LCDR Jessica Davila, USCG: Carrying On A Family Tradition of Service

by Jess Clackum

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="403.0"] Preparing the MH65D for an offshore gunnery exercise. (Photo: Jessica Davila) [/caption]

LCDR Jessica S. Davila was born in Brooklyn and raised along with her three siblings in Inverness, a small town in North Central Florida. Her father was a National Guardsman who instilled in her a sense of pride. “I saw my father’s sense of pride and service each time he left for monthly drill with the Florida National Guard wearing his Battle Dress Uniform.” 

Davila attended Citrus High School and excelled in athletics as a member of the basketball, volleyball and softball teams. Her outstanding performance in softball earned her a scholarship to the University of West Florida in Pensacola where she majored in Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies. After graduation, she pondered whether to apply to Graduate School or go right into the workforce. Still deeply embedded within her was the desire to follow in her father's footsteps and serve her country.  She recalls, "I had the desire to serve as an officer in the armed forces and become a helicopter pilot, but thought the goal unattainable for someone like me."

Davila knew two things for certain, she would never know if she could do it if she didn’t try and she needed the support of her family with whom she was extremely close.  Determined to prove herself, Davila took the first step toward her dream by joining the United States Coast Guard Officer Candidate School in New London, Connecticut. The warm-blooded Floridian began training on a cold, blustery day in March 2003. Of that first experience she says, “Cold and scared in a freezing concrete squad with instructors yelling an inch from my face, second thoughts began to run through my mind.”  Davila never gave up. She worked hard and it paid off, earning her commission in July 2003.  After graduation, she applied for flight school and would do so continuously for the next four years.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2500.0"] (Photo: Jessica Davila) [/caption]

 After OCS, Davila’s first assignment was the Office of Defense Operations at USCG Headquarters, followed by a front line operational position on the US Coast Guard Cutter VIGOROUS out of Cape May, NJ. On the VIGOROUS, Avila served as a Deck Watch Officer and Boarding Officer, leading boarding teams aboard vessels of interest up and down the East Coast and Caribbean Sea to ensure compliance with federal laws and regulations.  After two years of service aboard the VIGOROUS, Davila’s next assignment was to the high endurance cutter Cutter BOUTWELL out of Alameda. There, she served as Deck Department Head, Deck Watch Officer and Navigator, traveling to the South Pacific and countries like China, Japan and Russia.  Though she enjoyed her shipboard duties and was thankful for the opportunity to become a proficient mariner, Davila still had dreams of flying. The eighth application to flight school turned out to be "the one" and while serving aboard the BOUTWELL, she was notified that she had been selected for flight training.

Davila reported to Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida and endured two extremely intensive years of training in the T-34 fixed-wing and TH-57 rotary-wing aircraft. Her determination and perseverance paid off, earning her wings of gold as a Naval Aviator on April 23, 2010.  LCDR Davila's first aviation tour was USCG Air Station Savannah, where she earned her Aircraft Commander qualification and conducted search and rescue missions. Currently, she serves with the USCG Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON), an armed USCG helicopter squadron specializing in airborne use of force and drug-interdiction missions at Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida. Her responsibilities at HITRON earned her the Mission Commander and Instructor Pilot qualifications as well as designation as Assistant Operations Officer. 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="551.0"] LCDR Davila with parents Angel & Jenny at MANA Las Primeras®. (Photo: Jessica Davila) [/caption]

In 2011, MANA,  A National Latina Organization which empowers Latinas through leadership development, community service, and advocacy, awarded Davila with their prestigious MANA Las Primeras® Award which honors Latinas who "demonstrate important 'firsts' in their fields with a national impact." 

LCDR Davila feels proud and blessed to continue her family’s tradition of service to America. She says, “Serving my country in the United States Coast Guard has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made."

She's Got Grit: Sometimes They Aren't Ready For You

by Shannon Huffman Polson

When Jody (Vander Hyden) Carman swore into the Coast Guard in the mid-1980s, they turned her down for OCS because “they didn’t need any theater majors,” she laughs. She had tried unsuccessfully to make it into a couple of professional theater companies after graduating University of Wisconsin, and so she enlisted in the Coast Guard after moving to San Francisco to live with her sister for a while. “I met a couple of women who were in the Coast Guard and talked to their recruiter,” she says. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq7B2mRXdvs&w=560&h=315]

Carman grew up in Wisconsin. Spending a lot of time with her father at his home on Lake Winnebago sailing, boating and swimming working as a lifeguard and swim instructor. She was naturally athletic and stood 5’11”, “all legs,” she says. “My father always suggested I’d like the Coast Guard,” she says, “but I loved theater most. I didn’t see myself there.”

