Courtesy Photo | Flying over the mountains somewhere over New Mexico in a Black Hawk, 1st Lt. Maryann...... read more read more
BASRA, Iraq – In a flight school class of 50 officers in chasing their dreams of becoming aviators, not every candidate will leave the grueling course with their flight wings.
The mentally and physically demanding schedule of flight school, and being outnumbered by the opposite gender, was not going to stop 1st Lt. Maryann B. Ellis. The male-dominated class only brought out the best in her.
“It just makes you do better,” says Ellis, a 24-year-old native of Springfield, Mass., and the youngest of three children of immigrant parents.
She enlisted in the Massachusetts Army National Guard in 1999 as a as a private and flight operations specialist. Being attached to an aviation unit and handling the aviators’ records rekindled her childhood dream of flying.
In 2003, she decided to join the Reserve Officers Training Corps at Western New England College and applied for flight school.
“There was a lot of work just to get into it,” Ellis says. “Taking the flight aptitude test, facing the state board, and if you’re selected, you’re put on an order-of-merit list.”
“You have to go… in front of the state aviation officer,” Ellis explains. “You sit there and they drill you with questions.”
After going through the process, Ellis was accepted into the aviation branch, pending her commission as a second lieutenant in the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
“That was it. I knew I was going to fly Black Hawks,” Ellis says. “They can’t stop me now.”
Although she commissioned in May 2005, it would be another year before she attended flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala.
Like a child at the first day of school, Ellis entered an unknown world.
“It was overwhelming,” says Ellis. “They throw so much information at you. It’s just constant studying.”
“There’s a saying in flight school: ‘It’s like trying to drink water from a fire hose.’”
“You wake up four in the morning to catch the bus to get to the flight line and fly,” Ellis explains. “You’re tired, but then you head for academic classes,” she says. “Then you come back (home) and you basically have just enough time to eat dinner and then study, do your homework.”
“And then you have to do it all over again,” she says. “It’s crazy. It definitely takes a toll on your body.”
Graduation day came Oct. 17, 2007, but it was a bittersweet moment in her life. Her father had passed away before she was awarded her aviator wings.
“It would have been nice to have my dad out there,” she says.
“Back in Massachusetts, not all the people were really rooting for you,” she adds. “We had a lot of old timers in the Massachusetts Guard that didn’t want females in their branch. You can just tell that’s how they felt.”
“It just felt good to make it and say, ‘You can’t stop me.’”
In June 2008, she returned to Fort Rucker for six weeks of training in the UH-60M model.
Although Ellis feels there is still a stigma in the Army about women serving in combat roles.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘When a guy has a bad day flying, he just had a bad day, but when a female has a bad day, she’s a bad pilot.’”
“One of the guys on my flight board sat there with his arm back (in the chair) and he says, ‘So what do you do for hobbies, do you like to knit, do you sew?’” she says, mimicking his sarcastic tone. “I could tell he was one of those who didn’t really want females in his branch.”
“I just answered (their questions) and stayed calm,” she says. “I still got on the order-of-merit list. I got into their branch.”
Ellis is the first member of her family to enlist in the Army voluntarily. Her father was conscripted into the Portuguese army and nearly lost his life in the African colonial wars in the early 1960s.
She attributes her hard work and dedication to the examples set by her mother and father who put all three of their children through college on a factory worker’s income.
Ellis says that although flight school isn’t easy, it is possible to succeed with dedication and focus for any soldier who dreams of pursuing a career in aviation.
“I did more studying in flight school than I did in the four years of college combined,” Ellis says. “It’s going to be a lot of work. They have to be committed, but they can do it.”
“It just takes a lot of dedication. You might be tired, but you can do it,” she adds. “You always have to do better (being a female), so you always just have to work a little bit harder.”
Ellis deployed from Texas last fall as the assistant operations officer – air for the 36th Infantry Division, which currently serves as the headquarters element for U.S. Division – South in Basra, Iraq. While her staff duties take her away from flight time, she jumps at every opportunity to put on the flight suit and aim for the sky.
Once in the air, flying at speeds of 130-knots per hour or more, Ellis is in control.
“You just have to be on your game, because you are always thinking what’s going to come next,” Ellis says. “You are always thinking one or two steps ahead.”
“You’re up there, it’s peaceful, and you’re just gliding through the air,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Sometimes I’m like, wow, I made it. Here I am flying through the mountains. It’s exhilarating.”
| Date Taken: | 03.10.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 03.10.2011 08:48 |
| Story ID: | 66777 |
| Location: | BASRA, IQ |
| Web Views: | 714 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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