THREE

The last few weeks of my Air Force career were spent sending in my applications for pilot training with various Air National Guard units around the country. My soon-to-be ex-husband, Jack, had graduated from pilot training, so I also began the process of filing for divorce. When he received the paperwork in the mail, he called me from his base in Little Rock, Arkansas, and actually had the gall to sound surprised.

“But I haven’t hit you in over a year!” he said to me. Unbelievable. I mean, was he serious? We hadn’t lived together for a year and a half. I had seen him now and then for things like the ceremony where he got his wings, but we hadn’t spent any actual time together. I guess he had managed to convince himself that I wouldn’t go through with it. But I knew staying in that marriage would have been a slap in the face to my mother and all the sacrifices she had made to get me away from my biological father. She had found happiness after her first marriage. Maybe I could someday, too. Despite his incredulity, I assured him that I definitely still wanted a divorce.

In March 2004, I was ecstatic to get a call from the New York Air National Guard offering me a pilot slot to fly Combat Search and Rescue, or CSAR (pronounced “see sar”), HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters. Simultaneously, I was also offered a spot to fly A-10s by another guard unit. I couldn’t believe it. I had always wanted to fly the A-10. An agile, low-altitude attack aircraft, the A-10 represented my personality better than any other airframe. The aircraft itself was designed and built around its enormous 30mm cannon, offset from the center of the nose due to the propensity for the weapon to actually turn the aircraft when fired. Finally. After all of the obstacles and roadblocks, it was happening. I was going to be a pilot.

It was an easy choice. I called Lieutenant Colonel Mike Noyes in New York—he had become somewhat of a mentor to me through the application process—and let him know that, while I was grateful for the opportunity, I was going to take the A-10 slot.

“Why?” Lieutenant Colonel Noyes asked me. I was a little taken aback with the question. I figured anyone would take an A-10 over a helicopter.

“Well,” I answered, “I’ve always wanted to fly the A-10.”

“Yeah, but why? What about the A-10 do you like?”

What was there not to like about the A-10? There was no way he was going to convince me that the A-10 wasn’t the best airframe in the inventory.

“I love the flying profile. They’re just off the deck, directly supporting ground troops, incredibly maneuverable, and the sound of the gun just gives me chills. It’s as close to being ‘in the shit’ as you can get as a pilot.”

“True,” he said, “but you can get all of the same stuff you’re talking about with us. And here’s the real bottom line. We’re a search-and-rescue platform. As an A-10 driver, you’ll be spending all of your time training and maybe someday deploying to use your skills real world. With us, you’ll be doing real-world missions all the time. You could be doing a local flight and get called out for a rescue any day of the week. We do water rescues . . . We put out wildfires . . . We support local law enforcement. Oh, and we also go to war and get in the shit with the ground troops. You’ll be saving lives. Can you do that in an A-10?”

I got chills. It was like he had flipped on a light switch in my soul. He was absolutely right. All of the excitement and impact I was looking for was right here in front of me. I couldn’t believe it, but I was going to turn down the A-10 slot and sign up with New York.

My life was starting to look up. I was newly single, driving a new motorcycle (a Yamaha R6 with, of course, a Yoshimura pipe), getting off of active duty, and about to live my dream. I was so happy about embarking on my new career.

Barely able to contain my excitement, I placed a phone call to Keenan Zerkel, my old frenemy from maintenance training, to tell him about my pilot slot. On the second ring, he picked up, sounding just as excited as I was.

“MJ! I’m so glad you called! I have news!” he said.

“Me first!” He was going to flip!

“Okay, go.”

“I GOT A PILOT SLOT!” I yelled as I bounced up and down.

“ME, TOO!” he replied.

“No shit? Really? That’s amazing! I’m joining the Guard, though.”

“Cool. Me too!” Zerk replied.

“Wow, that’s weird. I’m gonna be flying rescue helicopters . . .” I began, wondering what the odds were that we’d both get this once-in-a-lifetime chance at the same time.

“Oh crap. Me too!” he said. Okay, now he’s just messing with me, right?

“Who with?” he asked.

“New York. You?”

“Aww, that sucks. I was about to get excited. I’m gonna be flying for Alaska.”