Her first assignment was in San Diego where she did Search and Rescue and operational work, and trained as an emergency medical technician. 

“I always wanted to do medical work,” she says. “But the next training available wasn’t for four years.” The Coast Guard put her in for law enforcement training. Something hit a nerve.

“I’d signed up to save lives. I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of law enforcement,” she says. She turned down the training, angering her commander. He put her on cleaning detail.  

“Things changed because of luck,” she says. “The (air station) needed someone else to stand duty for the (H-65) helicopters, and because I was EMT trained, they sent me.”

Right away, she started flying as part of the aircrews doing Search and Rescue.

“I flew with H(H)65s, and Lyre Jet (HU 25) Medevacs,” she says. “I did these missions, and I wasn’t even trained.” She laughs. “Once they lowered me down on the hook and (the aircraft commander said through the helmet headset): ‘Don’t forget to ground the basket!” I had no idea you had to do that. I’d never been through training. I just learned on the job.”

Someone suggested Carman attend the Navy rescue swimmer school. Only a few years earlier, the Coast Guard had graduated its first woman from the school, Kelly Mogk (Larson).

“I didn’t even think about the fact that there weren’t any women there, that the swimmers were all guys,” she said. “I’d always been strong and I was bigger than a lot of the guys anyway.”

Still, Carman’s legginess didn’t help on the required pull-ups for entry. When she arrived, she was reverted a week for extra pull-up training. 

“The Navy guys worked with me. They were super respectful, really nice guys,” she says. “No ulterior motives. All good guys.”

Then she started the notoriously difficult training.

“Every morning I looked at myself I the mirror and said to myself ‘Always do your best. If you do your best and you fail there’s nothing more you can do. If you don’t do your best and you fail, you have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

She did her best. 

The last day of training brought the dreaded final multi-exam. 

“You sit in the locker room and wait,” she explains. “Then you hear this loud pounding on the door and you have to come out on the deck, climb the platform and jump. When you’re in the water there are three training casualties and you have to triage them.”

Carman was the first in her class to go through the exam. Then she was sent away, as students aren’t told if they pass the exam or the course until after all their fellow students have made it through.

Once her class had finished their exam, she was told she’d have to go again.

“I went back into that locker room and just sat there,” she remembers. “They made me wait. I listened to the droop-drip-drip of the shower. Then there was the pounding on the door. I ran out jumped off the platform. There were twenty five guys in the water! I didn’t know where to start, then saw the instructors laughing on the deck. It was all for fun.”

Carman graduated as honor graduate from a course only one woman before her had ever completed.

Training though, was just the beginning. Her first assignment took her to Hawaii.

“Having women in a unit was new then,” she says. “I was excited, ready to work. I’d just graduated as honor grad from the swimming school. I got up my first morning and walked down to the hangar.”

The guys were waiting for her. Twenty of them, lined up in a row.

“No one smiled. No one said hello. They just watched me walk in, looking me up and down, as though they were saying ‘who the hell do you think you are?’” she says.

“I reported to the shop supervisor, and instead of assigning me to aircraft maintenance, which my position required, he put me on a computer typing in maintenance reports. The guys in the shop started getting upset, like I was getting over, and asked why I wasn’t doing the work that I was supposed to do. The made it really hard to get qualified. I’d come in as an honor grad, and now I wasn’t getting a chance to meet the basic requirements of my job.”

When  Carman and other female Coasties reported inappropriate behavior, nothing happened to the supervisor. “He stayed in his job. He actually got the chance to retire,” Carman says.

She talked to the one other woman working in the aircraft hangar, a female pilot.

“She told me ‘you just gotta put up with it or get out.’ I decided I’d get out. There was a big world out there with a lot of things to do.”

She pauses.

“I love the Coast Guard mission and I love the Coast Guard,” she says. “But I wasn’t going to put up with being treated that way.” 

Her voice trails off. “Sometimes I wonder if I gave up too soon. I wish I had waited for the (Corpsman) training I had really wanted to do.”

Carman left the Coast Guard, married another rescue swimmer, and had two children (she and her husband divorced after thirteen years. She later remarried.) Unable to get the Coast Guard out of her system, she went back to work as a civilian in support of the Coast Guard, where she still works today in Kodiak, Alaska, helping to manage programs that weren’t available when she wore the uniform. “I still miss wearing the uniform every day,” she says. Remembering her original desire to work in the medical field, she went back to earn her Masters in Public Health.

Almost thirty years of service have given her excellent perspective for new Coasties— or any young leaders— starting out. 

Remembering how she left her original interest in health to the detriment of her career satisfaction, she says: “If there’s something you want, wait it out.”

Though the rescue swimmer track took her away from her goals and turned out to be a disappointment, she looks back on the experience as some of her proudest moments. “I’m proud of being a pioneer for other women and setting the example— and men too,” she says.

