-And I still kind of joke -- I do a lot of teaching now and one of the contracts I do is I teach Navy people and I explain to them the metamorphosis of Army to the Air Force, but I joke and I say it took me 15 years to figure out that I like hotels better than tents.

[ Laughter ] So that's how you know the Army's just a little bit slow.

-And so they're like, "Alright, you're a photographer!"

And I remember thinking, "Photographer?

That's -- Photography?

That's not a job.

That's a hobby."

I wanted to go back home and, you know, impress my family -- "I'm a strategic tactical computer analyst, something or other."

It was the best thing that has ever happened to my life.

-My husband, who I worked with at the time, told me, you know, after we had been dating for a while, that he was like, "Yeah, there was a lot of preparation for you coming.

There was a lot of discussion on minding your P's and Q's and how to behave and how things were going to work."

He was like, "You know, all the guys that are like our age was like, 'What's the big deal?

You know, it's no big problem.'"

-My all-time military icon is Rosie Reynolds.

She was the first female photojournalist in the Air Force.

She paved the way for women like myself to come behind her and gave me the opportunity to go on to earn Military Photographer of the Year twice, the first female to do it.

Hi.

I'm Stacy Pearsall, retired Air Force staff sergeant, and today I'm sitting down with Vanessa Shawver, Lisa Zunzanyika, and Meggen Ditmore -- three women who are the first in their own fields.

We talk about the challenges they faced, how they overcame them, and how these experiences have stayed with them in life after action.

-♪ There will be light ♪ [ Rapid gunfire ] ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ [ Rotors whirring ] ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ -Vanessa, Lisa, Meggen, welcome to the farm and thanks for taking the time to come all the way here to sit with me and talk about life.

-Thank you.

-Happy to do it.

-I appreciate it.

I have the luxury of knowing each of you, but y'all don't really know each other, so, I want to take an opportunity to do a little bit of an origin story moment and I think I'm just going to start right over here with you, Vanessa.

Can you give me a little bit of background about who you are, where you're from, how you ended up in the military, why did you choose the branch?

You know, that kind of thing.

-Okay, so, I grew up an Army brat.

My dad was Army.

It's pretty much all I knew.

As a kid, I thought that everybody went into the Army because everybody I knew had a family member that was in the Army.

I just didn't realize that was anything different.

I did actually figure that out.

My senior year of high school, I took a drama class, so, then I decided I was going to be an actress.

That was my plan, Plan A, and I went to University of Georgia, but I only had a one-year scholarship and, at the end of that year, my parents thought I was going to come back home because there wasn't any more money for me to stay at the school I had selected.

And I said, "I'm not going to do that."

I've had one year of freedom.

Definitely didn't want to go home.

So, it happened to be that the ROTC building is right next to the Drama Department in the University of Georgia, so, I went next door and it just felt like home.

You know, I'd been away from home.

As much as I didn't want to go home, but it was like my home away from home because I recognized all of the sights and sounds and the pictures and the language.

And so I went in and they offered me a three-year scholarship and that was my primary reason, was to stay in school.

It turns out that the Army won't pay for you to be a drama major, [ Laughter ] in case you're wondering, so.

I did have to change and I became a journalism major.

-Did you?!

-I did, actually.

-Wow.

But I used it in various capacities as an Army officer, but not ever formally.

So, I graduated or got ready to graduate.

You have to select your branch you wanted to go into and my father had been a pilot and, at that time, I was still trying to earn my way of prestige in the male world, so, I thought, "If that's the hardest thing to get into, then that's what I'll do.

I'll go into aviation."

-In 1993, Army brat Vanessa Shaver followed in her father's bootsteps, commissioned as an aviator, and piloted a Black Hawk helicopter.

During that time, more opportunities were made available for women to join combat roles, which is how this hard-charging go-getter, Vanessa, became the first female pilot in the fighting cavalry.

-I know, especially for me, coming into unit after unit that were mostly male, if you come into the unit and you are on the fringe of the standards, as a female, sort of like hanging onto a ledge.

Like if I just get a grip, just my fingertips, somebody's going to step on them -Mm-hmm.

-and I'm going to drop.

But there is that fringe of standards that men exist on and it's okay because they're on this side.

But for women, you have to land very solidly within those standards.

You cannot scrape by, or you're not worthy.

Men kind of get a little bit more leeway, but it was like, "We want to make sure that you're supposed to be here.

-Right.

-You can't just maybe, kind of, fit the bill.

You have to be further."

So, that's, you know, when I showed up and I always wanted to be able to run faster, to do more push-ups, to do more sit-ups.

That was the Army thing because that's the language that men spoke and, if I could do that, then the murmur was a little lower.

Because they didn't want to be the guy that said the girl could outrun them.

-Oh.

-It's hard to make fun of the girl that can outrun you.

-This is true.

-It's so wild that women do this.

I mean, and listen, I hear this a lot is that we tend to have these amazing accomplishments.

We're like, "And yeah, so I did that and, you know, we'll move on.

On to the next thing."

Yes, there are other significant parts in our life, whether that's bearing children or, you know, getting a college education degree, things like that.

You were the first female to do what, now?

-So, they opened combat flying positions to females in 1995 and that's the same year I was coming out of flight school.

So, when I finished flight school, at that time, it was usually flying Apaches, was what they were going to do.

But I knew that I didn't want to fly Apaches.

I wanted to fly Blackhawks.

And, when I graduated, they started pushing all the women into the Apache slots.

They told me, "Hey, you're going to fly Apaches," and I went -- "But I know how the order of merit list works and I've really worked hard and it's supposed to be the first person picks their aircraft, the second picks, and then until all the slots are gone and I'm high enough that I should be able to pick and I don't want that."

And I had to fight a little bit for that, to get the Black Hawk.

And then the Army has a way of twisting things around on you, so they said, "Okay, that's cool.

You can have Black Hawks."

But somewhere in the behind the scenes, I think it was maybe a little bit of a joke.

