The women who won the right to fly in combat

One of them serves in Congress and more will probably follow.

LTC Eugene Chu
..."A 1994 photograph shows a 27-year-old Jeannie Flynn in an F-15E Strike Eagle, just as she officially became the first U.S. Air Force female fighter pilot accepted for combat. She is sitting in the cockpit she earned—then fought for.

To get to that cockpit, Flynn, who is now Jeannie Leavitt, had to prove a lot of people wrong, including the military’s top leadership. But the image she projects in the photo is more strength than swagger. She is determined, but not defiant. That determination would serve Leavitt well during the next two and a half decades, when she climbed to the highest ranks of the U.S. Air Force.

“I realize not every person wanted this to happen,” she told reporters in 1993. “But I realize that’s also irrelevant.”

By then, she had come to understand that the price of doing what she loved—and was very good at—was the unyielding spotlight her accomplishments attracted. Even if she did not embrace the role of pioneer, she would eventually learn to accept it.

Leavitt is now a two-star general based in San Antonio, Texas, where until recently she commanded the Air Force recruiting services. During my interviews with her in the spring, she spoke with the well-honed cadences of someone who has spent her professional life in the public eye. But she was also friendly and animated, especially when discussing her favorite airplane, the F-15."...