About grit, she says: “Grit is not being soft. Being resilient. You suck it up. You might be a little rough. You do what it takes to get through.”

I ask her where she found her own grit. “I have a strong relationship with God,” she says. “There’s strength in that for me. And my dad always said you have to be able to land in a pile of shit and come out smelling like a rose. It’s a funny saying, but you have to make the best of whatever you’re given. And you have to make it happen. You can only depend on yourself.”

Her advice to young women just starting out is tactical and grounded by three decades of experience. “Keep boundaries with your co-workers,” she says. “Especially for women in mostly male organizations, have a strict policy not to date your co-workers or anyone associated with your organization,” she says. “It can prevent you from focusing on what you’re there for. Get involved in the community around you and make your social life there.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDhPMBQma7U&w=420&h=315]

Remember that you represent the Coast Guard 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on and off duty.”

Carman has come full circle. Though she didn’t make the uniform a career, she found a way to stay with her beloved Coast Guard. She returned to the field of health with her MPH. She returned to community theater productions. She still swims “all the time,” she says.

Coast Guard Women Aviators Who Shattered The Glass Ceiling

by Jess Clackum & Logan Walker

 

CDR Janna Lambine

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Lambine and her father Naval Flight Training graduation day, 1977. [/caption]

In the majority of cases, to be the first at something requires a courage, tenacity, and initiative of unusual strength. This can certainly be said of Janna Lambine. As the Coast Guard’s first woman pilot, her actions set an important precedent for women in the military and the workforce. When Lambine attended the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School in Yorktown, Virginia in the 1970’s  women were just being integrated into the organization. Public pressures for female inclusion as well as lobbying from women within the organization like Vivien Crea (who would later become a Coast Guard Vice Admiral) contributed in turning the tide toward the acceptance of women in the aviation field. Admiral James Gracey, Commandant of the Coast Guard, was on their side too, believing that 51 percent of America’s population should no longer be prevented from contributing whatever talents they might have to the field of aviation.

For Lambine, who had applied for flight training while in OCS, the call that would change her life came abruptly.  Vivien Crea, who had also applied for aviation training and would be right behind Lambine as the second woman to enter flight school, recalled a phone conversation which was likely similar to the one Lambine received; “I suddenly got this frantic phone call while up at the Coast Guard Academy, ‘Get your physical updated; women are going to be considered this time!’”

Consequently, Lambine graduated from Naval Aviation Training at the Whiting Field Naval Air Station in Milton, Florida on March 4, 1977 and her first assignment was piloting helicopters at Air Station Astoria in Oregon. There, her duties included flying search and rescue missions and pollution/fisheries surveillance. She retired as a Commander from the Coast Guard Reserve in 2000.

Lambine’s initial steps through the barrier separating the sexes in the field of Coast Guard aviation has been followed by many outstanding women aviators who, while forging their own paths, continue to set an example for the women who follow in their footsteps.

---

LT Colleen Cain

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="414.0"] LT Colleen Cain, USCG. First female HH-52A helicopter pilot. Portrait by Leonora Rae Smith. [/caption]

LT Colleen Cain earned her commission from OCS in 1976, a private pilot’s license in 1977 and was selected for flight training the following year. She became a Coast Guard aviator in June 1979.

Cain, who made history when she became the first female USCG pilot to fly the HH-52 and qualify as co-pilot, first pilot and aircraft commander, received the Coast Guard Achievement Medal in 1980, following her participation in the rescue of a three-year old boy who had fallen into the water during a fishing trip.

In the early morning hours of January 7, 1982, LT Cain, CDR Horton “Buzz” Johnson, and Petty Officer 2nd Class David Thompson departed Air Station Barbers Point in extremely rough weather in response to a distress call from a sinking fishing vessel with seven persons on board.

Just after 5 a.m., communication with the CG1420 was lost. Nine hours later, the wreckage of the Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard was discovered, having crashed into the side of a mountain in Molokai’s Wailua Valley. There were no survivors.

In 1985, the USCG Reserve Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia honored the memory of LT Cain by naming its 100-room residence hall “Cain Hall”. 

LT Cain and her crew gave their own lives to save others. Their sacrifice and service to our nation will never be forgotten.

---

Captain Patricia McFetridge

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1200.0"] Days past: LTJG Patricia McFetridge and fellow aviator LT Guth. [/caption]

Growing up in Northern California, Patricia McFetridge never imagined that she would embark on the kind of career that would culminate in a search and rescue case above the violently storm beset waters of Alaska, one that would earn her an acknowledgment of extraordinary heroism as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross, making her the first female Coast Guard aviator to achieve the coveted award. McFetridge’s father, a WWII naval aviator and her mother, an Army Air Corps Flight Nurse, instilled in her an early appreciation for the world of military aviation.

