I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

But I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sea that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will will inflate the lead discharge.

The duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

So help me God, so help me God.

Welcome to the oath. I'm Chuck Rosenberg and I am honored to be your host for another compelling conversation with a fascinating guest from the World of Public Service.

Our guest this week is major Heather Lucky Penny.

Among the first generation of women in the United States, the pilot and F-16.

Born in Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of a fighter pilot, Heather earned her own pilot's license

while studying as an English major at Purdue University.

Heather harbored a dream of being a fighter pilot like her dad, except that there was one problem.

Back then, women were not allowed to fly in combat.

Fortunately for Heather and for the nation, Congress removed that combat exclusion for aviation while she was in graduate school.

Heather immediately applied for one of these highly competitive openings and she secured a slot with a District of Columbia Air National Guard.

That changed her life.

At Air Force pilot training, Heather was the only woman in her class.

She was an excellent student and an excellent pilot, but there, as she will tell you, she struggled with one particular old school navigational skill, flying fixed to fix.

To graduate, to earn her Air Force flight wings, she had to master it.

And so, she practiced and studied, including by sitting in a kitchen chair, staring at a mock cockpit hung in her closet in her apartment, a toilet plunger substituting for her control stick.

Share flying, memorizing every movement over and over until she had it down with grit and with perseverance, she mastered fixed to fixed navigation and ultimately graduated from flight school as an F-16 pilot, a single engine supersonic fighter aircraft.

In the late summer of 2001, Heather was a second lieutenant in the 121st Fighter Squadron, DC Air National Guard stationed at Joint Base Andrews.

Just as she had been the only woman in her Air Force flight class, she was now the only woman in her squadron.

And then, in an instant, her life changed again. It was the morning of September 11, 2001.

...