 People say, well, how did you enjoy the Marine Corps? I absolutely loved it. My name is Gilda Jackson, and I'm a retired colonel in the United States Marine Corps. When I enlisted, we were in the Vietnam conflict. This was in November of 1968. I was actually 17. I was a few days away from my 18th birthday. At that time, young ladies had to be 21 to actually join on their own. So I needed parental permission to actually join the Marine Corps. I said, Mom, I'm going in the Marines. Well, I was kind of sad because I didn't want her to go and leave me, but I had no other choice but to let her go. I was told that I had been selected for colonel. They started telling me, oh, by the way, you'll be the first African-American woman on active duty in the Marine Corps history to reach the rank of colonel. Well, I know she was going to be colonel sooner or later because she always was a hard worker, training, going to school, work at her college and all that other stuff. I knew she was going to make it. I learned a lot about leadership and the qualities of leadership while I was in the Marine Corps and some of those attributes that come along with being a good leader. And I took those leadership attributes and applied them to my job today as a civilian. I am the president and general manager of Locky Martin and Arrow Parts Incorporated. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Locky Martin Corporation and in our particular facility we do fabrication, manufacturing, and we also do some small and medium assembly. For the F-35 aircraft, F-16 aircraft, and C-130 aircraft, I'm mostly proud of what we do for the C-130 aircraft because as I see Marines flying C-130s, I can say that we had a part in making that aircraft. There have been a lot of changes and I think there are changes for the good because a lot of our young Marines, especially our female Marines, they want to be known as Marines and it's important. And what's also important is that if that first person is out there and they're successful at it, everyone behind them has that same opportunity or everyone behind them says, hey, I can do that. So success, I believe, brings more success.