In 1982 McFetridge, who has a Bachelors degree in Aeronautical Operations and Masters in Quality Systems Management, joined the Army for Flight Training at Fort Rucker,. She flew the UH-1H "Huey" and OH-58 "Kiowa" in South Korea and Fort Hood and for the Utah Army National Guard.

The catalyst for McFetridge’s next career move to the Coast Guard arrived when the her father referred her to an ad in the Navy Times featuring the Direct Commission Aviator Program. One thing led to another, and in 1989, she was selected and made an official member of the Coast Guard.

It was just a year later that McFetridge would find herself in the midst of a highly dangerous and much-lauded rescue mission in Kodiak, Alaska. In response to distress signals, McFetridge and her crew flew out 30 miles from their location in Cordova, Alaska to rescue three men from the fishing vessel Janice N. As they located the burning vessel on the thirty foot waters of the Bering Sea, a bitter storm with winds upwards of 70 knots raged around them. After two hours, running low on fuel and struggling with obstructed visibility, McFetridge and her crew saw the three men clinging to a life raft. They managed to haul the survivors up, with McFetridge orchestrating the operation and communicating commands to CDR Michael Estes who kept the helicopter hovering for 40 minutes under the harrowing weather. After the successful rescue it was McFetridge who would pilot the aircraft back.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640.0"] CAPT McFetridge at USCG Air Station Borinquen where she served as Commanding Officer from 2013-2016. [/caption]

From 2013 to 2016, Captain McFetridge served as Commanding Officer at Air Station Borinquen in Puerto Rico, a unit which provides search and rescue aid, homeland security patrols, and law enforcement for 1.3 miles of the Caribbean. She recently handed her command over to Captain Keith Overstreet and is headed for Washington, D.C. where she will serve as the Coast Guard Liaison to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Reflecting on her own career and advice for aspiring aviators, she says, “lead by personal example and take responsibility for the welfare of your personnel and their families. Be passionate about your job and never let on that you are having a bad day in the office; after all, we are getting paid to fly and save lives in the process- there is no better job than that!”

---

LCDR Margaret Sidonie Sansom Bosin

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="288.0"] LCDR Sidonie Sansom Bosin (middle), Aviation Flight Mechanic Dani Keating (left) & Lt. Kelly Larson (right), were the Coast Guard's first all-female helicopter flight crew in Antarctica. (Photo: Kristan Hutchison) [/caption]

As a 2003 honoree for the First Flight Centennial Commission’s 100 Heroes Committee, a title which places her in the “Top 100 Aviators of All Time”, Sansom might be expected to have had a very impressive career, and indeed such expectations would be correct. Sansom, a graduate of Rhodes College who attended Navy Flight Training at NAS Pensacola and Whiting Field was the first female Coast Guard Aviation Officer to be put in charge of air crews sent to the vessel Polar Sea in the Antarctic. She also has the distinction of being the first in the Coast Guard to command an all-female flight crew.  As Senior Aviator/Division Chief in Polar Operations Division, Sansom made multiple trips to the Antarctic, a particularly hostile and difficult environment to pilot aircraft. The sudden changes in weather which can dramatically affect visibility among other things make flying especially treacherous, marking out her competency in such weather as a particularly impressive feat. “…It’s like flying in a ping pong ball” she once said, adding, “There’s no horizon for a reference so you're just kind of threading your way back the way you came, if the weather allows. And hoping when you get back around the corner it’s going to be better than what you left.”

Inspired to fly by figures like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Chuck Yeager, Sansom gravitated toward a career in the Coast Guard because of the opportunity it would give her to save lives and participate in humanitarian pursuits. Despite the uniqueness of her position as a groundbreaking female, she never experienced sexism or career barriers during her service, noting that another part of her initial attraction to the organization was their open attitude toward women and their career options.

Sansom once singled out an incident in what must be a long list of heart-racing missions as a favorite in her career; on a nocturnal mission in the Caribbean, she and her crew sought to save a family that was stranded on a sinking sailboat. After a drawn-out and exhausting effort to rescue two grandparents and their six year old grandson, she and her crew succeeded in extracting all but the elderly man from the wrecked vessel. Seemingly reluctant to help in his own rescue, the man eventually drop-rolled into the Coast Guard’s rescue basket, dunking under water before surfacing again to be pulled up to safety. It was only then that Sansom realized that he had been accompanied by two dogs the whole time. “He didn’t know that we were all dog lovers and there would be no way we’d leave the dogs behind.” Such commitment to ensuring the safety of all lives is part of what makes her such an extraordinary aviator and leader.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1000.0"] (Photo: Port of San Francisco) [/caption]

After 22 years in the Coast Guard, Sansom moved on to serve as Emergency Planner with the San Francisco International Airport, where she designed methods of testing emergency response and urgent threats. 

