The First Female AH-6 Pilot for the 160th SOAR | Lindsey Chrismon | Ep. 340

Lindsey served as an AH-64 Apache Pilot and as an AH-6 Littlebird Pilot for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. She's a graduate of West Point, where she served as First Captain, and she's currently finishing her MBA at Harvard Business School. She is also is the co-founder and CEO of Oply, an AI powered home improvement application. Find Oply here: https://www.oply.app/ https://www.instagram.com/oply_app/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/oplyapp/ https://www.facebook.com/oplyapp Find Lindsey here https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-danilack-chrismon/ https://www.instagram.com/lindsey.chrismon/ New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured —————————————————————- Today's Sponsors: Ridge Wallet ⬇️ https://ridge.com/HOUSE for up to 40% off!! The Perfect Jean ⬇️ http://theperfectjean.nyc/HOUSE15 for 15% off!! GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 50% OFF!!! ___________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— To help support the show and for all bonus content including: https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [email protected] Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:28Speaker 03

  You have to climb a caving ladder. So you get dropped into the ocean, essentially. And then your stick buddy basically flies out with an IP and they hover above you. And you're bobbling in the water and this other student's trying to hover the helicopter over you and obviously is sucking at doing so. And they drop a caving ladder, which is a ladder that's as thin as... I mean, it's the tiniest little thing. So you're like putting your heels in this caving ladder and pulling yourself up. Out of the water with all of your gear. Um, I remember once again, just thinking to myself, I'm like completely at physical max capacity. Like I thought, you have to get to the top of, of the ladder, obviously climb and pull

• 2:10Speaker 03

  yourself into the aircraft and then hook yourself in so you can fly away. And I just remember thinking to myself, I'm gonna fucking fall off this ladder and, and fall 30 feet into the ocean and I'm gonna fail Green Platoon because I can't climb this damn caving ladder. It was so fucking physically challenging for me. I don't know what, what it was. It was just all my muscles, every ounce of my body was like, poof, this might be it. And um, yeah, it was really, really challenging thing to do, but did it.

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• 4:25Speaker 05

  Cobert Ops, Espionage, The Team House with your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 4:42Jack Murphy?

  This is episode 340 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park and our guest on tonight's show is Lindsay Christman. She served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and also as a Apache pilot through the AH-6 with 160th. She was the first female pilot to have that position. And now she is getting her MBA at Harvard and has a tech startup. There's a lot of things to talk about here Lindsay. Thank you for joining us on the show today.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Thanks, Jack, and thanks, David. It's really awesome to be here.

• 5:19Jack Murphy?

  Our pleasure. Yeah, thanks for doing it. So, you know, I usually start off, we ask our guests about their origin story. Tell us a little bit about like what your upbringing was like and how that sort of took you towards military service eventually.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. So thinking back, I mean, I grew up in New Jersey and I was a kind of like a different kid. I came home one day, I think I may have been in, let's say, maybe like third or fourth grade, and I had cut all of my hair off. I went like, I was like, I want short hair. I want to be just like the guys. All my friends were guys. I like wore all like guy shorts.

• 5:57Jack Murphy?

  G.I. Jane.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally G.I. Jane. And like, I was like, long hair is so annoying. Like, I spiked it all up. Yeah, it's hilarious to think about. And I don't know, like, I just always kind of like fit in really well with like the guys. Like, growing up, we used to play like train for the military. And like, I did not come from a military background whatsoever. Like, my grandfather served like for a very short stint in the Army when he was young, but nothing of substantial.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  I just kind of just like had this like innate, I guess, like calling towards it. Um, when we were a little bit older, I, I grew up with, um, with two younger brothers and my dad, who loves our country's history, brought my brothers, um, our whole family up to West Point. We grew up only about an hour away from the academy, so it was, it was a very easy drive, easy day picnic. And like from that moment on, I was 11 at the time when he brought us up there. Uh, I was just like, this is exactly where I want to be. Wow. West Point was, I just absolutely fell in love with everything that I saw. I don't, I don't really know exactly what it was, but it's kind of just like, I don't really know how to describe it, but it's always just kind of been a part of me.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  Um, and I think God just kind of whispered into my ear and was basically like, Lance, this is where you're going to go to college. And, uh, West Point ended up being the only college that I applied to. Really?

