mark the passing of a true aviation pioneer, rosemary mariner, first woman to fly fighter jets for the u.s. navy. not only did she have the right stuff, she punched through the gender barrier at close to mock 2 and never looked back. awesome. retired navy captain rosemary mariner died last week, she was 65 years old, after a long battle with ovarian cancer and to honor her and her singular achievement, the navy sanctioned another aviation first. take a look at that. an all female flyover. earlier we spoke with two of the women aviators who came to tennessee to pay homage to captain mariner and her amazing legacy. i remember in 1993 when the combat exclusion was lifted, i was 15 years old, and i didn t quite have an idea of how big of an impact that policy change would make, and obviously captain mariner and her contemporaries have a lot to do with that decision.
her training really started back in flight school and her training throughout the navy and it continued until today. she s working for the airline. she s a captain with southwest. it s just been a continual training over the years and the military offers outstanding training to its aviators. i guess so. i mean, absolutely. everybody should become well, not a female fighter pilot but a fighter pilot in the u.s. navy if this is the outcome. i mean how much apart of her identity was being one of the first female fighter pilots? well, back in the early 1990s when we were flying together in the navy, it was a real interesting time period. women were not yet allowed to flight in combat and but we still went through all the same training and we had a small group of friends that forged other women aviators that forged