Lt. Col. Martha McSally is back home in Rhode Island, speaking about her
efforts to lift restrictions on women serving in Saudi Arabia.
Flying high over Iraq on combat patrol, the lieutenant colonel heard
rapid beeps in her headset warning that an Iraqi missile launcher had
locked on her plane.
The pilot, Air Force Lt. Col. Martha McSally, recalled training
instructors saying: "If you hear lock, assume launch," so she assumed
that a Russian-made, Roland missile was screeching toward her plane
guided by radar.
McSally, flying a single-seat A-10 fighter plane, figured she was in a
dogfight with a missile. She told the man flying on her wing that she
was "locked up," his signal to pull away. Then she punched a button that
spewed a cloud of tinfoil confetti from her plane; simultaneously she
banked her fighter into a series of what she calls "very aggressive,
high-g maneuvering."
No one knows whether the Iraqis ever fired at McSally's plane. If they
did, the cloud of foil distracted the missile's radar targeting, and her
tight turns rocketed her out of the missile's path.
With the threat gone, McSally "just continued on to a different site
within that kill box [her patrol area]" and finished flying her mission.
She landed back at her base in Kuwait -- a long way from her hometown of
Warwick.
It was at this Kuwaiti air base that McSally first became aware of a
Department of Defense policy that now threatens to shoot down her
exemplary career as an officer in the United States Air Force.
One day in 1995, the base newspaper featured a young woman dressed in
Muslim garb, including an abaya that completely covered her face and
head. A caption explained that this was "the appropriate way" for U.S.
servicewomen serving in Saudi Arabia to dress whenever they left the
base.
The article explained that women could not drive off base in Saudi
Arabia; they needed a male escort whenever they left the base, and they
had to ride in the back seat.
McSally was not serving in Saudi Arabia, so the policy did not apply to
her. Still, it rankled her that American women of many faiths defending
Saudi Arabia were being forced into ill-fitting, uncomfortable clothing
and forced to defer to men that they sometimes outranked.
"I couldn't believe it," McSally said Friday, at Scott Elementary School
in Warwick, where her mother, Eleanor, teaches reading. "It stopped me
right in my tracks."
Coincidentally, then-Secretary of Defense William Perry was touring U.S.
bases in the Middle East, and he wanted to speak with the first U.S.
woman ever to fly a combat mission -- Lt. Col. McSally.
McSally wrestled with whether she should raise her objections with
Perry. She was in a comfortable place in her life -- she had proven to
skeptical male colleagues that a woman could fly lead ship in a
four-plane squadron, and she didn't want to jeopardize her newfound
acceptance.
McSally, a devout Christian, e-mailed a friend in Texas, seeking help
with her dilemma. The friend wrote back: "Read the Book of Esther." She
read the story of Esther, a Jewish woman who married Persian King
Ahasuerus without ever telling him that she was an Israelite; when one
of the king's men orders the slaughter of all Jews, Esther's uncle asks
her to tell the king her history to save the Jews from destruction.
Esther is reluctant, for the king will kill her if she goes to him
without being summoned. The uncle replies, "Can it be that you were put
in this position for such a time as this?"
"Those words really stuck," McSally said. "Those young enlisted girls
[in Saudi Arabia] don't have the opportunity to talk to the secretary of
defense." She did.
So McSally broached the issue with Perry; he sounded sympathetic, but
nothing changed. In her Quixotic quest to change the policy, McSally
discovered that the Saudis weren't demanding that U.S. servicewomen
dress this way; it was just Department of Defense policy. She did
whatever she could to change the policy from the inside, appealing to
the Defense Advisory of Women in the Services, and to former Secretary
of State Madeline Albright.
Then she received orders to report to Saudi Arabia. She contacted her
general there and told him she would not wear the abaya: "Sir, as a
Christian, I will not ever put that thing on." She felt it was as
intrusive as ordering a Muslim to wear the cross.
The general told her if she did not wear the abaya while traveling from
the airport to her base, she would be court-martialed. After great
internal turmoil, she agreed to wear it one time, just so she could
report to duty and change the policy from within.
She arrived in Saudi Arabia in predawn darkness when few people were
present; yet her American handlers forced her to draw the abaya over
head and to sit in the back seat.
ONE YEAR AGO, after failing to change the policy from within, McSally
filed suit in U.S. Distict Court to force the Department of Defense to
drop its policy toward servicewomen in Saudi Arabia.
Soon after she filed suit, McSally was featured on Page One of USA
Today. She has since been seen on the Today Show, Good Morning America,
and 60 Minutes. She speaks out not for notoriety, but to affect change.
And the Department of Defense has changed some of its policy -- it still
prevents women from driving off base in Saudi Arabia, which means women
still need a male escort. But instead of demanding that women wear the
abaya and ride in the back seat, the policy now reads that those
practices "are strongly advised."