 Since 2005, she has served as the Director of Homeland Security at the Port of San Francisco. She is responsible for developing, directing, and implementing a comprehensive homeland security program as well as preparation for and in response to emergencies and disasters.

Janna Lambine, Colleen Cain, Patricia McFetridge, and Sidonie Sansom are just a few of the many women whose courage and fierce determination paved the way for other women to serve--not just in aviation--but in all areas of the Coast Guard. They refused to sit idly by and let their futures be determined for them, instead they took control of their own destinies, forged their own paths, and made their mark on history. Their stories and the stories of all the Coast Guard women who have followed the call to duty will inspire future generations of women into brave and honorable service!

Semper Paratus!

LT Jeanine McIntosh-Menze On Women In Aviation: "We’re changing history."

by Logan Walker

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="826.0"] LT Jeanine McIntosh-Menze, United States Coast Guard. Menze is a HC-130 Hercules pilot at Air Station Kodiak, Alaska. (Photo: USCG, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg) [/caption]

v:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}



800x600



Normal
0




false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE











MicrosoftInternetExplorer4





































































































































































































































































































































































































st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }



/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;}

Imperfect vision and hydrophobia might seem like daunting obstacles to overcome when training to fly with the Coast Guard but as history has shown, LT Jeanine McIntosh-Menze is not a woman to be easily discouraged. Although she made history as the first black woman to become a Coast Guard aviator, Menze’s path to success was neither direct nor easy.

Born in Jamaica in 1979, she spent time living in Kingston and Canada before relocating with her family to South Florida at 16. It was years earlier during her childhood in the Jamaican city of Portmore that Menze first became fascinated with flying as she watched planes shoot across the sky. “I used to think it was really funny because when I heard family was coming, I wanted to go to the airport not to see my family but to be at the airport,” she recalls.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="332.0"] (Photo: USCG, PA2 Jennifer Johnson) [/caption]

Menze's interest in flying persisted through high school when, nearing graduation, a counselor pointed her toward a career as a flight attendant. Menze also considered joining the Air Force, but eventually decided that neither option suited her, settling instead on international business. “I figured if the pilot thing didn’t work out, if I do international business, I’d have to fly a lot” she recalls, adding lightly “as a passenger, I was committed to traveling.”

The urge to fly lingered in Menze, who began to take fixed-wing flying lessons while studying for her bachelor’s degree. After earning her degree in International Business at Florida International University, she decided definitively to begin a career in the sky, enrolling in flight lessons at the North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines. It wasn’t long before Menze found work as a flight instructor at Miami’s Opa-Locka Airport, where she met two Coast Guard Flight Mechanics who sparked her interest in becoming a member of the Coast Guard herself. Before a year had passed, she was accepted for training at the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School and following her graduation in 2003, officially joined the Coast Guard. Two years later, Menze entered Coast Guard Aviation training at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she received lessons in flight patterns, instruments, and prepped for missions.

Menze's perseverance throughout her training pushed her through tremendous difficulties; she eventually surmounted her water-based fears and underwent laser eye surgery to correct her vision. As she explained, "Conquering so many personal struggles prepared me for the mental drive necessary to complete the extremely challenging training regimen." On June 24, 2005, Menze received her wings and secured her place in Coast Guard history.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024.0"] The Lockheed HC-130 is an extended-range, search and rescue /combat search and rescue version of the C-130 Hercules transport. The HC-130H Hercules and HC-130J Hercules are used in Coast Guard Search and Rescue and maritime reconnaissance missions.  (Photo: Lockheed Martin) [/caption]

LT Menze was assigned to the HC-130 Hercules. She took part in rescue efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, responded to the catastrophic earthquake that shook Haiti in 2010, and has traveled on assignment to locations like Hawaii, Florida, and Alaska, where she is currently deployed and lives with her Coast Guard pilot husband and their daughter.

In a notable 2012 incident, Menze and her crew were called to assist the fishing vessel Kimberly, which strong winds had caused to run aground. While coordinating rescue and communications above the violent Alaskan waters, Menze received a mayday call from another sinking ship, the Heritage, which needed immediate assistance 30 miles to the south. In her own words, “To sit there in the aircraft at altitude and hear someone on the radio saying ‘mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Heritage. We’re going down, we’re taking on water…’ it was like…this is what we do. I’m trained to help this person…Moments like this in my opinion make it all worth it.”

While Menze maintains that being a woman who has a groundbreaking role in aviation is just a fringe benefit of doing what she loves, the pilot also acknowledges her happiness at being able to help change the way aviators and their profession is viewed.