I don't know.

But they said, "You're going to go to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment."

So, in fact, when I called them up -- and, at the time I was Lieutenant Warren -- I said, [ Small voice ] "Hey, it's Lieutenant Warren.

I have orders to your unit."

And the guy on the other end said, "We don't have any women!"

[ Laughter ] -Wow.

-And I thought, "Mm."

And I have to tell everybody now, I called back, I was like -- Prrrrt!

[ Laughter, clapping ] And I got to call them back.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right, that's right, don't even hang up on me!

-No.

[ Laughter ] So, you know.

Call back and I'm like, "This is Lieutenant Warren and I have orders to your unit!"

And they were like, "What?!"

So, it was interesting.

I guess you don't realize that it's groundbreaking at the time.

I'm like, "I'm just me.

I'm a girl and I just showed up to fly.

Here I am."

And this stuff is kind of funny.

And now that I -- if I ever do tell people, then they want to have all these questions and sometimes that gets more uncomfortable, to me, because it puts all the focus on me and I don't want it there.

-Yeah.

-So, I will kind of downplay it.

Like, "Well, yeah, I -- I mean, I flew helicopters."

-Yeah.

-There's lots of people that have flown helicopters, so.

-You know, I mean, so many young girls never saw themselves represented in that way.

So, the reason why I think it's such a big deal is it's about representation and being able to visualize yourself being an Army pilot.

If you've never seen that represented anywhere, then it's hard to be able to be like, "Yeah, I could be that."

You were lucky that you had your dad, who was a pilot, and so that was somebody that was there every day that you could be like, "Okay, here's the Army.

Here's my dad.

My dad can do it, I can do it."

-Mm-hmm.

-But for all the other young girls sitting at home, watching air shows or doing this and that, it's usually men.

-It was clear that I was an anomaly.

-Mm-hmm.

Did you have that?

-I did.

I did.

-What resonates with me is that, exactly what you said, I have heard out of Meggen's mouth.

And, full disclosure, Meggen's my sister.

So, in case you didn't know, Meggen and I are a year and four days apart.

Our dad was a sailor and we were that quintessential military brat, the Dopp kit.

We moved around a lot.

We spoke the military lingo and things like that, so.

Our entire family, all the way back to the Revolutionary War, has served, in one capacity or another.

And I guess, seeing when you joined the Air Force, Meggen, that really, really inspired me to want to join.

I think what I didn't realize at the time is the ground you were breaking as well.

When Navy brat Meggen Ditmore decided to enlist in 1997, she had her sights set on something in the medical field.

However, her aptitude was better suited in mechanics.

After persevering over those who wished her to fail, she became the first active duty female A-10 crew chief in Air Force history.

It just so happens that this amazing woman is my sister.

-We grew up very deep with military roots.

I think, in middle school, I realized that I wanted to be a nurse and, in high school, I started exploring college options to go to nursing school.

And I realized very quickly, looking at tuition and stuff, that there was no way I was going to be able to make a go of it on my own.

There was not going to be any financial aid because our parents made too much money.

My grades were not good enough to get any scholarships to college, so, I was going to have to make it happen on my own.

And, knowing how expensive college was, I didn't want to be in debt forever, so, I started mulling around the idea that I was going to enlist in the Air Force.

And so, you know, I went into this whole thing going, "Okay, well, maybe -- maybe -- the military can train me to be a nurse and I can forego the college education and just be a nurse in the service."

I went and took my ASVAB test and my results came back with the best aptitude in mechanics, [ Laughter ] which just blew me out of the water.

I was like, "How does that happen?"

We have a single mom.

She's not mechanically inclined.

I did run around with some guys in high school who were gearheads.

But I don't know where the mechanical aptitude came to.

-I don't know that, either, Meggen, seriously.

-So, I was like, "Well, shoot, it's not going to be in healthcare."

Talked to Uncle Joe again.

I was like, "Is there a way to like spin this around and maybe try to retest and see if I can do better?"

And he was like, "Yeah, but your score is low enough, [ Laughter ] it's probably not going to improve very much."

And I was like, "Crap!

My gosh.

Now what?"

And I was like, "You know what?

Alright, I'm still going to enlist because I still have the opportunity for a GI Bill -Mm-hmm.

-to pay for school, but I'm not going to make it a career.

I'm going to go in long enough to serve my time, get my GI Bill, and go to school.

But what job can I do in mechanics?"

I narrowed it down to a boom operator -Mm-hmm.

-and then a crew chief.

I went in, probably, about a week or so later into the MEPS office to do my testing for boom operation and, [ Snapping fingers ] like that, my dream was dashed because they told me that I have the worst depth perception ever, -[ Laughs ] -which is very, very necessary to do the job.

Yeah, especially if you're going to drop a boom into a jet.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Let's not blow it right through the jet.

-Yeah.

-That's my problem, is like I just seem to not realize the distance of things, so.

Yeah, so that crushed that one.

And then I was like, "Alright, A-10 crew chief, here I am."

So, I enlisted, my junior year of high school, as an A-10 crew chief, so.

-Okay, a couple of really significant things happened over the course of your Air Force career and, you know.

Meggen and I have a really, really great sibling rivalry, but she's got me on a couple of things.

First of all, she's the first female active duty A-10 crew chief to do that.

And then you were in a significant part of Air Force history, in that you were one of the first female-and-male integrated training flights during basic training.

-Can you talk about what that experience was like?

-Yeah.

And I didn't realize it until I left for basic.

So, I graduated high school in June and I said, "I'm going to hang out for the summer and I'll leave for boot camp in the fall."

So, I stupidly chose to leave for basic at Lackland Air Force Base in August.

-In San Antonio, Texas... -Ooh.

-...when it's hot.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Yeah, very hot and muggy.

Hot and muggy.

And, you know, we get there in the, you know, darkness hours and, you know... -[ Gruffly ] Get off the bus!