• 7:25Speaker 06

  Really?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 06

  What, what did your, uh, coming from like a, a, a not military family, what did, cause you sort of had that a drive or that desire at a young age, what, what did your parents think of that?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, they were proud to a certain extent, of course, you know, who, like, what kind of young kid decides at 11 years old that they want to go to one of the hardest schools to get into and also no tuition, which is very nice for a parent, but I think like from the military aspects, they were, they were excited, but a little bit nervous, you know, just a little bit anxious. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, even through the application process. I remember I, when I was like doing my interview with, um, with one of the congressmen in order to get like the nomination to go to West Point. He asked what branch I wanted, you know? Now I know he meant like, do you want aviation, infantry, air defense artillery?

• 8:21Speaker 03

  And I was just like, I just want to go into the army. Like I just like did not understand anything about like the structure of the military, like what did it look like after I graduated? I was kind of just going into it very, very blind. And sometimes I think if you lead with a little bit of ignorance, it kind of leads, it pans out in a positive way because just having that little bit of blinders on, sometimes if you know too much, you're not going to want to like put your, you know? Actually jump in. So I, I think it kind of ended up working out a little well that we kind of really didn't know exactly what we were doing.

• 8:53Speaker 06

  Yeah. So you didn't really have an idea that you wanted to go into aviation. You weren't reading like books about helicopter pilots during Vietnam or anything like that. Like you just knew you wanted the army and West Point was, was gonna happen.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it was, I mean, I was a very like disciplined child, just innately. It's just who I was. Um, like my parents never had to ask me to like make my bed or, you know, wake up and get ready for school. Um, I was always just like very, I guess, like structural in my day to day. And I think that that was a very attractive component of everything. I know that that's kind of a strange thing for a young person to, to want to kind of like live throughout their life, um, especially in college when you should be like partying and actually having fun. Uh, but yeah, I, I did think that it was just kind of, it was like in my blood almost and, and I don't remember reading military books

• 9:47Speaker 03

  or doing anything other than, well, you know, now that I think about it, I didn't read military books, but I was really into athletics. I was a, I was a good athlete growing up. Um, I went to the Junior Olympics for track. Uh, I was a track athlete. I ran the heptathlon, the pentathlon. I ran the, I still have somehow my high school's four hundred meter record, which is, come on, Monmouth High School. Someone has to get in there and beat this record. Um, and I just was like really, really, really into fitness and health and I had a personal trainer and I went to, um, I had like a nutritionist and like all this stuff growing up where it just like really helped kind of like me physically.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  And I think that also kind of helped leading into, uh, into West Point, like why I wanted to go there and continue that like health journey, I guess.

• 10:34Speaker 06

  That's awesome. And so you get into West Point, the only college you applied to, that must've been a happy moment for, for you and the family at that point.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, uh, I mean, I, I was getting recruited for track, so it helped a little bit, but you obviously still don't know if you're going to get in or not. And I didn't have the best grades. I wasn't the victorian of my high school class. Um, but I, I remember, um, I was in one of my high school classes and my mom calls me and I'm like, why is like, that's not typical for her to ever call. And she called again. I was like, shit, I gotta go to the bathroom. I gotta check out, see like, did something happen? And she, I called her back and she was like, you got into West Point? And I was like, you opened my mind. This isn't where I'm supposed to find out. And, um, but it was, it was exciting all around. I mean, I did put all of my eggs into one basket, applying only to one college. And I, and I had, I had teachers

• 11:28Speaker 03

  in high school too. I specifically remember, I won't name names or anything, but we were going around the classroom and all the students were kind of just talking about like where they wanted to go to college. And I said, West Point. And I remember she specifically stopped, turned to me and was-

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• 13:39Speaker 03

  It's like, oh, you're never going to get into that school. And I just like, I just fucking love that. Like, good. Tell me that I can't do something and then we'll see what actually happens.

• 13:48Jack Murphy?

  That's wild.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  So it just kind of like continued to light a fire, I guess. Like the doubt, it's like, bring it on.

• 13:54Jack Murphy?

  Did, so let's spill some tea real quick. I know you don't want any names, but did you bring in your acceptance letter and like, slam it on her desk or anything?

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah, I did. And then I got accepted into my town's Hall of Fame. And I remember specifically, like, she was at the Hall of Fame ceremony because she's a coach at the school. And I was just like, hmm, are you on the Hall of Fame wall? I don't think so. Look at that.

• 14:21Jack Murphy?

  That's awesome.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 14:25Jack Murphy?

  That's fantastic.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  A little bit of revenge doesn't hurt, right?

• 14:27Jack Murphy?

  There's a, no, there's a little bit of a bravado here that I can see carrying itself into being a helicopter pilot.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:34Jack Murphy?

  I like it. Um, so you make it into West Point. I, what, what's like plebe year? And then you became the, I guess the position is called first captain?

