“Jennings. My office. Now,” my Flight Commander’s voice boomed over the top of everyone’s heads. Shit.
I got my ass handed to me, but it was worth it. I could tell that my Flight Commander knew he had to ream me, but the corners of his mouth kept turning up in a slight smile. He ended up “punishing” me by having me brief for the rest of the week, but after my time in the Air Force, briefing congressmen and generals on the status of the B-2, it wasn’t much of a punishment for me—I had no problem with public speaking. Anyway, it was a small price to pay to show my class that they could still have fun when they’re under stress. In fact, I found we all performed much better if we could find a way to cut the tension.
The KC-135 pilot candidate who had told me not to mess around during briefings was a good example of this. After a particularly grueling check ride (a flight that is basically a test from start to finish), he returned to our class and threw his checklist across the room. Two of us quickly jumped up and escorted him into an auditorium before an instructor saw him losing his shit. Once inside, he kicked a chair so hard I thought it was going to be ripped out of the frame that bolted it to the floor. It was apparent the flight hadn’t gone very well.
“I can’t do this!” he yelled, his cheeks bright red. “I’m not going to get my wings.”
“You’re going to be okay,” my other classmate told him. “I’m sure MJ can talk to the commander and get you another chance,” he continued, trying to comfort him.
Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to agree. I had seen this student continue to maintain the bare minimum standards while letting every ounce of stress get to him. Despite my compassion for him, I knew he would one day be asked to refuel his aircraft over a combat zone. How would he deal with the stress of getting a surface-to-air missile shot at him while refueling an F-16 over Iraq? Who would be there to boost his confidence and assure him that it would be alright then?
Luckily, I didn’t have to decide whether or not to fight for him. Soon after that flight, he withdrew himself from training. I had learned that the warrior spirit and the nerves of steel you needed to fly planes were not characteristics you could predict by gender or any other demographic. Some people just don’t have what it takes to do what we were being asked to do, to do what some of us had dreamed about our whole lives.
Of course, there were plenty of times that I found myself wondering if I would make it. There are always moments when you question whether it’s worth it or whether you are good enough. Some of us could find our way back from those dark moments and some of us couldn’t. I had no idea at the time just how much I would be tested, but each challenge I put behind me made my confidence grow incrementally. Meanwhile, I was having the time of my life.
—
Nearing the end of the T-37 phase, I was really in my groove. Of course I made plenty of mistakes. For example, I “hooked” my first check ride, which meant I failed the flight. It was a stupid mistake, but I learned from it and recovered well in the next attempt. Now that I no longer needed to sit and listen to radio calls to prepare for when I’d be making them myself, I spent most nights studying.
Each night I’d take a break to go for a run around the outside of the flightline so that I could still be motivated by the beauty of the red and green lights on the aircraft taking off and landing during their night phase. But the recurring knee injury, the one that had sidelined me in ROTC training years earlier during college, still plagued me. The pain grew steadily throughout my nightly runs, but I stubbornly and stupidly pushed through it.
Finally, two weeks from finishing up the T-37 phase of my training, it got to the point that I couldn’t even climb into the aircraft. I went for an assessment and received the bad news that the pain wasn’t due to the injury. It was actually a recurring condition; my kneecap was being held down too tightly by my tendons, so my cartilage kept tearing, leading to chronic pain in both of my knees. The fact that I had broken it in college on the obstacle course made it worse, but there was nothing to be done. I was told I would need to undergo surgery to loosen the kneecap in order to walk without pain.
I was furious at myself for ignoring the pain and continuing to run at night. I met with my Flight Commander to discuss my options. I was so close to the end that we decided it would be best to go ahead and finish training. I would just have to climb on the plane through the instructor’s side so I could use my good leg on the foothold we used to pull ourselves into the cockpit. The alternative—to suffer through a minimum six-week hiatus and possibly come back with stale hands, having lost the sharpness from my studying—was a nonstarter. I took the first option and finished the phase limping out to the line each day.