-...they're all drilling us.

-[ Laughs ] -And, you know, we find out that we are going to be the first integrated male-female flights going through Lackland Air Force Base, which meant there were two flights that we're going to work together through the six weeks of basic as a team.

And, when we worked together as a team and we were back in the dorms, then it was two flights of females in one dorm and across the hallway were the two flights of males.

So, all eyes were on us and it was the toughest thing that I had to go through.

We had several people wash out because there was just so much scrutiny on, "Can we make this happen?

Is it going to work?

Can we get everybody to work together?"

And so, it was definitely very challenging.

And, you know, one thing that I tease Stacy about all the time is our graduation photos from boot camp.

I was like, "Look at you.

You look so pretty.

You got to wear some makeup and your hair's done."

I look like I was just put through the wringer.

I wasn't allowed to go get my hair cut.

I wasn't allowed to put on any makeup.

And so, my picture's like -- [ Laughter ] And my hair's standing out here like this.

I was like, "Oh, good golly."

-Hey, why do you think that they -- Well, first of all, it's hard enough to live up to military standards, right?

They want you to be a certain body weight and a certain body mass index.

They want you to wear your uniform a certain way, and that's all fine.

For some people, it's a struggle to stay within that box.

But then I think, as a woman, there's this extra pressure of not -- for me, specifically, and I can speak to my -- and, if you feel the same way, please chime in.

But I always felt like I did not want to be that one person that said, "Yeah, that's why women don't belong in combat."

-Much to what you were saying, I never wanted to live up to the stereotypes or the preconceived notions that people had.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I wanted people -- If you're going to count me out, you're going to count me out because of me, because of my personality, because the decisions I make, the way that I carry myself, but none of these other things that really have any kind of impact on what I'm doing.

-Yeah.

-Whenever you're an other, whatever that other is, that's where you feel the scrutiny and the pressure and it is something -- It's something I've lived with.

I don't -- I can't speak, but, for me, I've always lived with it, whether it was I was the only woman or the only Black person, it was always that case.

-California native Lisa Zunzanyika enlisted in the Air Force in 1987 as a photographer and was later selected to attend the prestigious military photojournalism program at Syracuse University.

That made her the first Black woman in history to do so.

She's best known for her infectious smile and positive energy, which she used mentoring many young airmen, including myself.

-I knew, since sixth grade, that I wanted to join the military.

At the time, I had a pretty tumultuous childhood and we were living in Los Angeles.

And the elementary school there had like a mini ROTC for elementary school kids.

So, it was the California Cadet Corps and something about seeing the uniforms and the marching and the structure really just drew me in.

And I was like, "Oh, I like that.

I want that."

On a more personal note, because things were so chaotic, living in Los Angeles and the things my family was going through at the time, looking back on it, I realized I crave stability.

I craved structure and I liked that.

So, graduate from high school, I take ASVAB, recruiters are calling me.

I go to -- My grandmother is my role model, my touchstone, my everything.

And she goes, "Baby, if I had your chances, I would join the Marines.

They're just so sharp."

-[ Hums ] -I was like -- Inside, I'm screaming like, "Oh, [bleep], no!"

-"No!"

-But I -- -[ Laughs ] I follow whatever she says and so I actually signed up, or, at least, went to MEPS with the Marines.

Never made it past MEPS.

-[ Scoffs ] -Came home thinking I was dying because there was something in the medical exam.

So I go back to -- You know, I don't even have a regular doctor, but we go see a doctor and they're like, "You're fine.

I don't know why you're here."

-I'm like, "Oh."

-Huh.

-So, now, I'm kind of stuck, like, "Well, that's always been my life's plan.

What do I --" I didn't come up with a backup and I didn't really take scholarships and financial aid and all that seriously, so I'm like, "Ooh, I'm behind the eight ball."

So, an Air Force recruiter comes around and I explain to him what's going on.

He's like, "Oh, no, we can get you in."

Still, to this day, I don't recall choosing photography, so, my story is that photography chose me.

-Okay.

-There you go.

-And so they're like, "Alright, you're a photographer!"

And I remember thinking, "Photographer?

That's -- Photography?

That's not a job.

That's a hobby."

I wanted to go back home and, you know, impress my family -- "I'm a strategic tactical computer analyst, something or other."

It was the best thing that has ever happened to my life.

Not only has photography taken me around the world, but it has put me in situations I never would've imagined myself being in.

But, moving forward, get to my first base and I'm at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and all I do is process film all day long.

So, at that time, I felt very fraudulent, telling people I was a photographer because I wasn't shooting.

I go from Vandenberg to Ramstein.

So, I'm just doing base support.

So, now, I'm starting to shoot more.

Starting to really get some experience under my belt.

I get orders.

I didn't want to leave Germany.

I wanted to stay there, but we changed the assignment process, so, I didn't make the cutoff to be able to change my assignment.

So, I am actually tasked to go to Joint Combat Camera Center at the Pentagon -Mm.

-and got diverted to Combat Camera.

And I don't think, at the time, I was really aware of what Combat Camera was or did.

So, I get there and I'm watching all these bigwigs in our field, you know, just coming and going, deploying left and right.

I mean, the door's, you know, just a rotating door and they come back with this great imagery.

And I remember there was a very pivotal TDY, McChord Air Force Base.

Airlift rodeo.

Great, great documentation experience.

Anyway, we're documenting it and we're looking at the whole entire picture package and looking at, "Okay, what images are missing?"

And they go down the list and someone says, "Get Lisa.

She does portraits."

And, at that moment, I didn't realize that, yes, I do.

You know, as a photographer, you have a very short amount of time to establish rapport with someone, so, I look for commonalities.

And so my whole world, my whole way of seeing is seeing the me in you and the you in me and that allows me to do what I do.

I see in portraits.

And that began the definition of who I am as a person and as a photographer in this great big thing that I admire so much, which is Combat Camera.