The Department of Defense has asked the court to declare the case "moot"
because of those changes.
McSally wants the court to press ahead with her suit, because when a
commanding officer "strongly advises" a young enlisted woman to do
something, she cannot really say no. "Strongly advised" is tantamount to
an order.
On Friday, a federal judge told the two sides to attempt to reach a
settlement; without disclosing her terms, McSally said she'd be glad to
settle the issue out of court.
WHEN McSALLY arrived in Saudi Arabia, the Department of Defense
entrusted her with a top job: as director of the Joint Search and Rescue
Center, she was in charge of rescuing any U.S. soldier who was in
trouble behind enemy lines.
Despite this, any time she left base she was to cover up and ride in the
back seat while a junior officer drove; if asked, the driver was to
claim that he was her husband. She left the base as little as possible,
but there were times when her job required travel. Rather than resist
what she felt to be an unlawful order, she complied so that she could
continue her duties as search and rescue director.
McSally's job was a quiet posting when she arrived in late 1999; no
soldier had needed rescuing since the Gulf war in 1991. That changed on
Sept. 11. Her area of responsibility then expanded to include
Afghanistan.
As head of search and rescue, McSally directed the rescues of nearly 200
U.S. soldiers. Asked to describe a single rescue effort, she told of
this one from Nov. 2:
High in the mountains of Afghanistan an American soldier lies dying of
altitude sickness. He needs to be taken out immediately, but it is night
and the mountains are cloaked in fog, spitting snow. Two helicopters
hover nearby, and one pilot decides to attempt a risky landing through
night-time fog.
He fails. His helicopter strikes, bounces, lands, injuring four of the
10 crewmen and snapping the helicopter's machinery. Now there are five
injured Americans and a helicopter crew stranded on the mountain.
Miraculously, the fog lifts for a brief spell; the pilot of the second
helicopter radios back to McSally at headquarters that he has a small
window in the weather to attempt a high-altitude, night rescue. He
requests permission to try.
"I can do this," he says.
Sitting in the Air Operations Center in Saudi Arabia, McSally does the
math: including the pilot, the rescue helicopter carries 9 men; the
pilot wants to rescue the sick soldier plus the 10-man crew of the
airship that crashed, for a total of 20 people.
McSally knows that the pilot will have to dump most of his fuel to make
his airship light enough to lift 20 men. She orders a C-130 tanker
plane, circling the night skies over Afghanistan with a full load of
fuel, to descend as low as it can safely go. She wants the C-130 in low
so the rescue helicopter will be able to refuel in midair as soon as it
snatches the stranded men.
There are al-Qaida forces in the mountains that would love to blast a
helicopter full of U.S. soldiers, so she orders the circling fighter
planes to sweep in to provide cover. With all the pieces in place,
McSally tells the helicopter pilot to give it a go.
Just before the fog closes in again, he succeeds.
In telling this story, McSally was quick to give all credit to the
pilots flying the tanker, fighters, and helicopters.
"When Americans need to be rescued it's amazing to see the bravery,
dedication, and endurance that come out," she said. "The American spirit
comes out."
McSALLY RECENTLY completed her tour of duty in Saudi Arabia. As is
custom, she underwent a performance review before taking her next job,
establishing a mobile search-and-rescue unit based in Arizona. At her
review, her commanding officer in Saudi Arabia refused to recommend her
for command. The refusal, she said, "is an obvious flag in my personnel
record" that will prevent her from ever advancing beyond her current
rank.
McSally said that in her hearing before two colonels and a general, the
hearing officers pressed her to drop what they termed her "crusade."
They suggested, McSally said, that she was "a little fruity" for
pressing ahead.
Despite her differences with the Department of Defense, McSally remains
a model for Air Force recruitment. On Friday, 200 Warwick elementary
school children sat cross-legged on a gym floor, entranced by the women
in the green flight suit emblazoned with cool squadron patches.
After joining the children in singing "The Star Spangled Banner" (which
she said nearly brought her to tears), McSally told them stories. The
children loved the one about the day an Iraqi missile launcher locked
onto her plane, an event she called "a bad day at the office."
The older students, the sixth graders, had heard about her quest to
change the abaya policy; student P.J. Aldrich asked whether she was
afraid that her stance would harm her Air Force career.
McSally told Aldrich and all of her mother's students that if ever they
are forced to choose "between protecting yourself and your future or
protecting what is right, you have got to stand for what is right."
Martha McSally, a Warwick native, is speaking today to students at
Pilgrim High School and at Aldrich Junior High School in Warwick; she
will also address students at Lincoln School in Providence. The general
public will be able to hear her at 3:30 p.m., when she's scheduled to
appear on the Arlene Violet radio show on WHJJ, 920 AM.
