serve overseas. There were a lot of changes in the rules off and on. Other than nurses were not allowed to serve in Korea. Eventually some women were allowed to serve in Vietnam. But again, it was a fight to just be allowed to go over and be an intel officer, for example. There were some changes in the 60s though that started to happen in 1967. Congress did lift the grade restrictions and the 2% limit, and that did open the door for women to eventually become general officers. And then in 1969, the Air Force was the first one to open up ROTC training for women. Prior to that point, the only way a woman could get a commission was to pay for college herself, go to college, graduate, and then apply to the military to become an officer and go through some kind of a commissioning school. So in 1971, Jane Leslie Holly became the first woman to be commissioned through ROTC. So 1970 is when aviation did start to open to women. Some other things happened in that time period. Women did start to become general officers. This is a picture of Jean Holm, who was very instrumental in the fight to open up, to get women into Vietnam, to open up additional career fields. And then eventually, even though she had retired, you know, by the time of the final push, she was still advocating for women to be able to have a Wilson combat. There were also some lawsuits filed by women that allowed women to stay in after becoming pregnant and also a lawsuit that granted benefits to husbands finally. So an interesting side note is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg partially represented both of those women. She wasn't the only one, but she was one of the lawyers that worked on both of those cases that both went up to the Supreme Court. And then a couple of big things happened in the 70s that started to, started to nudge the services to bring more women in. The first one was at the ERA, Clear Congress in 1972. And the services expected that the, that the ERA was going to be ratified very quickly. It wasn't. It never actually was. But it scared them enough to realize that, oh, we maybe should start bringing more women in because once the ERA is ratified and it's part of the Constitution, then we're going to have to, to bring more women in. So that started a little bit, a little bit of a, I wouldn't say it opened floodgates, but it started to bring more women into the military. And then the other big thing that happened was the draft ended in February of 1973. And so, you know, the draft doesn't just help the army. It also people who say, ooh, I might get drafted so I'm going to go talk to the Air Force or the Navy. It helps the other services as well or help the other services as well. And so all of a sudden you had a lot of folks that were maybe, you know, maybe the year earlier, they would have considered going into the military. Now they didn't really feel the need to do that. And so, so recruiters started looking more towards women to try to fill some of that gap. But the Navy was actually the first one. To open aviation to women. The, so it was Admiral, Admiral Zumwalt. He was very forward thinking, not just about women, but about all sorts of social issues. And so he issued what he called a Z gram that said, Hey, we're going to try bringing some women into pilot training and see how they do. And so the first class arrived in 1973. And the first, Naval Aviator, first female, Naval Aviator Barbara Allen Rainey received her wings on February 22nd, 1974. The Army was not too far behind. They trained their first woman helicopter pilot also graduating in 1974. But where's the Air Force? It took the Air Force a little bit longer. And the Air Force's position was women can't be pilots because all of our pilots are combat. You know, they have to be qualified to be able to fly in combat. Even though a lot of men were not flying combat aircraft, but that was the reasoning that they gave for a number of years and why they drag their feet. So, but they did allow women to start flying in other capacities. So in particular, if you remember, Jane Leslie Holly, who was the first woman to graduate from ROTC, she by now was a captain and she applied to go to the Air Force test pilot school as a flight test engineer. The test pilot school doesn't train just for flight, they train navigators, flight test engineers, other folks. And so she, oh, she had an engineering degree. She put her application in and was accepted. And she wound up graduating in 1975. We see her pictured here with an F four out at Edwards Air Force Base. The other big thing that happened in 1975 was that Congress opened the academies to women. Again, the services were against this because they said women are, you know, women can't be in combat. The academies train people for combat. And so therefore we should not allow women in. But there were lots of people who testified that pointed out that well, in fact, not everybody that graduates from a military academy goes into some kind of a combat role. So that's kind of a kind of a red hair. And anyway, Congress agreed and they passed a, passed a, law and President Ford signed