There were three Air National Guard units who flew the HH-60G Pave Hawk, which was the only airframe being used for Combat Search and Rescue by the Air Force: New York, Alaska, and California. In hindsight, of course, it all sort of made sense. We were both hard-chargers who knew we’d eventually get to pilot training. Both of us had applied every year while we were on active duty. It made sense that we’d both get off active duty at the end of our commitment and start looking at the Guard. What was amazing was that we had both picked the same airframe. It was a natural choice for him since he was from Alaska, but for me it was just a happy coincidence that I was going to be flying in the same rescue community as Zerk. We finished catching up, promised to try to see each other soon, and signed off. The next part of my life was about to begin.

—

I moved back home in March 2004, while I was waiting to begin pilot training in October, and spent a few months in Austin. I swam in Barton Springs by day, then rode my sport bike to my bartending gig on Sixth Street by night, generally just having an absolute blast. But as happy as I was, the time quickly came for me to pay my dues in New York.

In May of that year I got a call that the New York unit was able to find me a job up there so I could get settled while I waited for pilot training to start. I was perfectly happy waiting in Austin, but I was afraid that if I told them that, they would never send me to training. While I had officially been offered and accepted a slot, they still had a lot of discretion when it came to which candidates they sent to one of the various pilot training bases and when. Technically, they could change their mind at any time. I knew they planned to send me to Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, soon to begin my eighteen-month training, but I felt like first I had to show them that New York was my new home and that I’d do anything to be a part of their family.

So I quit my job, packed up my car, hooked up my motorcycle trailer, and got on the road. The worst part was that I had to leave my sweet puppy, Jäger, with my mom. If all went well, I would be in New York for a couple of months before pilot training started. During pilot training, I’d be staying in a dorm and moving every six months or so to a different location. I knew that wasn’t an ideal situation for a dog, so my mom was going to dog-sit until I was finished with training. I’d come visit him as much as I could throughout training, but I knew I would miss him terribly.

The drive from Austin to New York City takes about three days. There was a moment a few hours into the trip when I came upon an on-ramp to Highway I-40. The sign said turn right for New York or turn left for Los Angeles. New York or Los Angeles.

I had everything I owned in my car, and it felt like the first time in my life that I had no commitments whatsoever. I could literally just turn left and have a completely different life. Of course, my dreams lay ahead of me in New York, but it was really liberating to finally feel like I had a choice. After more than four years of being told what to do in the Air Force and four equally draining years in an oppressive marriage, I finally felt like my life was my own.

I couldn’t stop smiling as I gripped the wheel and turned right. I would be in control of my life from here on out. I’d had enough of doing things just because I was expected to. I would never again let someone treat me like dirt. I would never again let someone convince me he could do whatever he wanted to my body against my will. I was truly free.

—

As much fun as I’d been having in Austin, it turned out that my time in New York was even more amazing. I was making a fourth of what I had been making in Austin and paying three times as much for living expenses, but I didn’t care. I was in New York. My dreams of actually living in the city itself were dashed when I realized just how far out on Long Island the unit was, so I began house-hunting for something in my budget a little closer to where my job would eventually be. There wasn’t much to choose from, but I knew I’d find the right place if I just kept looking.

About halfway down my list of a dozen or so apartments and guesthouses, I hit the jackpot. Someone had renovated an old fourteen-by-fourteen-foot railroad maintenance repair shack. Inside was a single room with a tiny bathroom just big enough for a toilet and a standing shower. A sink and a half-size college dorm refrigerator for a kitchen completed the floor plan—and it could be mine for a cool twelve hundred dollars a month. No closet, no TV connection, one window, and no neighbors—my dream home. When the owner showed me the shed next door and informed me I could park my motorcycle there if I could get it inside, my decision was made. Sold.

I built a ramp so I could park my bike in the shed, set up my futon as both a couch and a bed, and used an upside-down laundry basket as a coffee table. I had all I needed and had never been happier.

I got a night job bartending at a local restaurant called the New Moon in East Quogue, and the staff there started calling me “Austin.” It was a BBQ place, so I suppose I was lending some Texas credibility to it among the customers. The owners were great, and the customers were not what I expected. As opposed to the trust fund babies I thought I’d have to deal with in the Hamptons, our clientele was more like the people who worked hard keeping the rich people on Long Island happy.