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, very, I was a very different uh human being between my freshman, my plebe year at West Point and my senior year, my first year as first captain. One, I did not go into the academy ever thinking that I was going to end up being the first captain. It's the highest ranking cadet, you're ranked number one out of all forty-four hundred um students there. Um, you are the one that dismisses the class on graduation day. You're basically like the face of the corps. Um, and so I, when I first started, I was, I mean, I was a fucking mess getting going, going into this. I mean, I had, I thought I was in good shape. I apparently wasn't. I like, I gained a bunch of weight during beast, which is basic, like our basic training equivalent. Because I was so stressed, I would just eat a ton during, when we were in the mess hall, just because like,

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I was like, what the fuck am I doing here? This is not for me. Um, I was like, I think I've made a grave mistake. This is, this is way more intense than I thought it was gonna be. And I just lived a life of just pure anxiety for the entire first year. I walked around with my head, my head really low. I had absolutely no self-confidence. Uh, my, my times in track completely declined. I was running worse times than I had run when I was, I don't know, in eighth grade or something crazy like that. I just kind of like, for a little while, lost myself and I forgot kind of like, who I was, what motivated me to be there, what motivated me to, to, you know, to wanna be, serve in the army. And I had to kind of regain all of that confidence throughout my couple of years while I was at the academy.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Because, I mean, if you saw, I, I could show you guys a picture. I was fat and disgusting and just scared of literally everything. I didn't, I didn't know anything about the military. I didn't understand the rank structure. I had no idea why we were walking in lines and like, wearing weird backpacks that were really heavy and my ankles were bleeding. You know, it was just like, the whole thing was just a lot to kind of comprehend really quickly. Um. But I guess I did good at it because they named me the first captain after four years or three years of being there. So it turned around.

• 16:46Speaker 06

  Out of curiosity, it was, it sounds like it was sort of the military discipline, the rigor, like all the nitty-gritty stuff that was kind of overwhelming to a civilian. Because a lot of these people have probably been in like J R T C, J R T C or something like they had some idea what they were getting into, right?

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I thought I had an idea, you know, I can watch all the YouTube videos that I wanted. I could go on. I don't even remember if Reddit was a thing back then and just try and, you know, educate myself as much as possible, but until you're actually in it, you have no idea. Like you think that you can rock for 12 miles with a 75 pound pack, but you you just can't do it until you actually like really test yourself and get through um, the actual physical and mental components of all of this. So it was, it was a really developmental, I guess, is probably a good word to describe it as like those couple of years. As I had learned who I am and I was able to really actually challenge myself, not only just physically, but mentally and academically. Because West Point puts a lot of pressure on students to actually, you know, the academic rigor is pretty high.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  And then when you were going through that, like in that first year, you know, I'm sure it's like a college and, you know, there's a lot going on. But did you find any mentors? Were there any people that like kind of pulled you aside, realized that maybe you weren't doing great or things like that?

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, definitely. I mean, we have TAC NCOs and TAC officers that we kind of like would be mentored by. And then I also had, uh, we called them instructors at West Point, instructors that, um, definitely like helped, I guess, like encourage me. You know, I wasn't, it wasn't that I was doing bad. I had a crazy high GPA. I was probably ranked like top 50 militarily. Um, maybe my physical score wasn't as good as where I needed it to be, but like it, it was all in my own head, on my own biggest critic. And that was like the biggest thing I think that I needed to break away from, um, and just like prove to myself that I deserved to be there because the imposter syndrome. And this could be like a reoccurring theme throughout my entire life is just always

• 18:52Speaker 03

  there at the start and it's really hard to kind of overcome that. And yeah, the mentors, the instructors, the TAC NCOs, kind of put it into perspective as to like, you know, we're there, yes, to gain an education, but we're also there to try and become and understand who we are as leaders so that when we're put in these positions, when we're actually in the military, we can, you know, we can make those decisions with very little amounts of information under stress and everything.

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• 20:44Jack Murphy?

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• 21:29Jack Murphy?

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• 22:12Jack Murphy?

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• 22:54Speaker 06

  A good character building experience.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Four years, let's go.

• 22:58Speaker 06

  Yeah. So from being a fucked up plebe to your final year making first captain. I mean, what was that like, you know, you know, the last year that you were there?