it saying, Hey, you're going to start admitting women to the Air Force Academy or to all of the academies. And that didn't actually happen until 1976. I'll talk about that on the next slide. But in the meantime, the Air Force was at that point still resistant to the idea of women pilots. They said, well, women can apply for the Academy, but we're not going to let them go to pilot training. So, but later in 1975, Air Force did apply for the Academy, but later in 1975, Air Force did finally agree to, to send a group of women to pilot training as what they considered an experiment. So, and they accepted 10 women into UPT undergraduate pilot training and sent them to Williams Air Force Base. Like I said, as, as an experiment, it's not clear to me exactly what the experiment was supposed to be because they already knew women could fly military aircraft from what they were doing. It seems the experiment was more about, well, how do we actually use these women? You know, given that they are going to be limited in the aircraft that they can fly, they're not going to be able to fly tactical aircraft. The Air Force had already decided that they weren't going to fly. The Navy was allowing a small number of women to fly what's called tactical aircraft. So, like an attack aircraft and a four is an example. And the women were not allowed to use them in a combat role, but they were allowed to use them in a training role, but the Air Force had already decided that we're not going to do that at best. We're going to allow them to fly training aircraft like the T 38 that you see in the picture here. This is the first 10 women who went through pilot training. The tall woman in the middle is Connie Engel. And she was a top graduate in her class. And of course, she wasn't allowed to fly a fighter, but she was allowed to stay at Williams Air Force Base. And be an instructor pilot in the, in the T 38 that you see there. So, so now I'd like to, I'd like to bring Margie into the discussion because Margie was in that first class of women that did go to the Air Force Academy arriving in the summer of 1976. So Margie, if you could talk to us a little bit about your experiences at the Academy, in particular your first year there. Sure. I'd be happy to. Eileen, as you mentioned, it wasn't until the fall of 1975 that women were actually allowed into the service Academy. So a lot of my male counterparts had been planning for years to go to the Academy. It took me just one month to get my application together. And it was very short notice, but fortunately I had decent grades. I had done a lot of athletes. And extracurricular activities. And I was offered a, a candidacy to go to the Air Force Academy. And I have to say that, that those first couple of months where I was getting my application together, I had sent off for. One of their catalogs about the Academy. And of course it was published while men, it was all still men only. And so I read that 65% of all physically qualified men would get to go to the Academy. And if they graduated, that 65% was going to go to undergraduate pilot training. So I just assumed I was very naive. I didn't know what was going on elsewhere in the Air Force. I just assumed that I was going to be a pilot. And I, I was offered a nomination. As I mentioned, and I entered with the class of us 1980, which meant we started in June of 1976. And I have to say, I was a very young naive 18 year old when I entered the Academy. A friend of mine uses the word clueless. And that's what I was. But I was very excited about it. And I was offered a nomination as I mentioned, and I entered with the class of us 1980, and I was very excited. I was anxious. And on that very first day, it was a strange feeling of deja vu because I had been to the Academy as a tourist and looked down on the cadets marching and all, but also culture shock. I had grown up in Gainesville, Florida, which was a very liberal university town. And the military were not looked on favorably as the Vietnam War was ending. And so I knew virtually nothing about the military. I just knew I wanted to fly. And again, we weren't even allowed to fly at that time, but that was in my vision. But we got off the buses and the upperclassmen started yelling at us. And our only responses were yes, sir, no, sir, no, excuse, sir. And that first day was just a blur. Lots of running around, marching, getting our hair cut. The women, we had to get our hair cut two inches all around. The men had to have their hair head shaved though. We had to eat at attention. We had to march at attention. It was truly a culture shock. But one bright point in all this was my roommate, Kathy Bishop. She was a military brat and she knew everything, at least in my eyes. She, when I walked into the room, she was already folding her socks and underwear just so and taught me how to do that. She introduced me to the contrails book, which was a book of knowledge that we had to memorize and answer questions about at any time. And anyway, with her there, and I should mention her sense of humor too, but we got through basic training without too much problem. But