AF's First Female Fighter Pilot Continues to Break Stereotypes

FORT MEADE, Md. (AFNS) -- After Col. Jeannie Leavitt finished pilot training at the top of her class in 1992, she was given her first choice of aircraft, with a few restrictions. Her first choice, the F-15 Strike Eagle, wasn't yet an option for female pilots.

"I was told you finished No. 1, but you cannot pick a fighter," Leavitt said. "You cannot pick a bomber. You cannot pick a special ops aircraft. There was a whole list of aircraft I couldn't fly, and I was directed to choose among the other aircraft."

Fortunately for Leavitt and all female Airmen with similar aspirations, the following year then-Defense Department Secretary Les Aspin ordered all service branches to drop restrictions on women flying combat missions. Leavitt became the Air Force's first female fighter pilot and later the service's first woman to graduate from the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Almost two decades later, she's been the nation's first female fighter wing commander since she assumed command of the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., in 2012.

While she recognizes her place in Air Force history, Leavitt prefers emphasizing her role as an officer and commander. When she learned she would be flying the F-15 while she was in the middle of T-38 Talon pilot instructor training at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, Leavitt didn't care about publicity or the chance to make history. She just wanted to fly in fighters.

"When we first discussed it, the individual from headquarters I was talking to mentioned there would be a lot of publicity since I would be the first (woman)," she said. "What I told him was I didn't want the publicity, but I really want to fly fighters. The thing was, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. It was part of who I was and what I wanted to do. The notoriety and publicity wasn't what I wanted, but it came due to the timing."

Not everyone was happy about the defense secretary's decision, and Leavitt had to prove herself to those who questioned her abilities because of her gender.

"A lot of times people were resistant because it was change, and a lot of times people don't like change," she said. "Some people weren't in favor of the change that happened and didn't want women flying fighters. In many cases when I'd show up, once they saw I was competent, and I was a skilled pilot, and I wasn't trying to change their whole world, they became much more accepting of me."

Leavitt flew more than 2,500 hours in the F-15, including 300 combat hours, mostly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Maj. Gen. Lawrence L. Wells, 9th Air Force commander, flew the F-16 Fighting Falcon as an operations officer with Leavitt during Operation Southern Watch in 1996. 

He recalls surprise when he first saw her at a mass pre-mission briefing because he didn't know any women were deployed in the area of responsibility at that time. But the surprise soon turned into admiration as he observed Leavitt, especially during a mission supporting a Royal Air Force Tornado GR1 during a threat of an Iraqi Roland surface-to-air missile. He could sense her professionalism and skill as he listened to tapes of her radio calls during the de-briefing after the mission.

"I remember thinking how cool and calm she sounded during the entire time," Wells said. "It was all just a very professional, well-run response to a potential threat, and I remember thinking at that time, 'This female fighter pilot is going to go far in our Air Force.'"

He also described the young F-15 pilot as "a great wingman," a trait he thinks will serve her well as a commander.

"We value in our young officers the ability to be in the right place at the right time," Wells said. "That's what a real wingman does. At the time, she was a great wingman, which in my view, makes her a better leader. Because you really have to know how to follow before you can lead. You have to understand what Airmen are thinking and how your Airmen are dealing with issues and what your young Airmen are focused on. Now having been a great wingman, she can be a great commander."

When Wells introduced Leavitt at her change of command ceremony at Seymour Johnson AFB in June, he chose his words carefully. Despite the historical significance of her career, Leavitt prefers recognition as an Air Force officer and commander. Wells chose remarks that would strike the same tone.

"I had some very specific things I wanted to say about her, and how I had seen her, not only in combat during Southern Watch, but also from kind of following her career," Wells said. "What I did not want to do in my speech was to highlight the fact that she was the first female commander. I was very sensitive to say the Air Force actually picked the right person to be in the right job at the right time, which I think speaks more for her as a professional Air Force officer, who, oh, by the way, just happens to be a female." 

Leavitt now commands one of only three Air Force units with the Strike Eagle, along with 5,000 active-duty members and 12,000 civilians. Looking back on the progress women have made in her 20 years in the Air Force, the biggest difference she's seen is women in fighter squadrons are no longer unusual as she was in 1993.

"One thing that's changed is women are no longer a novelty," Leavitt said. "When I started flying fighters in 1993, there were no other women. So there were no female instructor pilots, no flight commanders and no squadron commanders. So it was quite a novelty to have a female in the fighter squadron. The good news is this opportunity opened up, and quite a few women followed in my path."