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, I feel, so I was named by Business Insider as one of the most, like, one of the 14 most impressive students to graduate college in 2014. Like, I didn't really understand the immense amount of, I guess, pressure that was on me in that position because I was just kind of living it day by day. You don't really, it's a really hard thing to kind of step away from that and recognize, you know, what really is happening on a big picture. But I think kind of like thinking back in hindsight, it was, it was really, really, really challenging because peer leadership is really fucking hard. But it was also incredibly rewarding because I just got to, I mean, I got the opportunities of a lifetime.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  I got to, you know, meet just incredible people, Madeleine Albright, President, President Obama was there. Gerald Odierno, him and I actually became like pretty close. And like, there's just like, there was just like this, I guess, opportunity that I would have never wanted to have ever passed up. But I think I was kind of living that with this still immense amount of pressure to still make the right decisions for the Corps. Because we, I mean, other than also being the captain of the track team that year and then also trying not to fail out of school. I had to implement all these policies that, you know, sustained life for the cadets. So there was a lot going on.

• 24:30Speaker 06

  Lizzie, can we, I want to ask you about peer leadership because it's, it's, it's an interesting topic, right? In the military, maybe it's sort of like the lower enlisted ranks, you might get into that kind of challenge. But generally, like in the military and the civilian world, there are very clear lines of demarcation. And, you know, and you don't have to worry, like, you have your peers and you don't have to worry about, do I mesh with, with my subordinates so much? But here you are, a student, you want to have friends, you have, right, you have peers.

• 25:03Speaker 06

  But now you're a peer leader. How, how does that affect your relationship with other students?

• 25:08Speaker 03

  It's a really challenging, it's a really challenging thing because you have, there has to be a differentiation, right? You have to still be a leader and represent the institution as the first captain, but you also still have to ensure that you're yourself and that you, you know, take time to come out of the academy with a handful of really solid lifelong friends and you don't lose them in the process. Cause it's a very easy thing to, to let the, like, the first captain entity take over everything else that's going on.

• 25:40Speaker 06

  Right.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  Um, in, in terms of peer leadership, I think the, the big, it's, it's really challenging when you're trying to get some, I think it's a real form of leadership. Because one thing that I've learned in the military, and this is kind of like a better understanding it now that I'm out of the military is, I, I don't know how this will be perceived, maybe it's a hot take, but I think leadership in the military is easier than either peer leadership or leadership outside because there's this like forced rank structure, right? Like, no matter what, we, we have to follow the individual who is wearing the rank above ours. Regardless, I mean, we're bound by law to do so.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  So no matter like whether or not you want to follow that person and they are a good leader, you still have to. And so like the objectives and the missions still get accomplished regardless of how, really how strong that leader is. And what I've learned, like it, during my time as first captain, that, that wasn't the case because cadet rank is fake. It doesn't matter. You know, it's, it's all, it's all made up. And you had to still be a leader amongst your peers and you had to strip away like this understanding that there's a hierarchical structure because there isn't. And you still had to get them to want to follow you and to want to, um, you know, implement your policies that you were coming up with and you have your back, you know, when it comes time to talk to a higher ranking individual, whatever it is.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  And that is just one thing that I'm learning in the civilian world too. It's like, there is no rank structure. No one has to want to follow you. You have to make sure that you're innately a good leader or you're never going to, you're never gonna make it.

• 27:20Speaker 06

  So was that type of leadership, the type of leadership where, um, Where you have to get buy in and obviously all leaders should, but like you say in the military, it's not required. But here you are on the same level as these people. There's no UCMJ. You can't fire them from their job or whatever. Is that something that came naturally to you? Like getting people to to buy in or was it something that you learned along the way?

• 27:50Speaker 03

  I want to say like a little bit of both. I think I have really good EQ. I think I understand people really, really well. And I think that really helps when it comes time to be in a leadership position where you have to get the buy in from the from the other individual because you have to come to the table with an understanding of where they're sitting and what their goals are and what their ambitions are. And it's not only about like what you want out of the organization or what you want out of like it's like the overall mission. It's how are you going to inspire them to want to see the same thing that you see as the end state? And so it's a really hard thing to to be able to do that if you can't put yourself in their shoes or understand where they're coming

• 28:30Speaker 03

  from and find a way to inspire them to want to do to to get to that end state. So I think the EQ thing really, really helps in that sense. But I mean, it's it's it's trial and error too. You know, you you learn so much just by interacting with other people and interacting with other people who are very different than you, who think very different than you, who have very, you know, opposite opinions on matters that you thought would be something that you would come to a conclusion on. You got to put yourself in the position where you're tested time and time again, or you will completely lose the ability to understand where everyone else is coming from.

• 29:07Speaker 06

  Fascinating.

• 29:08Jack Murphy?

  When you graduate as first captain, do they give you like preferential treatment as far as choosing what branch you want to go into? Do you get first pick?