thank heavens I had her on my side there. But at the end of that first day, after all this running around, I remember lining up for the oath of office. And all of a sudden it hit me that I was joining the Air Force. And that I was going to be an officer one day if I made it through. Oh, that's great. Thanks. Thanks so much for talking about that. So we'll, we'll talk more about some of your other experiences here in another slide or two. So, yes. Oh, I, oh, actually I did want to ask you one question. When we had talked earlier, you had mentioned about how the women were kept separate in a separate dorm for the first six months or so, I think. Did you want to just. Yeah, sure. There weren't that many women who were starting. I think it was just over 150, maybe a little bit more. And they were worried that if they divided us up into each squadron, there would be too few women in each squadron. And they wanted us to have. I guess seven or eight per squadron. So what they did is they only integrated us into half of the squadrons. There were 40 and we were integrated into 20 squadrons, which meant that the other 20 were still all male. So there was still a very distinct difference between the integrated squadrons with males and females and the all male. So there were still some. Well, there were a lot of rumors about how the all male. Squadrons looked down upon us and did not want to be associated with us. And after six months, we found out that we were going to be integrated, half of us. And I ended up going to an all male squadron with just two of my other classmates. So we were. I should say I was scared to death about going over there, but it turned out it wasn't so bad. Our classmates were incredibly supportive. And we were able to get over and help us move all of our, our clothes, our equipment to the squadron. They were very welcoming. And I think maybe part of the reason is because we were taking the pressure off of them. But we, we managed, we made it through. And it, but it was almost like starting all over again as a basic cadet, because we had to prove ourselves and get to know the upperclassmen and their personalities. And it was tough. Yeah. And I think that's something, you know, I experienced some of that too in my career as it seems like every time I came into a unit, I had to prove myself, you know, again and again and again. So yeah. So, okay, so now I'm going to talk a little bit about the, you know, how some of the, within a year or so, some of the cracks started to appear in this combat law, this law that kept women out of combat. Lieutenant Kathy Rambo Cossand, who was in the first women, first class of women to graduate from pilot training in 1977. So just a year after she graduated, she, she went to fly C141s. It's a cargo aircraft. And she was flying out of McGuire Air Force Base in Jersey. And she was flying over in Germany. They were just doing some routine operations over there. And some action kicked off in Zaire, which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. And her aircraft commander, who was a major, now she was just a second lieutenant still at the time, but her aircraft commander who was a major said, hey, you want to go to Zaire? And he said, and she said, sure, of course, I want to get in the action here. So, so, so you start to see now, okay, you've got a woman who's going to fly down into a hospital area. She's delivering troops and cargo. And these weren't actually US troops. They were French troops, but she's delivering troops and cargo into a hospital area. Is that engaging the enemy in combat? So, well, most people probably say, well, no, okay, but now she's in a hospital area. There's a possibility she could be shot at. Is that combat? Well, she's not engaging. In fact, she has no way to even shoot back. She's flying an aircraft that is unarmed. And so, and again, it was this major who made this decision and just said, hey, you're on my crew, you want to go, let's go. And after about a week, some people back in the US realized that there was a woman flying in Africa in the hospital area over there. And they ordered the crew back to the United States. So, but I guess they weren't too upset about it because they decided that the whole crew got an air medal and she got an air medal as part of that. And this is a award that's given for, you know, for people who do, you know, who do exemplary things. And it's not always in combat, but it's awarded for exemplary actions, you know, in an aircraft. So, and she was the first woman pilot to be awarded an air medal. There had been a couple of flight nurses before her who had gotten air medals, but she was the first military pilot to get one. So, so now we move into the 1980s. And I actually came in in 1980. After I graduated from college, I went to work for a year and then decided to join the Air Force because I saw that it was a more, it seemed to be a more welcoming environment. But also in 1981, we had a change in administration. And it did seem like to me anyway, you know, from where I sat as a brand new lieutenant, it seemed to me like the Reagan administration