I had the surgery at Columbus, and after just three weeks of recovery, I was sent straight to the next phase in my training. I left Columbus Air Force Base for Fort Rucker, Alabama (affectionately known to the pilots as Mother Rucker) to continue my training. This phase of training was similar to the T-37s in that it started out slowly, all academics in classrooms. Then finally, when we moved onto the flightline portion, it was absolutely exhilarating.
Apparently I was supposed to do my physical therapy while simultaneously trying to learn a new aircraft, but instead, stubborn as ever, I slacked off on the rehab so I could focus on the training. This felt like the right decision at the time, but it would come back to bite me soon enough.
At Fort Rucker I’d learn how to fly the mighty UH-1 Huey. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one. The classic muscle car of helicopters, the Hueys we’d be flying had been in Vietnam, and the patched bullet holes in the fuselage were a sobering reminder of why we were here in the first place. It was during my Huey training that it began to sink in that I wasn’t just here to fulfill my dreams; I was here to serve my country. I’d be flying alongside the Dave Ruvolas of the world and trying to save people’s lives, and despite my enthusiasm, I was taking that very seriously. I was here to soak up every bit of knowledge and skill I could from my instructors.
During the academic phase at Fort Rucker, I had an incident with one of the civilian instructors that was a humbling reminder of how much more I had to learn. One day the instructor said something I disagreed with. Obviously, as a student, I should have listened to the instructor and let it go, but instead I was disrespectful and pushed back, a little too hard as it turned out. I had given in to a feeling that most of us feel at one point or another in training—that one of our instructors didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. After the altercation, I quickly realized my error and I wrote the instructor a letter. It was an unequivocal apology, because I was truly embarrassed that I had been disrespectful to him. On my way into another class, I handed it to him with lowered eyes.
Later that day, our class instructor Captain Randy Voas showed up outside one of my classes. Captain Voas was amazing. He had flown spec ops helicopters in some of our country’s lesser-publicized “incidents,” and he was the perfect mix between being a badass and simultaneously really caring about his students. I couldn’t help but think that his wife and two little girls had humanized this tough guy. He was truly one of the best instructors I knew throughout my entire training experience.
When Captain Voas showed up outside my class, he opened the door to the classroom and simply pointed to me. I jumped up and joined him in the hall, nervous at being pulled out so conspicuously. He was holding my letter in his hand. I was sure I had messed up by putting the incident in writing, basically confessing to disrespecting an instructor. Oh God.
“SEE THIS?” he yelled at me. Gulp.
“Yes, sir,” I meekly answered.
“THIS just SAVED your ASS. We were talking about what to do with you after you mouthed off to Mr. Jeffries, and the consensus was to kick your ass out of training. It was the end of the dream, Jennings, but the humility and authenticity in this letter has swayed the group. You get one more shot, but DON’T FUCK IT UP!” He
turned on his heel and stalked off.
As he walked away, I felt myself start to shake. I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been, how close I had come to getting kicked out after all I had been through to get there. Stunned, I went back into class a different student from the one who had come out. I would listen to and respect my instructors much more from here on out.
—
When we started the flightline training on the Hueys at Fort Rucker, I was in heaven. The low-level night-vision-goggle navigation training was the most dangerous thing I had done in my life, and I loved every second of it. After a twenty-minute flight, we had to hit our landing zone within thirty seconds under low illumination with simulated enemy forces popping up to engage us. It was beyond stressful and absolutely amazing. Completely at home in the environment and eager to soak up every ounce of knowledge, I was having more fun in this phase of training than I ever thought possible.