-What I love about each and every one of you is you're so humble about what you've accomplished, but I'm so inspired by what you've done.

I want to talk a little bit about something that I find that I did to myself.

Everything about my military experience, I always felt like I had to exceed standards.

-Mm.

-And there was this voice in my head -- "You need to be better than what the expectations are and you do not want to be the girl that falls back and ruins it for all the other women that come behind you."

We do this to ourselves and, for me, it's like it was self-inflicted.

Everything that -- But I think it was also environmental.

-Mm-hmm.

-Thank you.

-I was going to say, "No.

Is it really?"

Because you have that, like you say, these unspoken expectations -Yeah.

-and you can feel the pressure.

It's palpable.

And, as much as you want to try to rise above it, it permeates you and it drives your decisions and your performance and how you show up.

It's something hard to avoid.

-Mm-hmm.

-I've had to take time to not beat myself up about it because I find myself sometimes looking back and saying, "Ugh!

I wish I had handled that situation differently.

I wish I had done other than what I did."

But, you know, you do the best that you can in that moment.

But I don't necessarily subscribe to that.

It's not entirely self-inflicted.

-Yeah.

-I say the same thing.

-I mean, I feel like, when we were growing up, no one ever -- no one ever told me that I couldn't do something because I was a girl.

And honestly, that was something that never occurred to me, that we had limitations or that there were limitations out there or barriers for us, based on the gender we were born.

I just never -- It had never occurred to me to think that way.

And it wasn't until I joined the military when that actually started coming up in conversation -- "Oh, well, you know, you could be a photographer, but you can't do X, Y, Z, you know.

Oh, now, women can be combat photographers, but you can't go to these frontline combat roles because, officially, women aren't in combat."

And so it was just like, after we made it over one hurdle, there was suddenly another one that we still had to overcome.

-I do remember one time and it does kind of trigger that same thing that you're saying about people don't know.

We had flown to an air show in Billings, Montana, from Colorado Springs and I flew up there with another pilot, who was giving me a check ride on the way up there.

And we had our crew chief in the back and we land and we're doing this air show.

Now, mind you, it's three of us, all in this very same flight suit.

We're around the aircraft and people are coming over and they go to the pilot, you know, the guy that flew with me.

"Oh, what do you do?!"

He's like, "Oh, I fly.

I've been in Vietnam and, you know, rrrr."

And they're like, "Ooh!"

And then they go to the crew chief, you know, "What do you do?!"

And he's, "Oh, well, I fix this.

I do the door gunnery."

They're like, "Whoa!"

And then they come over to me and they go, "What do you do?"

[ Laughter ] -Ohh.

-And I used to make a joke and say, "Well, I fluff the pillows in the back."

[ Laughter, clapping ] Yeah.

But it occurred to me they just hadn't seen it.

And one of the teachers came over and said, "Hey, if you guys are going to be here overnight, you know, could you please stop by in the morning?

I would love to have you come speak to the class because exactly what you said."

She said, "There are girls that don't understand that this is an option for them."

-Mm-hmm.

-And I did.

And I went and I -- Looking back now, don't realize how big that was, but I remember walking in the room and you could just see these girls' eyes of like -- -Oh, their worlds -"Wha-a-a-t?!"

-have just widened, yeah.

-Like, "I can do that?!"

And I was like, "Yes, you can.

And you don't have to fluff the pillows in the back.

-Ever.

-You can sit in the front."

-"You can actually fly."

-Yes!

-[ Laughs ] -Yes!

So, you know, while you were the first female in your unit, there were still other units that still needed first females and then the first female in combat in that unit and then the first female, you know, to do X number of sorties.

And it's just like one more thing after one more thing.

And what astounds me is that, even today, people look at us and, you know, you kind of crack jokes about people who are 40.

Well, most of us are in the [ Mumbling ] between 40 and 50 range.

-Yeah.

-I don't think myself that old.

Most people look at us and they don't see us as that old, but they think, "Damn, wait a minute.

You're saying you were the first female?

-Mm-hmm.

-How did that not happen 50 years ago?"

-I heard that all the time.

They're like, "The A-10's been around since the '70s.

There had to have been another female crew chief."

-Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

-Yeah.

So, we had two instructors who taught our class and one instructor, I thought, was absolutely amazing.

The other instructor liked to try to beat me down and he would beat me down by telling me, in one of the very first interactions I had with him in a one-on-one, as I'm down there at the strut of the A-10 and he says, just randomly to me, that I don't belong there, that I only joined the service to find a husband, and that I wasn't going to be successful.

And I'm sorry.

What?!

Growing up with the mother that we did, we never had any restrictions put against us.

She basically drilled into us, "You do what you want to do.

You feel comfortable doing it, do what makes you happy."

So, we didn't have any kind of gender-defining roles or anything like that growing up and I was just totally gobsmacked that this guy said that to me, which lighted a fuse in me that, "Guess what, bastard?

That's not the truth and I'm going to prove you wrong."

So, that's where the laser focus came in.

I, like I said, I don't know that I was mechanically inclined, so I did find it a struggle, getting through some of that stuff.

It didn't come all natural to me.

I had to work extra hard to make sure that I was passing the course and that I was going to make it through and be successful.

-Yeah.

It had to be a lot of like trials and tribulations.

So, to go from being the very first flight and to get through that experience alone, which is a metamorphosis happens to us all when we first come in the military.

We go through these trainings and we literally change the way we think.

-Mm-hmm.

-And you're still trying to figure out who you are, as this military person.

You graduate basic training.

I get to see you.

You inspire me to join and I go home and I enlist right after that.

You go to your training and they say, "Okay, the only reason you're here is you're husband hunting.

We're not going to let you pass."

But you get through it.

You get to your base.

What was your first day at work like?

-It was definitely interesting because I just remember walking into the office and there's all the guys sitting at the -- you know, they had all the tables bumped together, back-to-back, so, it was just like a big, giant rectangle.