I spent most of my free time when I was off work either rock climbing in the Catskills or climbing on top of my motorcycle shed, sitting on the roof, and enjoying a plastic cup of whiskey with a cigar, listening to my blaring music from the open window of my own private railroad shack, missing my dog.

My training wouldn’t start for another few weeks, so I didn’t mingle with the aircrew much—I wasn’t really one of them yet. But soon after I arrived in New York, I did get to bartend for the retirement of one of my heroes, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Ruvola, who would be retiring before I had the chance to fly with him. He was a gorilla of a man who had shown he was a true hero during what became known as the Perfect Storm—the real-life disaster that the film was based on.

After attempting a boat rescue and being thwarted by the worsening weather, Dave and his Co-Pilot Graham Buschor were caught in the worst possible situation. Out of fuel and trying to head back to their base, the crew tried to refuel off of a C-130 airplane in the middle of one of the worst storms on record.

Unable to “plug” their refueling probe into the small round cage attached behind the C-130, Dave had to make one of the toughest decisions a pilot ever has to make—either keep trying and likely crash when the engines flamed out, or use what was left of his gas to execute a controlled ditch into the ocean. But with seventy-foot swells, under night-vision goggles, this was a lot harder than it sounded.

Trying to save his crew while risking being dragged to the bottom of the ocean, Dave ordered the men on his aircraft to bail out as he tried to hold a steady hover. In a previous career, Ruvola had been a Pararescue Jumper or “PJ”. One of the many skills of a PJ is to be a rescue swimmer who trains to save people from stormy water. He knew he’d have a better chance of surviving the plummeting aircraft than the others. After hours stranded in the freezing water, he managed to find two of his crew in the pitch-black storm, tether them to himself, and swim to a nearby Coast Guard ship. A fourth member, Graham Buschor, also managed to make his way to the ship. Sadly, the fifth, PJ Rick Smith, was never found. It’s thought that he may have dropped from the aircraft at the trough of a wave and fallen seven stories to his death in the water, but no one will ever know for sure.

Ruvola is the type of hero you read about or see on TV, not the kind of person you expect to see dancing to “YMCA” during his retirement while you serve mojitos. Meeting Dave and interacting with such an amazing man affected me profoundly. I’d call upon the memory of his example later in my own career when I was tested and faced with daunting odds myself.

About a month before I left for training, I was walking into a local Laundromat with a laundry basket in my arms when my phone rang. It was my mom, and she was crying so hard I could barely understand what she was saying.

“Mom? Are you okay? Is Jäger okay?”

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she wailed unintelligibly. “He died.”

I dropped the basket in the parking lot and just sat next to it and cried. I never should have left him, even though I knew he’d have been miserable in New York. I couldn’t believe he was gone, that I hadn’t been there to comfort and hold him at the end. Apparently, his scarred and enlarged heart had finally given out, and he’d died in his sleep.

I was utterly heartbroken. My best friend was gone. It was as if I were experiencing all of the grief of losing my dad all over again, but Jäger, at least, had known exactly how much I loved him. I had learned that lesson from losing my dad.

In October of 2004, heartsick from losing my Jäger, I packed up my shack, put some of my belongings in storage, trailered my R6, and got back on the road to the first stop in the training pipeline, Columbus Air Force Base. The months I’d spent in New York before attending pilot training had given me a sense that I didn’t deserve to walk the same halls as pilots like Dave Ruvola . . . yet. Now I was off to Columbus, Mississippi, to begin my training—determined to earn my place among my heroes.

—

When I arrived at Columbus, I could feel my heart lift as I drove through the front gates. I was finally here, and just in the nick of time. I was twenty-eight years old, within months of the maximum age limit. I took a deep breath as I began looking for signs pointing to my dorm. I pulled my burnt-orange Honda Element peppered with Longhorn stickers into a parking spot outside my assigned room. The dorms on the base were really more like small 1970s apartments, with more isolation and privacy than a regular dorm. The doors opened up to the outside, motel style, rather than opening to an interior hallway.