It was during this phase I learned what “autorotation” is. Sometimes as a student, you’ll be flying along, minding your own business, when your instructor will reach over and just cut off your engine. To the untrained eye it looks like we’re just flying straight to a crash site, and that’s sort of what it feels like at first, too. Technically, the engine just goes to idle, so you could turn it back on if absolutely necessary, but you’re supposed to act as if you’ve lost your engine. This is called autorotation. The rotors immediately slow as the aircraft feels like it just deployed a drag chute. It’s as if you’re going 120 miles per hour on the highway and you blow all four tires at once. The student dumps the collective (the horizontal stick on the left that controls the power), which puts less demand on the rotors but makes the aircraft fall like a rock. This also makes the rotors spin faster as they store the kinetic energy. This is a good thing, as you’ll need that stored energy to keep you from crashing at the bottom.
As you turn the aircraft sharply (you don’t want to stay in a turn during this maneuver, as you’ll drop faster) to land facing into the wind, you have to somehow gain control of the aircraft in order to put it where you want. It feels like you’re riding an angry stampeding bull and you somehow have to get him to calm down and go through a specific gate before you fall off.
As you approach the ground, first you have to go nose up in order to bleed off your airspeed. Then, before you lose all of your energy and fall onto your tail, you level off and ease the aircraft to the ground. It slides on its skids across the runway, sending sparks into the air as you slowly come to a stop. This is the part when you look up at your instructor with a grin, excited that you’re both still alive. Then he looks at you and shakes his head as he writes down all of the things you did wrong. It’s one of the best and worst moments in training.
After each flight, there would be a grueling debrief. This is the part of the flight where the crew talks through every moment, from the preflight brief to the postflight walk-around aircraft inspection. There were many things we were graded on. Some were specific, things like the ability to hold your hover within ten feet or your airspeed plus or minus five knots. Others were general impressions by the instructor like “situational awareness” or “judgment.” I did pretty well in pilot training, but I certainly made my fair share of mistakes. I was no stranger to constructive criticism, but I didn’t “hook” many flights (that means to get a “U” or an “unsatisfactory,” which is basically a fail).
My main instructor was Mr. Edmunds, and I am a much better pilot because of him. A Vietnam-era Huey pilot, Mr. Edmunds has forgotten more about helicopters than I will ever know. He was tough but fair, and I wanted nothing more than to get his stamp of approval. I knew from the beginning how very lucky I was to have been assigned to him, and I hope I made him proud later in my flying career.
There was one day of training when I most definitely did not make him proud. It was a pretty rough flight where nothing seemed to go my way. It was one of my off days, but you can’t afford to have those as a pilot. There’d be no sympathy for having a “bad day” out in the real world.
After the flight, we hovered back to our parking spot and landed. As the rotors spun down, I took off my headset and looked to my left over the center console to see his reaction. His slight frame and bushy white mustache gave no indication of his opinion of the flight, but his silence was deafening. I watched as his hand flipped switches on the upper console on the roof of the cockpit, when he suddenly made his hand into a “U” and sort of let it drop and bounce as if it were on a bungee cord until it was right in front of me. This was his way of saying I had hooked the flight, and if I wasn’t so devastated, it would have been pretty funny. I took a deep breath and unbuckled my seat belt. This debrief would be fun, I thought.
Later, walking out of the debrief with my head down, I bumped right into someone and bounced off his barrel-chested flight suit. I looked up, pissed off.
“Heh-heh . . . Holy shit. What up, MJ?” It was Keenan fucking Zerkel. I threw my arms around him, and he picked me up and swung me around.
“Zerk! Oh my God, am I glad to see you. I’ve had such a shit day and could really use a drink.”
He had just arrived from his T-37 phase in Oklahoma, and I was excited that our timing was so perfect. Our Huey phases would overlap by a couple of months. We made plans to hang out and blow off some steam, and since I was a few weeks ahead of him, I told him I’d give him all the “gouge” I could, which meant passing on notes and tips for him and his classmates. It was really great to see a friendly face amid all of the stress and competition. I couldn’t believe he was there. It’d be like doing maintenance training all over again, only this time we were friends.