Everybody's sitting in there, you know, getting ready for the day, and our master sergeant introduced me to everybody and then proceeded to talk about the zero tolerance against sexual harassment and I just remember standing there, going, "Great, this is awkward.

This is really awkward."

And, you know, you see the looks on the faces and they're all just thinking to themselves, "Is she cool?

Is she going to be, you know, a tight-ass or is he just, you know, going to ride us like there's no tomorrow and totally hold us accountable to no blonde jokes, or this or that?"

You could see the wheels were turning in their heads.

But, you know, my husband, who I worked with at the time, told me, you know, after we had been dating for a while, that he was like, "Yeah, there was a lot of preparation for you coming.

There was a lot of discussion on minding your P's and Q's and how to behave and how things were going to work."

He was like, "You know, all the guys that are like our age was like, 'What's the big deal?

You know, it's no big problem.'"

-Mm-hmm.

-You know, they'd all been -- -It was the old-timers that really had an adjustment.

-The career guys had been around a while.

It was a new experience for them, so, you know, they were treading open water, trying to figure out how to -- how to adapt.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you were husband hunting, because you did find a husband.

Just going to throw it out there.

-Ooh!

-Hey, I was just -- -Stacy!

-Oh, my God, you guys!

Take a joke.

[ Laughter ] Hold the phone.

-It's your sister, so we'll let it go.

-Okay, okay.

-Hold the rotary phone, ladies.

-Yeah.

[ Laughter ] -Dial it back.

Dial it back.

-No, I mean, because I only bring this up because I've heard the stigma, too, right?

That women should only -- Women would only be joining the military to accomplish a couple of things, you know -- maybe working toward college, but, certainly, trying to find a husband because that's our main priority in life.

Like why wouldn't we?

But also, you know, and then to go on and have kids and the only reason you have kids in the military is to get out of service or get out of a deployment or get out of something.

So, then we like set ourselves up, right?

I said I wasn't going to marry somebody from the service, certainly not somebody I worked with, definitely not somebody who'd been married before, and, certainly, not somebody who had kids.

And then I ended up with... -Ch, ch, ch, ch.

-...whammy!

-[ Laughs ] -Yeah.

-But for, you know, for a long time, I was like, "Well, crap, I don't want to have anybody know that I'm in a relationship with another military member because then I'm living up to this sort of stereotype and the stigma about women in the military, and that's one of them.

You do meet an airman that you kind of like and you're kind of digging him.

You're kind of having this relationship on the fly.

It's new.

What happens next?

-I got pregnant.

-Oops!

-Yeah.

I got pregnant.

And I ended up finding out because what's the very first thing the military wants to do is yank your wisdom teeth.

-Oh, yeah.

-[ Laughs ] -I had absolutely no clue.

You know, I had all these appointments scheduled and this and that.

I went in to have my wisdom teeth yanked.

Not the top of my priority list.

I go in and they will pregnancy test any female of childbearing age before giving them anesthesia.

And they come back and they said, "Did you know you're pregnant?"

And I said, "Say what, now?"

[ Laughter ] -Clearly not.

-"No, that can't happen.

I'm taking precautions.

I'm on birth control.

That's just not a possibility."

"Well, you're pregnant."

So, down they marched me to the medical, to schedule my first OB appointment.

And all I'm thinking in my head is, "I have just failed.

I am doing everything that those guys had told me.

I'm living up to what their expectation of me was."

I felt like a big failure.

I was very disappointed in myself.

It wasn't my intention to get pregnant.

I didn't do it on purpose.

Stuff just happens.

So, I spent weeks and weeks going behind the scenes, trying to find out how we could coparent and not be married.

But the military makes it damn near impossible to be a single woman raising a child.

I asked if I could get base housing.

They said, "Sure, we'll give you base housing.

You have to sign over your child.

and, if we find out that your boyfriend's living there with you, you're going to permanently lose base housing."

So then we were like, "Okay, well, let's see if we can get a cost of living allowance, a COLA raise, and we'll go live off-base."

We're in Alaska.

It's very expensive.

The only thing we, as airmen, could afford to live in was a like open cabin with no indoor plumbing or a studio apartment in North Pole, Alaska, that had mold so bad that I wouldn't, you know, wish my worst enemy to live there.

And I was just defeated.

I felt defeated.

And I was like, "I have no clue what the solution is."

I look back at myself -- you know, with age comes wisdom -- and I'm like, you know, that pregnancy that I got married for, I lost in less than a month.

I was 16 weeks pregnant.

And I feel, in my heart and my gut, that it was all of the stress and anxiety I was putting myself through, as why I lost that pregnancy.

And I just wish that I could go back and tell myself, "It's okay.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Everything's going to be okay."

We celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary this summer.

-Congratulations.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-That's awesome.

Now, Vanessa, I want to circle back to you because you also had kids in the military.

-Mm-hmm.

-But you were married and had children.

What was the dynamics like for you, you know, starting a family in the service?

I mean, obviously, Meggen's was a little bit different, so I'm curious.

Well, for me, I was kind of that check the list, like you, of things I was never going to do.

Coming out of college, first of all, I was never going to get married and I blew that one up just right out.

-[ Laughs ] -And then and I said, "Okay, I'm married, but I'm never having kids."

I ended up having the kids, which, two.

And then I said, "Alright, I have kids.

I'm never driving a minivan."

[ Laughter ] -Oh.

-Also blew that one.

So, what I've learned is never say never.

-Mm-hmm.

But I got married to a friend, essentially, out of college and decided to have kids.

He knew that I'd said I didn't want any but, for me, the big game-changer was when I went to Haiti in 1999 and I got sent there as a secretary to the Joint Staff.

And I had never seen, at that point in my life, such widespread poverty.

And I watched a few things happen, one of which really sticks in my mind.

We used to have these humanitarian hospitals that they would set up and we had a compound.

It was a walled compound.

They had Marine guards outside and they had -- at that time, it was a Navy hospital that would let people in to help them.