“When I was a kid, I would go to all these airports and see men in uniforms walking in the airport or in the cockpit. Even on television or aviation-type toys, you would see two guys sitting on the flight deck…that is the coolest part of being a female aviator no matter if it’s Coast Guard or civilian…We’re the change - the past, current and the future aviators. All the women in aviation are key because we are changing the demographics, changing the culture and industry. We’re changing history.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640.0"] LT Menze pins aviator wings on LTJG La’Shanda Holmes. (Photo: U.S. Navy, Ensign Ryan Trespalacios) [/caption]

Menze’s achievements have inspired others including LTJG La'Shanda Holmes,  the first black female helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard.

“Jeanine just seemed like she had it all. She just inspired me to take that risk in something that I’d never thought about in my life. I never looked at a plane and thought I wanted to fly. It was like a bulb went off and shifted my way of thinking of what was possible for me, just by seeing her.”

It’s not unlikely that Menze, and even Holmes herself, will continue to inspire new generations of racially diverse women to take their place in the cockpit.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGw_MS3asHw&w=560&h=315]

Honoring LT Colleen Cain, USCG Aviator

by Jess Clackum

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="414.0"] LT Colleen Cain, USCG. First female HH-52A helicopter pilot. Portrait by Leonora Rae Smith. [/caption]

0
false


18 pt
18 pt
0
0

false
false
false












/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:107%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

LT Colleen Cain, Iowa native and graduate of the University of Santa Clara, made history when, as a Reservist, she became the third female Coast Guard aviator and the first female helicopter pilot in the United States Coast Guard.

LT Cain earned her commission at OCS in 1976, earned her private pilot’s license in 1977 and selected for flight training the following year and became Coast Guard aviator #1988 In June 1979.

Cain, who earned her qualifications as co-pilot, first pilot and aircraft commander, received the Coast Guard Achievement Medal in 1980, following her participation in the rescue of a three-year old boy who had fallen into the water during a fishing trip.

In the early morning hours of January 7, 1982, LT Cain, CDR Horton “Buzz” Johnson, and Petty Officer 2nd Class David Thompson departed Air Station Barbers Point in extremely rough weather in response to a distress call from a sinking fishing vessel with seven persons on board.

Just after 5 am, communications with the CG1420 were lost. Nine hours later, the wreckage of the Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard was discovered, having crashed into the side of a mountain in Molokai’s Wailua Valley.

In 1985, the USCG Reserve Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia honored the memory of LT Cain by naming its 100-room residence hall “Cain Hall”. 

SHE'S GOT GRIT: Early Woman Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Makes Waves

By Shannon Huffman Polson

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Sara Faulkner [/caption]

Sara Faulkner’s stunning accomplishment of being the first woman to graduate from the Coast Guard's Helicopter Rescue Swimmer School's grueling 16-week training program, (two Coast Guard women, Kelly Mogk and Jody Vanderhyden, preceded her, graduating from the Navy's program in 1986 and 1989, respectively), and then work as a rescue swimmer, came about partly by coincidence.  “I’m an actual valley girl,” says Sara Faulkner, early on in our conversation. “I grew up in LA, but I was really disenchanted by all that LA represented. I knew by junior high that I wouldn’t stick around.”

Sara grew up with three siblings, two older sisters and a twin brother. She says swimming came naturally, living in L.A. with a pool in the backyard, and endless days at the beach. “In high school, I was running cross-country with a friend, and we were complaining about how hot it was. We decided to join the swim team. I tried out, made it, and I loved it.”

Making the team wasn’t enough though, and the way she attacked the swim team is how she lives her life.

“I started out in the slowest lane because I hadn’t swam competitively,” she says. She worked hard, became the fastest in her lane, was moved up to the next fastest lane, then started the process over until by the end of the season she made varsity.

She laughs about her drive. “I think it’s because I have a twin brother and I didn’t want him feeling like he was better than I was because he was a boy.”

The swim team was just the first step. In high school, Faulkner heard about the Sea Cadets, a U.S. Naval Sea Cadet program that drilled at a nearby Naval Base. She signed up. “We were the Betsy Ross division,” she says, “The only all-female division. We competed against all the other Sea Cadet units which were all co-ed, and we always kicked butt.”

On a cadet trip to Seattle on the USS Kitty Hawk, Faulkner talked to the Naval rescue swimmers. They advised her against the Navy, saying that they only sat on helicopters, flying circles around carriers while the jets flew in case of emergency. “If you want to be a real rescue swimmer,” they said, “Join the Coast Guard.” That's just what she did.