My arms overflowing with trash bags filled with my belongings, I nudged open the door to my room with my foot and peered inside. Only slightly bigger than my shack in New York, the tiny room was painted a drab tan and the carpet was disgusting. But I was so thrilled to finally be here that I would have been happy to sleep in a sleeping bag in the parking lot. I dropped the bags onto the bed and plopped down next to them, looking around the room that would be my home for the next six months. I heard a few of the guys who were my neighbors walk by laughing, and I stifled the urge to jump up and meet my fellow pilot candidates. I wasn’t there to socialize, and my experiences with military men were not all that positive thus far. That would change when, in the coming years, I would fly into combat with some of the finest men and women I’d ever meet, but at this point I was happy to sit quietly and steer clear.

Training would begin with weeks of academics in a classroom before we would get anywhere near an airplane, but even in the classroom, our fortitude would be tested.

My first true test came during our introduction to survival training in the first week on the base. Our instructor had a swagger born of the confidence that comes with having trained hundreds of people to survive in the wilderness. Survival is all about your attitude, he explained. “Captain Jennings, can you humor me for a minute?”

I swallowed nervously as I looked up to meet his eyes. I hated being singled out, but I walked to the front of the classroom, looking around at my forty classmates, trying to put on a brave face. It was then that I realized there was only one other woman in the room.

I stood in front of the class as the instructor continued talking.

“So you’ve ejected from your aircraft and you’re waiting to be rescued. No one comes, and it’s your third day out there on your own. Captain Jennings, can you reach into this cup and pull out what you find?” He held up a paper cup above my eye line.

I could feel something slimy and immediately realized it was a fat worm about a half inch thick. No problem. I could do this. Just as I painted my tough-guy face on, the six-inch worm wrapped itself around my finger. To my utter disappointment, I shrieked and dropped the worm on the floor. The class laughed as the instructor explained that I’d never survive due to my prudish American food aversions.

Not five seconds after I had dropped it, I bent over, picked up the worm, rolled it between my palms, and tossed it back like a shot of whiskey.

“Mmmm. What else you got?” The class roared in laughter and cheered me on.

I noticed, as I returned to my seat, one of my classmates looking a little green. I patted his back and said with a gentle smile, “Don’t worry. I’m sure we don’t all have to do that.” He glanced at me, grateful for the support.

The instructor struggled to continue making his point, disappointed that I wasn’t the easy mark he’d thought I would be. To his credit, he turned it into a learning moment anyway.

“Which brings me to my next point,” he continued. “Never judge a book by its cover. Sometimes the biggest asset on your team isn’t the one who looks like Superman. People will surprise you with the strength they can summon when tested.”

Over the next few months of training, we’d experience some of the most fun and the most challenging moments of our lives. For example, because the T-37 Tweet we’d be flying for this first phase of training was an ejection-seat aircraft, we needed to learn how to land safely from a bailout. They literally tied us to the back of a pickup truck with about a hundred-foot-long rope, strapped us into an open parachute, and dragged us until we flew up into the air like a kite. Then they disconnected us from the truck, and we had to execute a safe landing, what we call a PLF or parachute landing fall. We had already practiced on the ground from ever-increasing heights, by jumping off of a jungle gym type of structure, but it was truly thrilling to try it from one hundred feet under an actual parachute.

Most days after class, I’d drive out to the approach end of the runway and sit on the hood of my car listening to the radio calls made by the students ahead of us in the rotation who were already up in the air. I had bought a radio that would let me pick up the transmissions so I could get used to the verbiage and timing of the calls. Sitting out there at sunset, doing what we called “chair-flying,” I still couldn’t believe I was finally in pilot training. As I sat there, I would chair-fly the pattern they were flying, imagining myself going through the motions: checking airspeed, lowering gear, lowering flaps, and running through checklist items that would one day be second nature.