was not that supportive of women. It turned out that wasn't really the case. The Reagan administration wasn't really looking to bring in women and open new roles to them, but they also weren't interested in getting rid of women. However, there were people in the services that saw the opportunity to reduce the number of women because they believe that the Reagan administration would be supportive of that. And so you started to see all these studies about, well, you know, women had proven that they could actually do the job. So then there were studies about, well, they must be impacting, they must be impacting readiness, right? Because they get pregnant, right? They had all these reasons why, you know, they thought that women weren't going to really, you know, be able to do the job in the military. Yeah, there's concerns about, you know, can they really be, you know, will they hurt cohesion? That was one of the big concerns is that they'll hurt unit cohesion. So, and there was just a lot of concerns in general about feminization of the military, you know, worries that bringing women in was going to cause the military to become feminized. And interestingly enough, we're starting to hear some of those same discussions today again. It's quite frustrating for me to see those discussions still going on after 40 years. So, but some things did start to change in 1982. This, this aircraft called AWACS, it's an early warning aircraft, you have air controllers, basically weapons controllers on your air traffic controllers, if you will, that are monitoring the skies and can use these aircraft to provide early warning of inbound enemy aircraft. And previously that aircraft had been closed to women, and it did open in 1982. So, so now Margie, I'd like to hand things back to you. So you went into pilot training in 1980. So a couple of years before they opened the AWACS aircraft, if you want to just talk a little bit about pilot training after you graduated from the academy and, you know, what was, what that was like and what, what aircraft were available to you and your, and the other women. Sure. While I was at the academy, the last couple of years there, the test program was successful and they allowed women to go to pilot training and I was qualified physically. So I got to go. I went to Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, started in August of 1980 and graduated with class 8107. In August of 81. At the time I knew right away that I couldn't fly fighters and I could not fly any aircraft. And I was very much in touch with the WC-130, the WC-130's attack, reconnaissance, bombers, whole slew of aircraft. So I focused on the ones that I could fly. We were allowed to fly transport tankers and some specialty aircraft, such as Medevac or WC-130, I believe, which was weather research related. And we could be trainers. But after looking at all the missions, to fly transport aircraft and see the world and fly real-time day-to-day missions. And I was very fortunate in that I got my first choice of a C-141 to Charleston Air Force Base. And en route to Charleston, I went to Altus Air Force Base for training and that's where I met my future husband. And as fate would have it, we both ended up in the same squadron in Charleston. We were in Charleston for seven years together, which is actually quite a long time. And I could fly all of the missions that the C-141 flew except combat-related, combat-related, combat-related. We're getting a little extra there. Okay, go ahead. Just as a side note. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, somebody needs to mute, I think, so. I'll try again. No, I think you're good now. So yeah. Okay. I was just going to mention that my roommate in pilot training desperately wanted to fly fighters. And so, and she was at the top of the class. And so she was offered a trainer, a T-38, which is a fast jet airplane. So she was hopeful that if combat aircraft did open to women, she would be in the perfect position to go do that. And unfortunately, this was in 1981 and the restriction wasn't put into effect until 1993. So unfortunately, she missed that window there. Yeah. And that's a story I heard from a lot of women of your era that they were good enough to fly combat aircraft, but the laws prevented them. And by the time the laws changed, they were too old. So. Exactly. Yeah. So now another thing that happened in the 1980s is that the women aviators, there started to be enough of you across all the military services that you could start to organize, if you will. And my understanding is initially it was more kind of a social kind of thing. But also the women from World War II, the WASP, they had an organization that, I understand, reached out to y'all to kind of bring everybody together. Can you talk a little bit about the women, what became the women military aviators? I think it was called something different initially. Yes, absolutely. In 1978, the women Air Force service pilots, they already had their organization. But a group of them, a small group led by Sarah Hayden, wanted to start a new organization that would include the modern