What were some of the things that I guess, for lack of better words, were surprising to you or that surprised you when you were gathering up information? And, you know, were there some I know there were, but what were some of the highlights that came from people that were contributors?

Yeah, so that was what was, you know, we started off thinking we were going to write a book about 50 years of women at the Air Force Academy.

And but we didn't.

We just had a, you know, this light on the horizon.

We knew that there was over 12,000 women had entered the academy.

And as of today, more than 8,000 have graduated.

And we just had this knowing that somewhere within all of those lives, there was a larger story.

Right.

What was your motivation for writing this book?

You know, if you-- The answer I'd give you today is different than the answer I would've given you three and a half years ago when we started.

Three and a half years ago, it was because a group of women realized that twenty twenty-six would be the year marking fifty years since the doors of the Air Force Academy and the other military service academies, but the doors of the Air Force Academy opened to women.

So the thought came out, you know, "Hey, we should write a book." Now, the answer that I'd give you now is that i- in retrospective, we knew that there was more than twelve thousand women who had entered the Air Force Academy over the fifty years from nineteen seventy-six to twenty twenty-six, and the voices in the group cover that entire fifty-year period.

And we had a, a deep conviction that somewhere within all of those lives was a larger story, a collective journey.

The book is not about what it's like to be a cadet at the Air Force Academy or, or just, just focuses on the Air Force Academy.

It's the entire fifty years of these women's lives through and with, told through and with their voices.

So how did the Gulf War change the perception of women in the Air Force?

How these women see themselves or saw themselves or continue to see themselves, has that changed over

time? Yes and no.

So certainly the expectations for the first several classes of women, particularly in the 1980s, those expectations were – frankly, they were often kind of moving goalposts because you had not only – you know, military or academic expectations, but there were also the cultural within the institution itself.

And then even after we graduated and went out into the Air Force, you know, there was the totality of a culture and an institution that had never imagined us.

And although did their best to prepare for women, there were things that... either couldn't have been foreseen or were just the institution could legislate so much, but culturally there was often just a big, yeah, no, we really don't want them here.

Um, and that continued on often out into, particularly for, like I said, for those earlier classes, much less so today, uh, in the recent years, the, you know, the, the, the two classes from the 2000s to 2010, um, And we're still a little bit early, even though it's 2026, still a little bit early.

The jury would still be out on the 2020 year group there as to how they're perceiving, women are perceiving their development of their careers within the military.

That just doesn't seem like a balanced scale in any way, shape, or form.

Talk about that.

That, I, I came up with that for myself.

It's what got me through, um, the darkest of the days.

And, uh, when I was so physically disabled, I, I figured out that, um, there were...

I could only do one thing a day.

Uh, I could either, if I, if I was gonna take a shower and wash my hair, that was it for the day.

There was nothing else getting done.

Hmm.