We worked hard and played hard during training. My memory of spending Halloween in New Orleans that year is pretty fuzzy, but I know we had a fantastic time. As much fun as we had, though, we knew we’d be miserable if we pushed it up too hard on a work night, and as one of the older students, I rarely made that mistake. Occasionally someone would show up for class in their blues uniform stinking of whiskey with bloodshot eyes, but for the most part, we were pretty smart. We knew how fragile our hold on this dream was, and we knew we were already incredibly lucky to be there. No one wanted to risk ending that for something stupid, so we all took good care of each other when we were blowing off steam.

After weeks of academics and flight simulators, it was finally time to head out to the flightline. I remember this part of training as the most eye-opening and exhilarating time of my life. My first time flying a jet was mind-blowing. Taking off was like sitting on a controlled explosion and rocketing up to our block of airspace. Doing it solo was certainly a thrill, and executing the acrobatic maneuvers approaching 250 miles per hour was as close to heaven as I will likely ever get. It’s difficult to pinpoint a favorite activity while flying the mighty Tweet, because I loved every minute of it, but the spin training might have been the ultimate highlight.

During this phase of training, we would purposely put the aircraft into a spin. Think of it like practicing skidding on ice in a car, in order to learn how to control something that feels completely out of control. Of course, in the air, it’s at an exponentially higher level of magnitude. This maneuver would never be done solo—it was always with an instructor. Spin training accomplishes a few things all at once.

First, obviously, it teaches us how to recover from a spin. Second, it shows us how to recognize the warning signs of a stall and familiarizes us with the feeling in the aircraft so that we can avoid it. The higher the angle of attack (the angle the wing makes to the wind), the less efficient the aerodynamics of lift is. At a critical point, all lift will break away from the wing; pilots call this a “stall.” Over the years, there have been far too many deaths attributed to students stalling the aircraft in the slow turns we take around the pattern before landing, so spin training has taken on an elevated importance. Finally, it teaches us aircraft handling techniques and gives us a hands-on understanding of the performance of the aircraft.

When we do spin training, we start off by going full speed up to a high altitude. I watched carefully until the altimeter needle began to struggle as we neared twenty-five thousand feet. I pulled up the nose as our airspeed began to bleed away; the stall-warning horn started screaming and didn’t stop. I was pointed sixty degrees nose up, sky filling the entire windscreen, slowing from two hundred miles per hour to about fifty and about to lose all the lift from my wings. On purpose.

I held the nose up with the stick and tried to stay level as the plane began to shudder and climb higher and higher, fighting the stall for as long as I could. Finally, physics won and the left wing dropped, beginning a spin and a rapid descent toward the ground. Ten thousand feet per minute sped by the smooth glass of the canopy. From the ground, the jet must have seemed like a figure skater spinning and dropping headfirst from a cloud.

As the blue and green lines of the horizon twirled around at a disorienting speed, I focused on my instrument panel, breathing evenly.

I eased back on the throttles and put the rudder and ailerons in neutral position at the same time. Then I yanked the stick full aft and pushed the rudder to the floor in the opposite direction of the spin. After another turn, I pushed the stick full forward, marveling at the amazing performance of this beautiful aircraft.

As I recovered from the steep dive and high airspeed, the aircraft stabilized. My instructor and I were back to comfortably cruising along at a mere 180 knots and fifteen thousand feet. Primal exhilaration filled my chest. I felt like screaming in victory.

I looked over at my instructor with a grin plastered across my face.

His fists unclenched.

“Wow,” he boomed into my headset, “that was the best spin recovery I’ve seen . . .”

My smile stretched.

“. . . from a chick.”

Damn.

—

Pilot training wasn’t all adrenaline-filled acrobatic stunts. There were painful, tedious parts as well. The students ran the morning briefing, where we would take turns speaking to the class about the weather, the schedule, and other key information. This was boring but also highly stressful, as the instructors critiqued us while the other students sat at attention, observing. The majority of the students in the class were fresh out of ROTC or the Academy, and as such were very green second lieutenants. I had five years in already, so I wore captain bars on my shoulders.

As the highest-ranking student, I was appointed the class leader. I tried hard to think of a way to cut the tension during the morning briefings without disrupting the learning. A few of us decided that we should begin a word-of-the-day competition. The challenge would be to attempt to use the word in the morning briefing without arousing any suspicion among the instructors.