And I'm watching all these people and I'm up on the roof because I'm with the commander.

And you can see this line of people waiting to get in.

And then you see the people that are leaving and some of them are given medicines for whatever ailment their family member had.

And they would go out the gate and there was like -- like a makeshift market, so that you could get the medicines and then you could go out and you could sell it.

If you have a child that's sick with -- name the illness that they had, which was many, it might kill them in a year, maybe two.

If they don't have food... -Mm.

-...they won't make it that long.

-Yeah.

-And that, to me -- I had not grown up in what I had seen as a healthy marriage and childrearing, to me, I just didn't have good enough experiences in my background to think that I could do that.

But I watched this and I thought, "That's powerful, the love of the family, and I want that.

I don't know what that's like, but it looks like it's really powerful."

I was on active duty for about ten years and then, when my daughter was born -- She was born September 5, 2001.

The towers had fallen and she was six days old.

I was home with a newborn, recovering from my second C-section, had a young son as well and I looked around and said, "I respect women that have and continue to leave their children," but it was not going to be me.

I just knew that I couldn't leave my children.

So, I decided I wanted to leave active duty.

But rolling in the reserves was, I think, the best thing I could have done for them because my kids don't -- and, in fact, they don't even -- they think that "Mom is a helicopter pilot" is like a fun bedtime story that they've heard.

-Oh, wow.

-[ Laughs ] -They were never around for any of that.

They saw me come and go in an Air Force uniform towards the end of my career, but we never had to travel like I did.

So, they don't quite understand any of that, which I'm, frankly, grateful for.

Not that I think there was a lot of benefit to being a military brat.

I just know I really appreciate having given my kids that security.

-Yeah.

-Can we talk about you, Lisa?

-Okay.

-So, my sister was in Alaska and she had gotten married and, eventually, had a kid.

All the while, I decided to enlist myself, sign my own paperwork, try to find a job, and I was like, "I don't want to turn wrenches like my sister.

I want to be creative," so I was looking at photography, videography, or graphics designer and, being 17, I was like, "Whichever one opens up first," and so it was photography.

And I went to the Defense Information School in Washington, D.C. and they were like, "Here's your dream sheet.

Figure out where you want to go."

I was like, "I'm going to go anywhere but the Midwest."

Send me to Turkey, Germany.

I'll go to Alaska.

I'll go anywhere but the Midwest.

So, not only did I go through basic still photography school, but they had also tacked on this film processing course that was for the U-2 spy planes... -Mm-hmm.

-and they had consolidated, so I did a secondary course and then I got my assignment to Omaha, Nebraska.

-Wow!

-Just right down the road from Mom.

-Right.

That sounds about right.

-While I'm waiting for my clearance to work at the U.S. Strategic Command, they loaned me out to the base photo lab to be their slide film processor person.

And I'm sitting by the desk, feeling absolutely miserable and in walks this guy with just this presence and this swagger and he's wearing this big Combat Camera patch.

Just happens to be this very same one right here, so.

-Yep, yep, yep.

-This Combat Camera patch on his shoulder, in a flight suit, and he drops this bag of slide film on the countertop.

And he's like, "I'm going to need this like as soon as you can get it."

And I'm like, "Who are you and what do you do?

[ Whispering ] I want to be you."

[ Laughter ] And he's like, "Dream big."

So he started telling me about this thing called Combat Camera, which had only just opened up for women.

Right?

And the very first woman was Rosie Reynolds.

So, anyway, he was telling me what it takes to be a photojournalist, that I would have to go to school.

But even to get into Combat Camera, it was a very, very small unit -- literally 50 photographers and 50 videographers in the Air Force.

That's it.

And to be a photojournalist, that was an even more narrow, very tip of the spear kind of thing.

So I sat back and I said, "Okay, I got to build a portfolio.

I got to be a stellar individual.

I have to excel at all these things."

And even then, there were still very talented male counterparts who had combat experience and combat in their portfolio, and here I was, a lowly airman who had been processing satellite imagery.

I had a long way to go.

So fast-forward a couple years.

I do my assignment in England, and I find out that there's a position open at Combat Camera.

Like, hell yes.

So I put in an application, but, like, so did 50 other people in the Air Force, and you're like, "Yeah."

And people with much more experience and talent.

In July of 2001, I find out that I got in.

I said -- I thought I had a snowball's chance in hell.

Well, there you go.

And they said, "Your 'report no later than' date to Charleston, South Carolina, is going to be January 2002."

A lot happened between July and January.

So by the time I got to the unit, there was literally no one there.

And one of these bright and shining faces that I met early on was Lisa Zunzanyika, Sergeant Z, for short.

-[ Laughs ] -What I found was, walking into that unit, there -- Surprisingly, quite a few women, which I had never expected, for one, because that opportunity had only just opened up to us.

Really, I mean, if you think about it in the -- in the sort of brief amount of history.

-I'd actually kind of forgotten about it, honestly.

-Yeah.

And then -- And then most everybody was really deployed, and those who weren't deployed were getting ready to deploy again.

So they really didn't have time for some lowly little, you know, senior airman looking for a mentor.

And, Lisa, you took me under your wing.

-Couldn't help it.

Couldn't help it.

-But I think what was so fantastic about you is -- and humbling -- You're so smart.

You excel at your field, though you would say you don't.

And you did go to Syracuse.

You were a photojournalist and you took the time to -- to give me time.

And that made all the difference.

And we talked about representation and seeing ourselves.

And all I wanted to do was be Lisa when I grew up.

-Oh, man.

-I really do.

I mean, I'm getting choked up.

I really did.

Like, to honor my sister and her struggle and to do right by her, but -- but also to be Lisa when I grew up.

So tell me a little bit about -- about that experience.

-So -- And again, in Combat Camera, I'm watching all of these people do these amazing things and they're instantly becoming my heroes and my touch points in life.

And I'm looking around and, you know, Rosie was still there at the time.