women military aviators. And so she incorporated a group called Women Military Pilots Association, or WNPA. And it was a few years later after she did this that three of the female instructor pilots at Williams Air Force Base, they were trainers, Barb Room, Karen Daniel, and Julie Tizard, decided that they wanted to create some sort of association for women. Because there were so few women flying, and I'm talking about pilots and navigators. And we all had common interests and problems. For instance, how the uniforms fit, or the equipment, how it fit, how we related to our peers, our superiors, different promotion opportunities. So they sent out a survey. I think there were about 175 women pilots and navigators at the time to see if there was any interest. And of course, there was. And during this time, Sarah Hayden from the WASP was put in touch with Barb. And they worked together to incorporate the active duty women into WNPA. And in October 1982, 86 women pilots and navigators, active duty, myself included, and 126 WASPs became the charter members of WNPA. And we had our first convention a few months later in 1983. And what was interesting about that convention is there was a female four-ship flyby at the Indianapolis 500. It was pretty amazing. Oh, that's really cool. Oh, yeah, it was fantastic. And it was really a wonderful start to the creation of WNPA. And there was a Navy organization that had also started called, I think, the Society for Women in Military Aviation. And we merged with them, or they merged with us. That was headed by Rosemary Mariner. And then a few years later, I believe 1988, we changed our name to women military aviators so that we would include pilots and, of course, navigators, but also other aircrew members, because female aircrew members needed an organization to be part of. And these are all people, women that had earned their wings just in a different capacity. And we also opened it up to all the different services. So today's membership, we have over 500 members. And we include students. We give them free one-year memberships. We have annual conferences and conventions. We do mentoring. We have scholarships, quarterly newsletter. And myself and Marcie Atwood are the historical committee. And right now, our big project is interviewing our members for our oral history project. That's great. Yeah, I think it's awesome that you're capturing all these histories, because it's a big job to do all that interviewing. And I think it's wonderful that we're going to have not just a few stories. We're going to have, hopefully, all the stories of all the women who went through in this era. And like you said, it's not just about pilots and navigators. We've got loadmasters, flight engineers. There's all kinds of women that serve in many aircrew capacities across the military. So let's see here. Get my screen back here. So OK, so now the 1983 comes along. So now we've got some more confusion about what women can and can't do, right? And you had some interesting experiences very close together in 1983. Can I talk about those a little bit? Sure. Folks may remember that the Beirut barracks were bombed in, I think, it was 23rd of October in 83. And I happened to be in Germany at the time and was alerted to go fly down there. I was actually in charge of the flight. But we decided that because of the hostilities there, actually there were a lot of unknowns, that we should fly a combat entry. Well, I wasn't airdrop qualified. I had no idea how to do that. So I turned it over to the other pilots so that he could fly that maneuver in and just keep us all very safe. And then Grenada happened just a couple days later. It was called Urgent Fury. I was able to fly three missions going down to Grenada. And it was during, it was a combat situation. But somehow I still got to go. I know some of my counterparts over on the West Coast were not allowed to fly into Grenada. But I was alerted and I flew. I just went. I don't think our higher ups really discussed it much. I think I was a warm body and a pilot and they needed me. So I went down there. But interestingly, that picture of me, I was being given the accommodation medal for going down to Grenada by Colonel Neal, who was our squadron commander. That's an interesting picture because that particular award was given for a specific Grenada trip on the 19th of November. And that's when hostilities were over. So what I was I'm thinking is that they did not recognize the fact that I had been down there during hostilities. But they did recognize the fact that I had been there after it was over. So maybe that's how I was able to get. Yeah, that's interesting. So yeah, because I remember us talking about how they were like, well, can we really, should you have been down there in the first place? This starts to show up the problems with this law, though, is that your commanders, like you said, you don't know exactly what happened. But your commanders were like, hey, she's on the schedule. She's going. And the commanders on the West Coast were like, oh, get the women off the airplanes and let's bring some guys in to