• 29:18Speaker 03

  No, it's all based on your O M L. Um, now as the first captain, you're not going to have a low O M L. So you're pretty much guaranteed to get whatever branch you want. Um, and you're the one that I got to stand on the stage and tell the whole class, like, open your envelope. So that was a really exciting moment um in life. Um, but yeah, there's a, there's, it's kind of funny because a lot of people, anyone that knows about West Point, they always think the first captain, our grades are frozen. We get their first branch choice. Like, everything is kind of like, we're, we eat off of gold platters. It's just not the case. At all. You know, we're, we're actually just probably working three times as hard as the average cadet because there's just a little bit more pressure put on us. But yeah, I, it would be nice if our grades were frozen, but whatever.

• 30:00Speaker 06

  How is the order merit list uh generated? Is it just grades or is it a combination of a lot of different things?

• 30:07Speaker 03

  So it's a combination of your academic um standing, your physical standing and your military standing. So we take obviously our, all of our academic classes, the core curriculum, um and then that's based off of your major, um starting, I think it, your junior and senior year. And then your physical grade is based off of your sport. Um, and every cadet is an athlete. So whether you're on a D one team or if you are on a club team or even a company team, you get a grade from that. Uh, and then you also take uh survival swimming classes, combatives classes, boxing classes, and all of those kind of build into your physical score. Um, and then you have your military aspects to things. So that's, most of them are your leadership details. So while you're in your academic year, so like August through May, you're put in a leadership position.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  So like mine was first captain my senior year. I was a squad leader my junior year. You're basically put in these positions throughout the academic year that you're graded on, and then also your summer details. So um whatever position you hold over the summer, then you get graded militarily uh in that component. And then everything is aggregated and you get an overall class standing.

• 31:10Speaker 06

  For the, for the lower uh ranks, uh like the, uh and maybe the younger years, are those positions like squad leader, are they rotated through like in Ranger School? Where everybody gets uh, you know, a ti- time to shine or, or, or not shine?

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Exactly. It's not as obviously frequent as Ranger School, but I think it's, um, I want to say it's every semester you're changed. Or maybe it's every term. I honestly can't remember, but it, it does change. So like the company commander will only be whether it's a semester or a quarter long of a, of a period of time. Where you get, you get the opportunity to kind of dip your toes into different types of positions.

• 31:46Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:48Jack Murphy?

  So you got into aviation, I assume was your first choice.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was. Yeah.

• 31:56Jack Murphy?

  But you don't know what airframe at that point, right? You got to go to like pre-flight school and flight school and all that. Can you tell us a little bit about what that progression was like?

• 32:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I knew I wanted to fly the Apache. That was, and like my first experience with the Apache was at West Point, and we do this thing called Branch Week where, I mean, especially the younger cadets, no one really understands what all the branches entail. So they bring all of the branches to West Point. You get to interact with the soldiers, you get to interact with officers who are in, you know, who are aviators, who are infantry officers and all of that. And then Apache came down and landed around the plane right over my, like, room window. And I was like, this is the fucking coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, this is, this is what I want to do. I was like, boom, I figured it out. I found what I want to do. And it kind of just followed that same path where I was like, I

• 32:46Speaker 03

  want aviation and I want to fly Apache helicopters. And so when I graduated from West Point, I went to flight school. It was, I don't know if it, like, what the post names are. I think, like, things are changing back all over the place, but it was Fort Rucker when I was there.

• 33:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Down in Alabama, flight school was a fucking blast. It was two years. I got hurt at one point. I ruptured my eardrum, so I got set back a little bit. But other than that, I had such a great time. It was, it was finally like the college experience that we were all yearning for while we were at West Point. We could kind of live out those glory days while in flight school. But yeah, you had to be top of your class in order to get your first pick of aircraft. So I just kind of like, worked hard. And I drank a lot, but I worked hard and ended up with Apache.

• 33:34Jack Murphy?

  And when you're in flight school, learning how to be a rotary wing pilot, I mean, what, what do they, do they have you training on like Hueys or something like that to get everyone kind of up to a basic speed?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, we flew, we trained on the TH-67. So it's just a single-engine aircraft. It's actually larger than the Little Bird.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Don't remember if it has hydra- I think it does have hydra- it does have hydraulics, I think, I could be wrong there. But um it's it's still kind of one of those like very manual type of helicopters to fly on. It's it was a it was a great training helicopter. Now they're flying on the Lakota, so it's a different system. They can't do touchdown auto rotations like we did. Um there's just a lot of, I guess, limitations with that aircraft that the new students are training on. But I'm sure they're they I think they have much better like instrument capabilities. So there's kind of trade offs between what we flew in flight school versus what the students now are flying.

• 34:26Jack Murphy?

  What was that first flight like for you?