And so I always mention Rosie Reynolds because she was one of the first people to make me want this, becoming a photojournalist.

And then there was Marvin Preston and Cedric Rudisill, and then move on to Dean Wagner and all these different people.

And I realized there was nobody that looked like me.

And I was like, "Huh.

Okay.

I'm gonna become one."

And not so much that it's that I'm the first Black person -- Black woman, excuse me -- to do this, while that is important -- It's just the mere, maybe vain thought that I could be the first of something.

-Hm.

-And the fact that to be the first of something is still possible in, what, 1995 was still kind of astounding to me.

You know, we've gone through so much as a country and moved forward so far, and yet it just showed we still have so far to go.

What is interesting is, after I went through the experience and graduated and came back, I never really talked about it.

I just -- It was just something -- It was a personal goal of mine.

This is just what I want to do.

And even still, you know, at the time, I had written a letter to the Enlisted Heritage Hall to tell my story, but no one was corroborating.

No one was tracking the demographics or anything like that.

So I always felt like it was something that was with an asterisk.

But... what I have noticed in -- now I do tell people about it -- is people's reactions to it, and particularly when I am talking to a Black woman or man, especially the younger ones -- And I know I didn't know photography was a career path.

I had no idea.

I had no idea the impact of what we do until I got into it.

And I just thought, "If we all see the world differently, shouldn't we -- Shouldn't there be more of us out there seeing and saying?"

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

-So for that reason, I do lead a lot of conversations with that just because it's not about me.

But having said that, it's also not the -- It's not the biggest thing of my career experience or the all-defining thing of my career experience.

My -- My career experience really is all summed up in my time in Combat Camera and how... With Combat Camera, what was different for me is, we were family.

And you hear people say that all the time.

But I say that in the sense that we spend more time with each other than we do our actual families.

And so especially on these deployments where there's a lot of hurry up and wait, you end up getting to know people in probably ways that you never would have had you not had this experience.

-Mm-hmm.

-So to me, on a personal level, that's one of the greatest benefits of being the first Black female combat photojournalist in Air Force history.

The second benefit is, everyone talks about my job as the best job in the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, what have you.

I had the luxury and the ability and the responsibility to peek over the shoulders of all these different AFSCs and MOSs and career fields and services and bases, posts, locations, and you get to see that every job is the best job.

So those are things that are, like, defining moments that I'm like, "Ah."

-Mm-hmm.

"Oh, okay, I get it, I get it, I get it."

Fast-forward, I'm in Iraq, and we're pulling up to a school that has just been decimated with mortar fire and whatnot.

The kids are all in the -- what would be a playground.

And we pull up in our, you know, Humvees, and we're full battle rattle.

And I've got my weapon and two cameras and everything like that.

And I was struck, and, like, I don't know if you guys experience when something really hits you on a deeper level, this is more than just I'm going out to do whatever, but it was almost as if everything just slowed down around me.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I saw these young girls jumping rope, just like me and my friends did.

-Hm.

-And it was just like -- like the Earth just kind of, you know, tilted off its axis, and I was just like, "What are we doing?"

-Mm-hmm.

-"What are we doing?"

Some of these kids, their whole life has been war.

-Yeah.

-And it just blows my mind.

And I can remember -- A story I tell often is how we're in Sarajevo.

We're in a vehicle with an interpreter, and we're driving through the city.

And you look, and there's just rolling hills of gravestones.

So I'm thinking that must be the cemetery for the entire city.

No, it was just one of many.

And I'm just -- In that -- In that moment, I'm like, "So there are, like, whole families, the Smiths, the Joneses, gone, wiped out."

I'm just like, "God, I can't even imagine."

And I turned to the interpreter.

I'm like, "You're so brave."

And she goes -- I'm horrible with accents -- [Heavy accent] "What is this 'brave'?

You just do.

You be."

[ Normal voice ] And I'm like [Gasps] But I had a full circle moment because when I was growing up in L.A. and some of the things that I had seen and witnessed and experienced, to me, I'm just like, "Look, you just -- You just keep -- You just do.

It's not anything.

You're sitting there like, 'Oh, life is so hard.

Ah.'

You just go through it."

-Hm.

-But again, it was one of those moments, like, "Oh, God, I get it.

We're all the same."

And another favorite story -- In Iraq, we go to one of Saddam's pilot's homes, and he's very -- He's very hospitable and proud to have us there, welcomes us all in and, you know, full battle rattle, the whole nine.

He's got two little teenage daughter-- or pre-teens.

And so, you know, I don't speak their language.

They don't speak mine.

But, you know, laughing and just kind of making faces with them.

And all of a sudden, the father comes over to me -- "Come."

And I'm like, "Oh."

I violated some culture -- I don't even know.

And I'm so sorry.

And he takes me into another room, like, over there, and on the wall, you guys, are albums.

LPs.

And he points over to this one specifically, and he says, "Look, look, look, Donna Summer," and he points to me.

[ Laughter ] "Donna Summer."

Points to me.

Right?

And maybe -- I don't -- I'm assuming maybe he was trying to say, you know -- I don't know if he was saying, like, because she's Black, I'm Black, or because music, whatever.

But my mother had that same album.

So in that moment... -I had Donna Summer.

-Okay.

Right.

So in that moment, half a world away, me and this guy from Iraq have this -- this moment, this common moment of just like, "Yeah, I love her, too."

That's huge.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

That's huge.

-That's huge.

So my experience in combat is more -- more about the irony about it or the quiet moments about it.

-Yeah.

-There's another stereotype that -- at least that I felt I had to contend with in that...

...I was always gonna be a liability to the team as a woman.

So I never asked anyone to carry my bags, my rucks, none of that.

I was never just barely carrying along or just doing the bare minimum.

I got in right away and did what I needed to do.

But I could not stand what other women did.

-So -- -And I don't know that that was fair of me.

You know?

-Okay.