When Zerk and I met up later that week, I told him as much as I could.
“If I have only one piece of advice for you,” I told him over a beer, “try to get Mr. Edmunds assigned as your civilian instructor. I’ve learned so much from him.”
Not all instructors were as useful as Mr. Edmunds, though, and an instructor named Captain Jones was one of the least useful. I would fly a kick-ass flight with him, knowing that even Mr. Edmunds would approve, and yet every single time I flew with him, he’d hook me. And every time, I would rack my brain to try to figure out what I was doing wrong so that I could become a better pilot, but he’d never be specific with me about how I could improve.
After each flight, I’d read my training record. And every time, he would mark me down as failing one of the subjective things like judgment. After the third flight I hooked with him, I was fed up. I’d only hooked four flights in my whole time there, the one time with Mr. Edmunds, and the other three with Captain Jones for judgment or situational awareness. Finally, I went to the Director of Operations (DO) to ask for his advice. I had flown with him as well, and he knew me to be a good pilot.
The DO assured me he’d get to the bottom of it and asked Captain Jones to join us. It didn’t take long before he admitted the real reason. Captain Jones “didn’t like me,” he said. His religion didn’t believe in divorce, and he thought I should be taking care of my husband instead of being here. He also didn’t think women should be flying. I stood there in shock, not just at what he was saying, but at the fact that he felt safe saying so in front of the DO. Surely his career would be over. Or at least his time as an instructor, right?
Wrong. My grades stood. He was never admonished, not that I saw. He continued to be an instructor, flying with my male classmates. The only thing that was done was to ensure that I was never scheduled to fly with him again. After the incident with Mr. Jeffries that almost got me kicked out, though, I wasn’t about to rock the boat.
Looking back, part of me regrets that I didn’t make more of a fuss, but I knew the time wasn’t right. Later in my career, when I had more credibility, I would have a lot more leeway to create change. Back then I simply had to put my head down and be grateful that Captain Jones had not succeeded at failing me out of training for my gender.
Nearing the end of training, Captain Voas slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Christ, Jennings, you really ended up kicking ass. I’m proud of you.” I tried not to let him see my eyes well up. This was the next best thing to my dad being there to say it, the moment I had been hoping and waiting for. He didn’t know it, but that moment meant even more to me than actually getting my wings. Years later I learned that Captain Voas was killed in Afghanistan flying the V-22 Osprey, and I immediately thought of his wife and kids. The world lost a great man that day.
Graham Buschor, the Co-Pilot on the Perfect Storm mission, agreed to come to Mother Rucker and officiate our graduation in January 2006. It was an incredible honor. Receiving the top academic award in front of him was just icing on the cake. I think I would have gotten the top stick as well if it hadn’t been for the three hooks Captain Jones had given me, but it didn’t matter. Getting those wings pinned on my chest was all I wanted, and it meant I had won. I blew him a kiss as I walked out of the hangar. I was on top of the world.
—
That night I threw a big party at my apartment for my class. I couldn’t believe I was finally a pilot in the Air Force. We’d all be going to survival training soon, so we wanted to celebrate before heading off to hell. Survival Evasion Resistance Escape—known as SERE and pronounced like “sear,” as in “searing pain”—scared most of my classmates to death. We had all heard the stories of starving in the woods, getting the crap beat out of you by mock enemy interrogators, and the like, but I was really looking forward to it. I couldn’t wait to get there and learn the skills I’d need to be an even better pilot.
I got dressed for the party in a fantastic mood. I threw on a tight pair of jeans and silky sleeveless top with my leather motorcycle boots before starting to make some Jell-O shots. As it turned out, my illustrious past as a bartender really came in handy during pilot training. My classmates showed up along with students from the classes behind us, and we started to celebrate. When the door slammed open with a bang, I didn’t need to look up to know who it was. Zerk never knocked. He ambled into my place and high-fived me. Now the party could really begin.
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