replace them. And so it's yeah. So you had individual commanders who were figuring out how to apply this law because there wasn't really a lot of guidance. And just to mention, I was pregnant when I received the award, but not when I went down there. Because as soon as you were pregnant, you were automatically grounded. Yeah, yeah. So that was after the fact. Yeah, you got pregnant after. So yeah, so yeah. And that's changed today. Women can now fly. I mean, they have to work with the flight surgeon and everything, but women can now fly at least for a while when they're pregnant. So yeah. So then some additional things started going on in 1986 we had Operation Elder Auto Canyon, which was the raid on Libya. Of course, there weren't women that actually flew in the combat aircraft, but that aircraft was very heavily dependent upon aerial refueling tankers. I think they had pretty much every KC-10 in the world that was flying came over to support that operation. And there were about a half a dozen women that participated in that operation. Again, not going actually downtown and dropping bombs or anything, but again, getting close to the combat area. So about this time, they started to, there was this risk rule that got introduced. There were some things that started very gradually, looks like one weapon system at a time, some things got open to women like C-130s. But again, it was just very slow progress. And then there was also some potential changes coming along that we're going to eliminate women from flying the high performance aircraft that they could. The Air Force was going to a dual track pilot training system where they were, not everybody was gonna fly the T-38 in pilot training anymore. And so that was going to eliminate women, only people who were gonna go to combat aircraft would fly that aircraft. And so that was going to eliminate women from being able to fly that as an instructor. The Navy was starting to contract out some of those training missions that I mentioned earlier that women were able to fly. And women just, a lot of women, Navyators started leaving because they started realizing my career is very limited here. And I'm gonna go do something else. And a lot of them did go in the reserve. So the military was still able to use their services, but there was really a lot of wasted talent going out the door in the late 80s. So, and then Desert Storm happened. So it was just, I think the door was gonna open eventually anything, but this was what I would really consider to be the inciting event that really kind of made that final push possible. Desert Storm was very much, Desert Shield then Desert Storm was very much a logistics war. You had women flying, all the tankers and the support aircraft taking material over there. There were women in Saudi Arabia from the first day that aircraft arrived. So we had women helicopter pilots, Army helicopter pilots that were there from the first day. And we had women, like I said, bringing supplies, troops and everything in from the very first day. And the public saw this and it really opened the public's eyes to the fact that women were already in combat, were already in hostile areas. And by the end of the war, they saw that women were part of the action too. I mean, 13 women died, 21 were wounded and two became POWs. Here's just a couple of pictures from there. This is Major Stephanie Wells, she's a C-5 pilot. Here she is with a load of bombs that she carried over there and then in the cockpit when the war actually kicked off. She's got a lot of great stories to tell about flying during that time period. So, and Margie, you weren't actually, let me just do this one slide real quick. So yeah, I just remembered. So this is just showing how far inside a rack that some of the women actually went as well. So you had Army helicopter pilots, women and helicopter pilots who were moving the ground troops forward into a rack for the final push for the 100 hour war that took place at the end of February that eventually led to the cessation of hostilities just a few days later. So you had women, like I said, that were very fully engaged in this war. Maybe not going downtown dropping bombs, but they were very much a part of the war. So, and Margie, you didn't actually get to participate though, right? You were at a point in your career where you do another stuff. I was, I had accepted a position at the Air Force Academy to teach. They sent me to get my master's degree and then I owed them four years at the Academy of Teaching Academics but also flying in the T-41 flying program for the cadets. But interestingly on the 6th and 7th of August, 1990, when Desert Shield happened, I was watching it on TV while I was in labor with my second child. So I wasn't going to get to be a part of that, but I was rooting for them. Yeah, so yeah, so but a lot of your peers did fly in that war. Yeah, I've got a lot of good stories from all of them. So it'd be great if we could someday get together, maybe, and talk about all that. Yeah, absolutely. So, but the timing was perfect. The war ended, like I said, the end of February, which was