Let's talk about that, though, Lisa.

If we hold ourselves to this almost -- It's a hard -- It's a hard level to maintain, that level of excellence we expect from ourselves.

But then we project that onto other women, right?

And when they're failing, if they give an inch, "The [bleep] You better get your [bleep] back in line."

But what happens is, when -- when we get the guys involved and the guys are seeing it, now suddenly what's happening is, the guys are like, "Man, did you see so-and-so?"

And we're like, "Oh, yeah.

What a bitch."

-Mm-hmm.

-Yes.

And so suddenly we're turning on ourselves.

-Well, you have to distance yourself, because, yeah, if you don't distance yourself from that, then you become her.

It's like, "Oh, so you support this lower standard.

Well, then we don't support you anymore."

And so you don't want that to turn on you.

So absolutely.

I've seen that.

-Yes.

-I know that there was another female that came into the unit after I was there, and we had the same last name.

She would -- I'm gonna put this politely as I can -- struggled with the height/weight.

She also, weirdly enough, was married to a civilian, so she was also kind of a little outcast.

But she went and flew and had a hard landing and pushed the tail wheel up into the boom of the aircraft.

-Whoops.

-Ooh.

-A little mishap.

So now it has a lieutenant, same last name as me, showing up on the reports.

And I was like, "Not me," because all the jokes became, "Well, she's so heavy that they landed."

-Yeah.

-You know?

And I -- Instead of ever trying to protect her, I was just like, "You have the same name.

You have a civilian husband.

I do not want to be anywhere near you because I do not want us to get confused because I can already hear the murmur.

And your credibility's kind of shot, and I'm still trying to hold on to mine."

-Right.

-So, you know, if I had to go back now, I probably would have gone over and said something.

But I don't know anything at that time.

You know, I just was trying to make it on my own of, like, this "No, she's not me."

-When I went to Survival School, they were like, "Okay, this experience, we're gonna have a lot of attrition."

And I'm looking around the room and it's myself and one other female, and she's a C-130 pilot, and we lock eyes and we're like, "Bitch, don't you fall out."

-"It ain't us.

It ain't us."

-"It ain't gonna be us.

And, you know, we're gonna be the first up the hills during the rocks and we're gonna be the ones leading the navigation course.

And we're certainly gonna get the hell beat out of us."

And we did, but we weren't gonna be the ones to fall out.

But why is that?

Because we were the two of the 30, the two of the 50, the one in 100.

And then when I went downrange, I look around for miles, you know, being the only woman out there.

It's hard to be the one person, right?

And it's hard to come into an environment that is so deeply steeped in tradition and ingrained.

And what you need to do is pick your battles.

-Yes.

-Don't tolerate [bleep] but also understand that change takes time and transitions can be hard and difficult for some.

But over time, we can say, "Hey, look, we're doing it.

Please come.

And, you know, not just one person, but six more, take my spot."

And with every one of these hurdles that you've overcome, and Lisa, and Meg, there are six young women who are coming in behind and blazing even more trails.

But the other thing I want to say is, we can't underestimate the allies who supported us through those experiences.

And I know we talk a lot about toxic masculinity or all the other things that we found were hurdles -- It's part of the patriarchal environment that we volunteered to go into.

And hopefully we can change that and change the balance and make it more of a human experience and not just a man or a woman experience.

And I no longer, and you no longer, need to be the female combat photojournalist.

And you don't have to be the first female helicopter pilot or the first female A-10 crew chief.

You can just be airmen, soldiers.

Am I right?

-Mm-hmm.

-Absolutely.

Absolutely.

-I think it's important to note that, you know, people a lot of times will ask if they do get the wind of, "Oh, you're the first female," and they look for all these horror stories because all you hear right now is the sexual harassment and assaults in the military and how they're on the rise.

And I don't diminish that at all.

But it always gets spun that way.

And the way that I like to tell it is, I had a really good experience.

Did some threads of things happen?

Sure.

But I think there's a huge shout-out to the large majority of men in the unit who were accepting and supported and mentored and that are still out there supporting, and that maybe it's not that we need less of the bad stuff -- We need more of those good people.

-Yes.

-Because I was given a hand up by more than one individual that were male.

And I found those people and clung to those people.

And I still keep in touch with those people because -- And I say "people" because it's not just men.

They were good people.

And there was a woman, you know, that mentored me, as well.

In fact, my -- my daughter's named after her.

So, you know, there are people that -- that make a huge difference.

So when when we say you're the first of anything, okay, but who was there to support you?

Can we talk about that?

-Yeah.

-I'd like to think that... more often than not, there are these great experiences in people's military careers.

I've been fortunate.

I don't have any big, huge highlights of, "Oh, well, this happened to me," and blah, blah, blah.

But I've had some defining moments that allowed me to make some choices, some of which I still stand by and some of which I'm like, "Uhh..." But I...

...I struggled coming here -- "How do I say my story?

What do I say?"

-- because of the fact that I didn't have these terrible stories to share.

But I think it's important that we show that that's not -- No one experiences every experience.

Right?

And that it is a broad spectrum.

And I have, to your point, so many people who have just stood in the gap for me and allowed me to stand on their shoulders.

So I'm so grateful that you brought this up to give the opportunity to say thank you to all those people, you know.

And it wasn't -- For me, it was men and women.

But, you know, we're predominantly male, so hats off because I had more of them than the detractors.

-The thing about the military is that we are camaraderie.

And there was always that adage, the "one team, one fight."

And I think we're working at it and it's a work in progress.

And for those of us who've been through it, you know, we look back and maybe have some of these shoulda-woulda-couldas.

But on our next iterations of our lives, the bigger part of our lives, the life after we hang up our uniforms, each and every one of us have walked away from that experience knowing what we did in the past, what we could have done different.

And we're applying it now.

-Oh.

-So, thank you for doing everything.

We may not have done it right every time, but, hey, we got through it.

♪♪ -♪ There will be light ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