“They said that there were no female rescue swimmers, and alluded to the fact that there never would be, explaining that they had broken away from the Navy rescue swimmers twelve years prior and had higher standards.” Faulkner was, as she says, “pissed". "I immediately envisioned myself as the first woman to make it through.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Faulkner inspecting the helicopter. The swimmer and mechanic perform pre- and post flight inspections. [/caption]

After waiting four and a half years for a training slot, and extending in the Coast Guard just to keep her name on the list, she was assigned a training slot. She was assigned to work with a group of rescue swimmers before her training began. “Half were cool about me being there, and half weren’t,” she said, adding that the half that thought it was cool, didn't think she'd make it through.  She started training as one of nine students. By the end of the training, only five remained.

As soon as the sixteen-week course began, both students and instructors started talking. “They’d talk about the girls who had almost made it but failed,” Faulkner says. “Part of me thought that I could see that happening, but part of me doubted it. When you show up, you look around and wonder who will be there at the end, and you just pray you’ll be one of the last ones standing. I never let them know I knew they were screwing with me. I’d play right back, and just grin. The instructors were like gods…I had to play the game.”

On the final test, the instructors pulled in one swimmer at a time to the pool area for a multiple survivor scenario. “There was a lot of noise, screams and pounding. The test is as much psychological as it is physical.”

Then it was over.

“When you pass, they rip off your shirt,” she says. “I was stunned that I’d passed. I didn’t want to make it if I couldn’t do it. I didn't want any favors, but they’d made it harder for me. After graduation, the senior chief pulled me aside and told me all the rumors were right. He wasn’t going to let a female graduate because he didn’t think they could do the job, but I’d changed his mind.”

That was validating to Faulkner, but also a warning she didn’t yet recognize.

Faulkner’s last duty assignment was in Clearwater, Florida, one of the busiest Naval Air Stations in the country.  “We flew a lot there,” Faulkner says. “One night we were called out when a 63’ sailing vessel lost its sails in a storm in the Bahamas, and then lost its engine. It was dead in the water.  They called for the Coast Guard and only had a little remote radio and even that battery was failing. It was night, and there were fifteen-foot seas with swells to twenty feet, wind gusting to forty-five knots. I dropped into the water, but the waves were pulling the boat away from me. I’ve never swum so hard in my life. 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Faulkner on the second day of Hurricane Katrina. She was the only female rescue swimmer working the disaster. [/caption]

I saw a rope hanging down from the stern and treated for it, but got swept under the hull of the boat. It started coming back down on top of me and I had a very calm thought, that I hope Jimmy would be able to pick up my body with the basket. I knew I was dead. I forced my body to stay soft, and let myself be pushed down. The next wave pushed me underneath the boat again. I pushed off the port side and swam over to the boat. I have never been so tired.”

Faulkner secured the first passenger in a basket to be pulled into the helicopter and used the sling augmented double pick-up (SADPU) for the other two. By the time she had brought all three passengers to the helicopter, the day was dawning. 

Her hardest challenge came in another form, and when I talk to her the week after she retires, she is willing to discuss it.

“I was sexually harassed in my first unit,” she says. “I didn’t do anything about it. The shop supervisor was a cool guy, and people liked him, but everyone started to get uncomfortable. After a year, I filed a complaint.”  After she filed her complaint, things got worse. “The command made my life a living hell,” she says. The competitive fighter of a swimmer almost didn’t come into work one day.  “Then he was booked on assault charges,” she says, “and then my own command tried to get me kicked out of the Coast Guard. The reprisals were worse than the assault. 

"I was sent against my will to a Navy hospital to be analyzed at a psych ward, and then to my district admiral who tried to bribe me. He told me if I dropped my complaint, he’d reassign me, but was going to send me to a unit without rescue swimmers. I think he was shocked; I said no. I was a rescue swimmer. That’s where I wanted to work. She went back to her unit. 

After a follow-up assignment proved similarly challenging, Faulkner almost left the Coast Guard. “Then another command master chief who came from another aviation specialty talked to me,” she says, “and convinced me to stay. He told me I was a role model for other women."

 But it was the beginning of a career-long struggle.

“Every single station I have had to fight to be treated equally,” Faulkner says, with noticeable emotion.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Sara Faulkner with four conch fisherman she helped to rescue. They had been lost at sea for five days. [/caption]

Still, Faulkner is grateful for many of her experiences. “It’s an awesome job, and adventurous,” she says. “I’ve been to the South Pole, done an important job, but I wouldn’t candy coat it. You have to be aware of the other half of things. I hope things are better now with the new chiefs but…” she pauses. “There are so many cool stories to tell, but I wouldn’t want a daughter of mine to go through what I did. I’d tell anyone who wants it: You go girl…but watch out.””