just about when they started debating the Defense Bill for 1992. And so the House almost immediately repealed the combat exclusion law. And then it went to the Senate and kind of started to slow down a little bit, unfortunately, and the Sask voted against the House language. And it looked like there were a lot of, a lot of people were kind of startled by the House repealing the law. And there were a lot of people that had gone into action, trying to get the Senate to not repeal the law. The service chiefs were very opposed to repealing the law. They testified against it. You had all kinds of anti-feminist groups that were lobbying Congress. And so it was things were not looking good for the home team for a while there. And then on July 18th, 1991, The Washington Times published an article by a woman reporter who had gone down to Langley Air Force Base and had flown in the back seat to an F-15. And her take on that was that, wow, this is really hard. I don't think women should be able to do this. And that really infuriated a lot of women, including Heather Wilson, who Air Force Academy grad and had gotten out because she couldn't be a combat pilot. And she was later as a Congresswoman and Secretary of the Air Force. But she got ahold of the women military aviators that said, hey, activate your old exes. We need to really start putting the pressure on Congress. And then another woman, Carolyn Becraft, who had formerly been in the Army and had to leave the Army in the 70s because she had gotten pregnant. And she was also very heavily involved in this. And she called the WMA folks and said, get your women and come to Washington. And so there were a number of women that came from all the services. They were on leave, they wore their uniforms. They arrived in Washington on July 24th. And then they went around with Carolyn Becraft, Heather Wilson, I think there were a couple other women who actually did the lobbying because military people can't lobby, and especially if they're in uniform. So their job there was to educate the staffers and the Congress people that they talked to, the senators that they talked to. And then the other four women did the actual lobbying for them. So, and so this is, not all of these women were there that day, but this is a picture that was taken later. It wasn't taken that day. But it is a picture of some of the women who were there. And certainly all of these women played a role in that final push to get things across the finish line of the Senate. So the bill finally did pass, but there was another bill that was added to that that created a presidential commission to study the assignment of women to combat jobs because if you don't wanna do something, you study the problem. And if you don't like that result, you study it again. And so it was sort of a delaying tactic, if you will. And actually in late 1992, the commission recommended that flying in combat remain close to women. And so at first things were again, not looking good for the home team, but the day after they made that recommendation, Bill Clinton got elected president. And so with the administration change, it still took a few more months. And that's another story, but we're running out of time. So, but finally in April of 1993, Les Aspen, the secretary of defense ordered the services to open combat aircraft to women. And that same day, Merrill McPeak, general Merrill McPeak, who's the chief staff of the United States Air Force introduced the first three women fighter pilots to the public. And the first one was of course, Teenie Flynn, as was mentioned earlier. So you wanna talk just really quick, Margie, about kind of your feelings about kind of how that felt at the end of all that, when you heard that, oh, we're finally opening it. So yeah. Sure, I was very excited for the women who came after me. By that time, I had been in the service for 13 years and it was too late for me to change career paths. In fact, I had just started working with Defense Intelligence Agency and became a military attaché in Africa, flying the C-12, which is a King Air. So I had an entire different track to my career, which didn't and would never involve fighters, bombers, attack aircraft and so on. But I was very, very happy that the women behind me would get to fly. And it was a long road and I was pleased to be a small part of it with women military aviators. And now I'm even more pleased to be able to document the stories of the women who went through all that. That's, yeah, thanks. So yeah, and after we talked about that the other day, I was thinking about that myself is that I've thought about that a few times that if I had been able, when I first came in the Air Force I couldn't go to pilot training because my eyes weren't good enough. And I thought about trying to go to navigator training but I knew I wouldn't be able to fly a fighter and I was interested in flying fighters and I found a way around that. I was an engineer and I went to test pilot school and I was able to fly fighters that way. But I do sometimes wonder, if I'd been able to fly fighters, would I have maybe gone to pilot