• 34:30Speaker 03

  I mean, I remember, I remember coming down and landing and getting out and being in my car and driving home that day and thinking to myself, I hate being on the ground. I was like, being in the sky is so far superior to any experience that I've had in my life so far. It was just one of those like moments where I just realized, I really like this. And um I picked it up pretty quick. I I grew up playing drums, percussion, I played the drum set. Basically, like for my fifth grade talent show, I did a drum solo on a kit. So I I just like good, I guess, like I I can play with both my feet and my hands and everything all at once. I can, you know, see, I could read music and everything. And I think that translated really well to flying a helicopter.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  I ju- I picked it up very, very quickly. Um, and I absolutely loved it. Like, I never wanted to to land. We just, I just wanted to keep flying at like as much as possible.

• 35:26Jack Murphy?

  And then when you get through flight school, there comes a time where you have to, you know, everyone gets assigned to the airframe that hopefully they want, right?

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So most, it's a tr- it's a tricky process and every class is very different. So like I mentioned before, I ruptured my eardrum while I was in instruments. Um, and it set me back like two classes. And the class that I was originally in, every single student got assigned Apaches. So one, I was like watching them and being bummed out that I wasn't in my original class because then I would have been guaranteed the sixty-four. Um, but so then when it came time for my our class selection, I think we only had like two or three Apaches out of our class. Um, and it went pretty quick. I mean, people are always wanting to fly the Tac helicopters, that and Chinooks are the top two. Um, we did not have any fixed wing assets available to our to our class for selection.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  And that's just kind of how it works. It's very similar to. Man, I don't even know what to kind of compare to, but it's just number one, you pick whatever's available. Number two, you pick whatever's left and so on and so forth.

• 36:28Speaker 06

  So when you go through flight school, there is, there is a fixed wing portion and there are fixed wing options at the end of that?

• 36:35Speaker 03

  So we don't fly fixed wing as students, but there, you can fly fixed wing in the army, the C-12.

• 36:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  It's small. It's kind of a VIP aircraft. It's a, it's a very hard airframe to be selected or to select for, just because there's maybe like two every year.

• 36:52Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Um, so you have to get really lucky in your timing and then you have to definitely be number one out of your class.

• 36:58Speaker 06

  Interesting. Okay.

• 37:00Jack Murphy?

  Uh, so you get assigned to the Apache and what is it then off to Fort Campbell? Where did you go?

• 37:07Speaker 03

  So, um, after I got assigned to sixty-four, I went through the remainder of the training that was for that airframe. Um, and then I actually went to Fort Bliss, uh, was my first duty station. Yep. I was in El Paso, Texas. And I know a lot of people shit on El Paso, but it was phenomenal. I had a, the best command I could ever have imagined. It's the reason I got into the one sixtieth was because of those guys. Um, and I just had a really, really great time living there. And I loved the, I loved everything about it. The unit was great. Um, I ended up going there because, so my husband, who's now my husband, he went to West Point too. We met at West Point. Um, and he was a, a different cadet.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  He, he wouldn't hate on me for saying this, but like, he was like, he walked two hundred hours while he was there. We were like total opposites. Um, and when he got assigned, he was an infantry officer and he got assigned his post. They basically were like, you're going to Fort Bliss. So I was like the strange aviator that was like, can I go to Fort Bliss? They were like, yeah, obviously. No, no one fucking asked ever. So you can for sure go to Fort Bliss. Um, but yeah, I had, I, I loved flying at Fort Bliss.

• 38:20Speaker 06

  Is it because it's just a wide open range for an assault helicopter? I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of good training out there for you guys.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Great training because it's all in the mountains, but it's also desert. Yeah. I mean, you, you learn how to fly like a pilot. Um, it's not this like four campbells, just like rolling hills. You have like a couple of like pieces of open terrain to land into. When you're flying out, um, in those mountains out in El Paso, like it's, it's a completely different environment. So that was really great, but it was, I think the, the reason that I enjoyed my time so much was because of my commander. I was in three, six calf, um, my battalion commander was absolutely phenomenal. And then my company commander was one of-

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• 40:57Speaker 03

  The best leaders that I've ever had the privilege of working with. Um, his name is Captain Sharkey. This dude, you should get him on the podcast. He is hilarious. He pushes the limits to the max, teaches you how to taste, take risk, like almost too much risk. But I think that that's like the reason why. I was able to get into one six two because I kind of, I knew my limitations because he like really pushed me and one of his big things. Was like, you will fly. More than anyone in the company, like as a platoon leader, that doesn't happen. Commanders don't protect their platoon leaders in that regard. They make them, you know, create the flight schedule. They don't get to put on the flight schedule. They're doing the dumbass training meeting slides and like all this other.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  You know, behind the computer type stuff. That was not his philosophy and I had more hours flying stateside than some of my friends who were deployed at the time just because. Of his philosophy there, so.

