WEBVTT

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- It means freedom.

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You're free to go where
you want, when you want,

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most of the time.

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Oh, we have a group up at
the airport I'm at now,

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and every Sunday, from
three of the local airports,

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we go fly someplace
different for breakfast.

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It's just fun.

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When you're in boot camp, you know,

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they tell you what
schools you qualify for,

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and he had told me that
aviation just opened up,

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and I said, oh, that's nice,

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and he said, "What school
would you like to go to?"

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And I said, well, tell me
about the different ones,

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and the pros and cons.

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And he said, "Well, I know one thing.

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"If you're in avionics, you'll always be

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"in an air-conditioned space,"

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and that is why I picked it.

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(laughing loudly)

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I knew nothing about electronics.

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And then, upon graduation,

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I was stationed at Air
Station San Francisco,

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and was the fist female there.

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And then when I went back to Sacramento,

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I was the first female pilot there, too.

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We ended up becoming the first female crew

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in the Coast Guard, on
a fixed-wing airplane.

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My last job in the Coast Guard
was flying the commandant

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in his Gulfstream out of
Washington National Airport,

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and I just loved that
job, because you got to go

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to different places, fly in a cool jet,

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and I couldn't've had more fun doing that.

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I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

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My time in the Coast Guard
just means so much to me.

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I grew as an individual.

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I had experiences that people say

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I should write a book about,

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because it was always so varied.

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I was at the right
place at the right time.

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I never planned any of it.

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It was never my goal to be the first.

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I was just going after something
that I really wanted to do,

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and it worked out well,
and I just happened

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to be the first female at a lot of places.

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I think I opened some guys' eyes.