training, I'm sorry, to navigator training and tried to take that route instead. So it did impact women's careers. It's nice to have all of those options available to the younger women now. So this is just some of the women who have flown in combat or still fly in combat aircraft. Lisa, we've kind of run out of time here. So I'm gonna see if we've got any questions and if we don't, I'll kind of run through these women here really quick and then we'll wrap up. So no questions. Okay, so yeah, so let me just run through through some of these women really quick. I think a lot of you have heard of Martha McSally, she's a retired former congresswoman and senator but she was one of those first three women to go to fly combat aircraft and she flew the A-10 and she was actually the first woman to fly a combat aircraft on a combat sorority. So even though Jeannie Flynn was the first fighter pilot, she didn't actually fly into a combat situation until after Martha McSally did. I thought it was interesting we had a, we had kind of a little reunion at the Oshkosh AirVenture of two weeks ago where we brought together the first three women. So it was Martha McSally, Jeannie Flynn and a woman named Sharon Prezler who flew F-16s and we brought them together kind of as a celebration of 30 years of women in combat. And I learned at that time that that was the first time those three women had been together since they were introduced to the public. So they, because they went off to separate weapon systems they were kind of off on their own and they never really got back together and kept track of each other. I mean, they kind of knew who to each other were but I thought that was interesting that they didn't really stay in touch that much afterwards. So Kim Campbell, you see here, she's a retired colonel, also an A-10 pilot. She was hit over a rack over Baghdad and her aircraft was hit and lost all the hydraulics in the aircraft, very hard to fly the aircraft, it took her an hour, flying a very difficult to handle aircraft all the way back to her base and landed it and received a distinguished flying cross for that. Heather Penny, Air National Guard pilot, Lieutenant on September 11th. She's got a very interesting story where she took off with her flight lead. They had just come back from an exercise. They were at the DC Guard there in Maryland at Andrews Air Force Base. They had just come back from an exercise so their aircraft had no weapons on them, a couple of F-16s and they took off to look for Flight 93 which had crashed by them but they didn't know that. But they were planning to ram the aircraft with their jets if they had found it to take it down because they didn't have any other way to take it down. And then Tammy Duckworth, a lot of you are familiar with her. She was an Army helicopter pilot shot down in Iraq and lost both of her legs. Amy McGrath, Marine Corps F-18 pilot, recently ran for Senate, didn't win but just another example of women who are going on to are trying to go on to bigger and better things. And then last is Kristen Wolf, Beow Wolf, her call sign's Beow and she's currently the F-35 demonstration pilot. And the thing that I really liked about when she was picked to be the F-35 demonstration pilot is the headlines were not first woman picked to be F-35 demonstration pilot. They were, hey, meet the new F-35 demonstration pilot and then you look down way down in the article, somebody made the comment, hey, aren't you the first woman to be the F-35 demonstration pilot? And so it was not the main thing and I find it great that we are getting past this constant, hey, the first to do this, the first to that, there's no need to be doing that anymore. Women are part of this, part of the military, they're here to stay and they're doing a great job. So I don't know, Margie, if you had anything you wanted to add to that. I do not. Okay, so let me. So yeah, so again, that's kind of my book in a nutshell. Obviously there's a lot more stories in there. You've got some of Margie's stories in there and then other stories out there as well. So and then this is just my, this is me on the F-4, one of the F-4s that I flew at Edwards Air Force Base back in the 1980s. So, so my, like I said, my way of managing to get into a fighter aircraft, even though it wasn't really a fighter airplane, it was a test airplane, so. Eileen, I do see one question if you'd like to answer that. The question is asking if the oral histories will become publicly available. And that is our goal right now. They are private as we work on their transcriptions, but eventually we do intend to make them public. Okay, great. So well, thank you, Margie. Thank you for everything that you've done for women military aviators and, and, you know, being a trailblazer and helping to get the door kicked open for women. You know, like you said, it didn't really help your generation, but it's helped the subsequent generations and generations to come. So. And Eileen, thank you for writing us back into history. You're very welcome. And I very much enjoyed doing all the interviewing and writing the book. Thanks everyone. Bye.