• 41:53Speaker 06

  For, uh, for the people who might not be familiar with it, can you tell us about the Apache airframe? Um, kind of give us, and then also sort of the, uh. I guess the, the arm is TOE, like how you guys are set up, like you said, you went to three, six. How you guys are set up with other units and things like that?

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, I mean, the Apache is an attack helicopter. Um, there's, it's, it's a, like, how do I even, what is, how do we say this? It's not like you don't sit side by side. You sit, oh, tandem, tandem seat. So, um, your one's in the front, it's the gunner position and then the pilot's behind. But both positions can both shoot, both fly. Um. A range of weapon systems on the aircraft, thirty millimeter, um. Gun, you have rockets with all different types of variations of rockets. I think it's a nineteen shot rocket pod. Um, obviously hellfire missiles. So there's a bunch of different configurations that the aircraft, um.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Can deploy with. You, some aircraft had the FCR, the fire control radar, which basically allowed us to identify, you know, any types of, any type of, um.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Vehicles in the vicinity that were, we could track them from a, from a distance. Um, and it helped with when we were shooting hell fires. Um, but it's, it's, it's one of those airframes where very, very different than like the, the attack profile that a little bird has. Because basically what you would do in the Apache is you'd fly at a thousand feet. Um, and you would just do circles around the objective. So you were, you know, not close air support, but you were always there, ready to, to support when needed.

• 43:29Speaker 06

  Yeah. Uh, so, um, with the gunner sitting up front and the pilot in the back. Is there a, like a seniority to that, um, as to which is which and things like that?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  I mean, typically the pilot in command who would be the more senior, who owned the aircraft. Um, that they would probably be sitting in the back. Um, it's, but it really doesn't matter now that the, the pilot in command could be sitting in any of the seats. But typically they'd be sitting in, in the backseat.

• 43:59Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Like flying, I guess, like more or less flying the aircraft, the front, the front seat had the tads. Um, so you had this like, I guess, like configuration where you had both of your hands on it. And you can maneuver the weapon systems, um, basically with your thumbs. So you weren't on the flight controls. And so you can lock in the, the, the, the sensor on whatever, you know, objective you were going after. Or, or zooming in to be able to see, you know, what's happening in the objective area. So you were kind of like the control node for the aircraft sitting in that front seat.

• 44:32Speaker 06

  And then would, would you, that be a partnership? Uh, I mean, I'm thinking like Maverick and Goose. Is that like a partnership or could it be anybody assigned to, any, any two people in the, the squadron or whatever, assigned to a bird?

• 44:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's any two people that are assigned. And I, I think it should have probably been more of like, like Maverick and Goose type of situation where you have someone that you just innately understand. You know, everything about this individual, but that's just not how it was. It was, you were just assigned to fly with any, anyone within the unit.

• 45:06Speaker 06

  That's fascinating. So what happens, and maybe you didn't have this in your unit, but I feel like every unit has one. Uh, like the person that nobody wants to fly with.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, for sure, there's, I'm not gonna say names, obviously, but there are for sure people that didn't want to fly with certain individuals. I think it's like a safety thing, especially in the aircraft. You don't want to fly with someone that you know is just not a good pilot.

• 45:33Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Someone that has poor judgment, someone that's kind of just always fucking up regardless, like can't even land the aircraft in the right place, or it doesn't understand what's happening on the radio, will like start making like an approach to a runway from the wrong direction, or just like spatially not oriented. Those kind of people are just the last kind of person that you want to fly with, because you just need whoever you're flying with to be on top of it. And be thinking way ahead of the aircraft as opposed to like, you're like fucking dragging them along, be like, okay, can we we do this together and not, you're going to make us crash.

• 46:07Speaker 06

  So did you have a, was one position more fun than the other?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  So I always found that it was easier to like physically fly the aircraft from the backseat. I think it had to do with like the center of the gravity of the aircraft. When you're flying in the front seat, you're very far forward, so like the the weight of the aircraft is behind you. And so like there is a little bit of like spatial disorientation there. And also when you're flying at night, we don't, we never really flew under goggles. It was always under the monocle.

• 46:37Speaker 06

  Uh huh.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Um, so there's just that, like that parallax, I think that's what we called it. It's just a difference between where the sensor is and where you're physically sitting.

• 46:48Speaker 06

  Uh huh.

• 46:48Speaker 03

  So it was, it was just a little bit more of a complicated position to fly from the front seat. But I mean, let's be honest, it was like maybe four feet of difference. So it wasn't that bad.

