I just, I couldn't quit.

As much as it hurt me to fly sometimes, I just couldn't quit.

I just felt this calling in this desire to finish and to do this.

Like I needed to do this.

And I'm not really sure why, but I just couldn't quit.

From early on in her training, Vanessa Mayhan learned that being an aviator is more than

just a test of strength and stamina.

It requires an unrelenting will and focus.

What it requires most of all though is the ability to shoulder the heavy burden of life

and death for dozens of people every time you're on a mission.

On each approach, timely action against the enemy ends in casualties or at least a routing

on their side.

Untimely action can cost American lives.

But when you strap in and take off, all you have is the focus and the training that brought

you as far as you've come and the fortitude to push it further.

We're called to a troops in contact with a convoy.

You know, I want to say maybe three humvees.

And the first two hit IEDs.

And so the third one gathered the living in as many injured as they could before they

peeled out of there.

But of course, they had to leave the deceased behind those feelings of failing and not

getting to a tick and time and feeling like I let people down.

...