This worked for a couple of weeks, but it soon became too easy. In our prebrief meeting, I knew it would be my turn to speak that day, so I felt like upping the ante a little bit, just to keep everyone on their toes. I looked around the room at the tired, stressed-out kids in the class, my mind racing. When someone asked what the word of the day should be, I quickly responded, “How about flaccid?” My classmates chuckled.

“Do you dare me?” I added. Realizing I was serious, one of the older guys who was in training to be a KC-135 pilot for the Air National Guard quickly shook his head. “No. No, we do not dare you.” The rest of them were a little more adventurous and were more than happy to dare me.

As a Guard pilot, I had a huge advantage over the rest of the class. The active-duty pilot candidates were still competing for a class ranking, as I had so many times before. At the end of training, the school would give the number one student first choice of the available aircraft. If there was only one F-16, for example, the number one person could take that and there would be no other F-16 pilots from our class.

However, things were different in the Guard. Because my unit flew HH-60 helicopters, I already knew what I was going to end up flying, so I wouldn’t have to compete for the airframe I wanted. The warrior in me wanted to fight to graduate at the top of my class anyway, but I was willing to risk getting in a little bit of trouble with my instructors if it cut the tension for a few minutes for everyone. The instructors filed in to listen to my briefing. My classmates sat up at attention, wondering if I’d have the guts to go for it.

“Good morning. Aircrew brief for Tuesday, March twenty-ninth, is as follows,” I began. “Weather is good with unlimited ceiling, clear visibility, and flaccid winds at about five knots from two seven zero . . .” Despite their best efforts, a few of my classmates cracked smiles, and the instructors began looking at each other. I finished the brief, and everyone went about his or her daily schedules. I couldn’t believe I had gotten away with it.

“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.

A few hours later, I needed a break from all the revelry. I walked out to my balcony, which was on the third floor, enjoying the glow of the Christmas lights strung out along the roof. I stood there in the chill, gazing out at the stars. January was a little too cold for a sleeveless shirt, even in Alabama. I wasn’t out there long before the door opened and Zerk ambled outside, the music trailing behind him. Closing the door after him, he joined me at the railing. He didn’t have to ask me why I was out there. Zerk knew me well enough to know that I loved a good party, but I was still a complete introvert. I always needed to find a quiet place to recharge my battery.

He and I chatted for a while about how excited I was to be going to SERE training and then on to Albuquerque for the last few months of HH-60G Pave Hawk training, the third and final phase of pilot training. Having finished the Rucker phase, I had already received my wings, but I wouldn’t be qualified as a rescue pilot until I got through Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Zerk had a few months left, but he’d be in Albuquerque soon enough.

I’m sure it was equal parts alcohol, the relief at finally having received my wings, and my loneliness after having married the wrong man, but when Zerk put his arm around my shoulders to try to warm me up in the chill night, it felt very different from the dozens of times we had hugged before. I sensed his breathing change as well, and we turned toward each other at the same time. Looking at him, his big, strong arms holding me tight, I felt safe. That’s the last thing I should have felt, as I knew Zerk was like the Big Bad Wolf, but I couldn’t help it. I liked being in his arms.

He looked down at me. I looked up into his dark eyes.

“Proud of you, kid,” he said quietly.

He knew better than anyone the things I’d had to overcome to get here. I tilted my chin up as he leaned down to kiss me, and the sparks flew. I’d figured he would be a great kisser, and I was right. The kiss quickly turned more passionate, and he scooped me up and sat me on the railing. He knew full well I was an adrenaline junkie who loved heights, so this move just about sent me over the edge, literally and figuratively. I wrapped my legs around him and made sure there was no space between us.

But right about then, we both seemed to have the same thought. We were way too close to have something meaningless, but not nearly close enough for something serious. There was clearly an undeniable attraction, but that was all it could ever be. We were married to our pilot wings, and neither of us would ever sacrifice our careers for the other. We chuckled as we untangled ourselves, and I hopped down to the porch.

“Wow,” he said.

“Yeah, wow,” I agreed. “So, um, can I get you a drink?”

“Definitely,” he said, glad that I had said something first, I think. We rejoined the party, trading smiling glances for the rest of the night, and never spoke of that kiss again.