Faulkner clearly has grit. Here’s her definition: “Grit is standing firm in the face of adversity. Persevering. For me, I just wasn’t going to quit.” She believes grit is inside every person, but that it can be developed, too.

“I kept my eye on the goal,” she says of her own successes. “I knew the requirements, and I made sure I exceeded them every time.”

Faulkner plans to use the G.I. Bill to go back to school to become a wildlife conservation biologist and hopes to use her search and rescue training for anti-poaching work in Africa. “The animals are another kind of survivors,” she says.

When Faulkner retired, she took with her 25% of the female Coast Guard rescue swimmers. Only three women serve as rescue swimmers today.

Former Senior Enlisted Leaders From the Five Branches Come Together To Help Veterans!

by Jess Clackum

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Jack L. Tilley, 12th Sergeant Major of the Army, Alford L. McMichael, 14th Sergeant Major, US Marine Corps, James L. Herdt, 9th Master Chief Petty Officer of the US Navy, Frederick J. Finch, 13th Chief Master Sergeant of the US Air Force, Vincent W. Patton III, 8th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard. (Photo credit: Pinnacle Five, LLC) [/caption]

Pinnacle Five, LLC is a group of five senior enlisted military leaders dedicated to taking care of military veterans and their families.Pinnacle Five's leadership consists of five men with 165 years of combined military experience:

Their mission is to help veterans and their families transition to civilian life productively by educating the public about the value of hiring veterans and gaining corporate commitment to provide jobs, housing, and mentoring for veterans/families; serving as a bridge between the Veteran community and resources available to them.; and strengthening citizenship by connecting corporate support and veterans in educational outreach targeted to schools where we prepare kids to be citizens.

On the importance of their mission, Vince Patton says,

"The most important thing we can do is help Veterans realize their value in the commercial world.I can say from personal experience that one of the most important stages in the life of a service member is their transition out of uniform and into the civilian sector.

Business needs a seat at the table with Congress, the Departments of Labor, Veterans Affairs and Defense in delivering a responsive, innovative 21st Century solution to our transitioning service members.

Now we have an agenda. We've got to get inside the heads and hearts of Veterans and show them what they're worth. We have to help them translate the valor of their service to the ability to lead in their business lives and careers."

Check out the amazing work they do at pinnaclefive.com

Meet Jess Clackum - FlyGirls Director of Social Media & Veterans Liaison

Jess Clackum is Director of Social Media and Veterans Liaison for FlyGirls the Series. Jess served in the U.S. Coast Guard and is a writer with a background in History & Mass Communications and is a crucial member of the Production team.

"Joining the Coast Guard in the 1980s was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I traveled and met people from all different walks of life. I gained experience in search and rescue, firefighting, seamanship, tactical law enforcement and culinary arts. Being out on the water gave me a feeling of freedom and independence that I had never known. Serving my country made me proud to be a part of something bigger, something worthwhile. I gained confidence and learned the true value of working as part of a team, for the greater good.

When I joined, women were not considered equal to their male counterparts. At times, we faced roadblocks to the same opportunities and consideration. We persevered in spite of discrimination and sexual harassment by going above and beyond, embracing the opportunity to serve our country, with hopes of advancement as we asserted our worth.

A number of women I served with wanted to enter more traditional male jobs in the service but were discouraged from those paths. The headstrong, however, ignored the advice of supervisors and Commanding Officers and pursued their goals anyway, placing their names on lists for schools or participating in on-the-job training. For those who stayed with it, their struggles against the system were ultimately rewarded.

Women are more empowered now than they have been in any other time in history. Never-before-had opportunities to make our mark in the world comes abound but we didn’t get here on our own. We had lots of help from the generations of women before us and we owe them a debt of gratitude. Their struggles and sacrifices paved the way for us to be where we are today.

That’s why the Fly Girls project is near and dear to my heart.

Over the years, I’ve studied World War II history. I’ve read books and I've taken the time to talk to people who served during the war---including my grandfather who was a mine planter (his brother Arthur, an infantryman died in the Pacific Theater), my grandmother May and her sister Jeanine, both of whom were Rosie the Riveters, building bombs and aircraft for the war effort, PFC Benno Levi, who served with my great Uncle Arthur and who shared his war experiences with me, and countless others who served bravely and selflessly for the cause. The conversations I've had bring home to me that every American — men and women, of all ages — contributed to the war effort, and that the role that women played in winning the war is often overlooked.

Over seventy years ago, the Women Airforce Service Pilots refused to stand in the shadows and let their destinies be chosen for them. They each had a dream and they pursued it. They served with honor and distinction and deserve better than to be forgotten.

It’s time to honor them and their sacrifices and accomplishments, we who’ve benefited from such trailblazers.

That is exactly what our miniseries will do!"