Critical Thinking and History

Video Transcription

[MUSIC PLAYING] When I was five years old, I went to an air show, and that's when I decided I wanted to be a military fighter pilot. At the time, it was actually against the law for women to be fighter pilots. A few years later, when I discovered that there are women who came before me who achieved extraordinary things in aviation but their personnel records were actually sealed and stamped secret and were essentially hidden from history, I wanted the rest of America to finally have the privilege of learning their story.

So I had a problem to solve. This is about women's empowerment. This is about the legacy of women in the military.

Trailblazing fighter pilot Nicole Malochowski has served her country for over 20 years.

She was the first female member of the Air Force's elite demonstration squadron the Thunderbirds.

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But as a child, Nicole's aviation ambitions weren't always encouraged.

When I was 12 years old, I was in the sixth grade, I stood up in front of class, and I said I'm going to be a fighter pilot someday. My teacher said, well, you know women can't be fighter pilots. I went home and I was in tears and I remember talking to my mom and dad about it.

And so we took a family trip to Washington DC to go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. And way off in one corner, there were pictures from World War II of these women flying military planes, and I had never heard of them, had no idea at all. And that's where I first learned about the Women Air Force Service Pilots, the WASP.

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The WASP were an all-female group of aviators recruited by the government in 1943 to aid in the World War II effort.

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The WASP actually were extraordinarily talented pilots. They came in, tested new aircraft, and trained the male pilots to be more effective in combat. Literally they're risking their lives in order to train these men.

The WASP would wear military uniforms, and they would fly military aircraft. They were technically, however, not considered military at the time.

The WASP absolutely opened the doors that allowed me to go to pilot training and me to become a fighter pilot.

Years after her trip to the Smithsonian, Nicole got an unexpected and thrilling opportunity.

At one of my first air shows as a Thunderbird pilot, the Thunderbird public affairs officer, they said we've got some real special guests. And there they were, three WASP wearing their blue WASP scarves. I was so excited to meet them.

There were tears. There were hugs. They took so much pride in the fact that a woman was out there flying the Thunderbirds.

Nicole was thrilled to see the WASP so proud of her, but it was bittersweet as the WASP themselves had never been fully recognized for their service.

As World War II was coming to an end, the WASP were actually very unceremoniously disbanded. They weren't afforded veteran status, and they were sent back home as if it had never happened. They had gone against the cultural norms.

Other people's expectations at that time said women shouldn't be doing this. Women can't be doing this. But without the WASP, there's no way that we would have won World War II. Their service was vital, but it wasn't acknowledged and honored in a way that it should have been. It was extraordinarily shameful.

After the Thunderbird assignment, I served as an advisor to Michelle Obama in the White House. During that time, I shared in quite a few conversations with a WASP by the name of Deanie Parrish, and she says we've been trying to work on getting the congressional gold medal for the WASP. But we can't seem to get anybody in Washington DC to care, and she says you're a White House fellow and you call yourself a fighter pilot. So why don't you do something about it. And she basically challenged me to right this wrong.

What I wanted to do was to correct the record and make sure that the WASP history was finally exposed to the American public and became part of our history books. And I had to think critically about the steps that are necessary in order to make it happen.

I went back to Washington DC, and I started researching parallels of minority service in the time of war. And I learned that the Tuskegee Airmen, the African-American male fighter pilots who flew in World War II had recently earned the rightful recognition of the Congressional gold medal. And I thought, well, this actually is possible.

Next, Nicole had to make her case.

I would literally walk around Capitol Hill talking to congressmen and senators. I was essentially the boots on the ground. You need to be able to get to the heart of the issue very quickly, and you need to be very specific of what the ask is of them. Then I drafted the actual bill itself. Once you are exposed to the facts, it was hard not to do the right thing.

And finally it worked. The WASP were awarded the Congressional gold medal at long last getting the recognition they deserved.

To witness President Obama sign this bill into law alongside WASP, alongside other active duty women aviators, the senators and congressmen who sponsored this was a defining life moment knowing that we had corrected the record, knowing that the WASP history was going to finally be told, knowing that the rest of America would finally have the privilege of learning their story.