Beirut Marines not Forgotten Families Mark 10th Anniversary of Attack

Pears are in full bloom on approximately 270 Bradford trees that have grown to full size in the 10 years since they were planted at Camp LeJeune, N.C., in the memory of American servicemen killed in Lebanon and Grenada in the early 1980s.
The trees are the symbolic sentries on LeJeune Boulevard from the main gate to the memorial site for Saturday’s 10th-annual memorial service.
For visitors to the post near Jacksonville, N.C., where most of the men were stationed, the trees and the statue of the Marine guard facing “The Other Wall,” serve as a reminder that, as one Marine wrote in a letter home following the deaths of 241 American servicemen in an early-morning terrorist attack Oct. 23, 1983 in Beirut – “It’s so clear to me now, Mom. Freedom isn’t free.”
“To me, they’re brave, little trees,” said Peggy Stelpflug, the mother of Lance Cpl. Bill Stelpflug, one of the men who died at approximately 6:22 a.m. 10 years ago when a Mercedes truck loaded with explosives burst through the Battalion Landing Team Headquarters building that housed the 24th Marine Amphibious Unite. Ms. Stelpflug and husband Bill planted the same kind of trees in their own yard in Auburn.
“They always say it takes about seven years to really get over the loss of a child, at least to where you start to feel like your old self again and appreciate some of the pleasures they gave you,” she said. “I can smile now when I talk about my son. I smiled some earlier, but now I don’t feel that terrible feeling in my stomach and enjoy more the little things about him that gave me such pleasure.”
The families of Ms. Stelpflug and Celia Johnson of Dothan will be among those attending Saturday’s 10th anniversary memorial service at Camp LeJeune. Ms. Johnson, who lost her only son, Leonard Warren Walker, in the terrorist attack, tries to attend the service each year, but was unable to go in 1992 because of work obligations.
Visiting the post where her son was stationed obviously will bring some tears, but they will be tears worth crying.
“I’m really looking forward to renewing bonds with them,” she said. “I didn’t get to see him before he left to go (to Beirut), so just being in places he has been and meant a lot to him means a lot to me.”
The Beirut Memorial Project in Jacksonville was by far the most extensive memorial project honoring the Lebanon veterans. In addition to the Bradford pear trees that were planted in 1984, the community also built the memorial that has become known as “The Other Wall” because of its similarity to the wall honoring Vietnam veterans in Washington, D.C.
The wall, which has the names of the servicemen on one side and the words “They Came in Peace” on the other, is the site for the annual anniversary memorial service.
The statue of a lone Marine keeping vigil was added in 1986.
A similar service will be held in Arlington Cemetery in Washington. Since 1984, the No Greater Love organization has observed Oct. 23 as a day to remember all victims of terrorism.
The families, which formed a nationwide support group called “The Beirut Connection” that publishes a regular newsletter, have been trying to get a commemorative stamp for seven years. Ms. Stelpflug published a collection of poetry from Beirut victims’ families in 1987.
The book, titled “They Came in Peace,” included two poems written by her son. “The War King Calls” was recovered from the destroyed building and featured Stelpflug’s reflections of the war-torn city.
The deaths of Stelpflug, Johnson and their comrades, which followed the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April and other escalated violence, raised many questions in 1983.
The families still have those questions, but Saturday isn’t about that. It’s about remembering their fallen Marines, Soldiers and Sailors.
Only five members of Walker’s Second Reconnaissance Battalion Company C unit survived the attack, which was the largest loss of life for American servicemen since the Vietnam War and the highest Marine casualties since World War II. The families who lost their sons basically adopted the survivors as their own, although the men are in their early 30s now.
“We tell them they don’t have just one set of parents anymore,” Ms. Johnson said. “They have 25 sets of parents.”
The explosion blasted the worlds of families like Ms. Johnson, Ms. Stelpflug and four others in the state. Also killed were Terry Hudson of Prichard, Henry Townsend of Montgomery, Jimmy R. Cain of Gardendale, and James Price of Attalla.
The families draw strength from each other at the annual memorial service.
“It’s a great comfort, a solace,” Ms. Stelpflug said. “You don’t have to explain anything to them because they know. They’ve experienced it.”
During the summer of 1983, the Stelpflugs were campaigning for the return of the American troops in Lebanon and enlisted the assistance of their congressman, the late Bill Nichols. Nichols, like the Stelpflugs, could sense a tragedy in the making.
Ms. Stelpflug sees the same potential in Somalia.
“It was like being in a tall building looking down and seeing two cars come together,” she said. “I feel it is definitely the same pattern in Somalia.
“We’re in there for the best of reasons, there were really no vital interests, and we were trying to keep the peace. It doesn’t work. That’s one reason we want people to remember what happened in Beirut, so it doesn’t happen again.”
Walker attended elementary and middle schools in Dothan before he graduated from Jeb Stuart High School in Falls Church, Va., and joined the Marines in 1980. He had been in Dothan four months before his death and had a choice of returning to Camp LeJeune or rejoining the troops in Beirut.
“He was doing what he wanted to do,” Ms. Johnson said. “He was a Marine, and he had friendships there.”