• 46:57Speaker 06

  But in in terms of like, uh, being the primary pilot or the primary gunner, did you have a preference for that?

• 47:03Speaker 03

  So, yeah, I mean, I, in the Apache, it was, it's very different than the Little Bird. It really sometimes did, like the backseat would be flying and the front seat would be the gunner.

• 47:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Um, Little Bird, if you're flying, you're shooting. I preferred in the Apache. To kind of take the the little bird model where it was if I was flying, I was shooting. So I like to be in the backseat and I like to be on the controls and I like to actually be the one that's releasing the weapons. Um, that was my preference and it was just really just because I trusted myself.

• 47:34Speaker 06

  Right.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  For over another individual, um, but obviously you have to have trust in your co-pilot in those instances.

• 47:41Speaker 06

  So what so if you were flying and shooting, was the person in the front seat, were they basically just like doing Sudoku or something? I mean, like.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Drinking coke.

• 47:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  Hanging out.

• 47:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  I mean, it could get a little boring. No, you're like, you're monitoring radios, you're throwing in grids. Um, you're figuring out, you know, like what's coming up next. You're getting like a very good situational awareness of what's going on. Um, and then you can relay that information because sometimes if you're, you know, on the flight controls, but also on the target, it can get a little disorienting. So the front seat is just basically just kind of bring everything back, big picture and update the pilot.

• 48:18Speaker 06

  So now, uh, uh, the in terms of how the army does it, or were you guys attached to like a an infantry, like a brigade or a battalion or? Like, how does that work?

• 48:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, pretty much. They're just a an infantry unit, whether it's a light or a heavy. Um, it really for us, we would fly with whoever needed the support at that time.

• 48:42Speaker 06

  Okay, but you weren't like part of a unit, a part of like an infantry unit?

• 48:48Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 48:48Speaker 06

  Okay. So when does the idea of going to assessment for one sixtieth start to creep up into your mind?

• 48:58Speaker 03

  So it was always there. Um, I kind of lost track of it a little bit while I was just trying to make pilot and command and air mission commander flying the sixty-four. Um, but it was always and I I I've, I mean, I, you could probably tell from knowing a little bit more about my background. I just kind of want to do like the hardest thing possible. And I just knew that the one sixtieth was just that next step up, right? It's the grad school. It's exactly where you want to be as an aviator. There was one trip I did as an Apache pilot. We went to Texas and it was actually a flight lead evaluation. Um, and us as sixty fours, we were attached as some sort of like additional asset that the one sixtieth could train with.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Um, and kind of just like add them into their stack and add a little another layer of complexity into the planning process. And I remember being there and integrating with with the unit. And I was so blown away at how professional everything was. It was so incredibly different than how we were operating as sixty four pilots. I felt so amateur and I honestly just kind of felt embarrassed. I was like, I cannot stand up on one like one leg compared to these guys. This is just another and absolute another level um of aviation skill, not only just flying, but planning and briefing and everything.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Um, and so I was like, shit, why would I not want to try and get into this unit and learn and be exactly as professional um as these guys are? And so I got the opportunity to fly in the jump seat of a forty seven on one of these slightly eval rides. And it completely, I mean, it completely changed my my mind. I was a hundred percent dead set. This is exactly what I want to do. Um, and from that point on, I think I it was twenty sixteen or so at that point. So I was two years out of West Point, two years flying, or I guess maybe like end of twenty sixteen into twenty seventeen. Um, and so I still had a little bit of time left at three, six, calf at Fort Bliss uh before I had to go to the career course.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  So I sat down by the battalion commander and I was like, I am going to leave the unit and I want to assess for the one sixtieth. And he was like, oh, good. You want to fly forty sevens? And I was like, because they don't have Apache's in the one sixty. And I was like, no, I want to fly the A H six.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Uh, he laughed, literally did exactly that. Um, but he the crazy thing is he was he was also a B Co pilot. He flew in the one sixtieth as a little bird pilot, so he knew everything about the organization, about that company, the center of the universe, everything about these guys. And was like, you are never going to get into that, you know, like this just expectations, like, let's not make a red mark on your career. Let's just level the playing field here. Like you can go and assess, but you if you get picked up, you will be flying forty sevens. It's just kind of like the trajectory for for um Apache pilots if they don't make the attack platform. And um so I was like, alright, bring it on, let's go.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  So I just, I mean, I did everything I possibly could to kind of prepare myself for the assessment. Now, the assessment itself was, is a whole nother world. Um, I probably blacked out for half of it. I don't like, you know what I mean? It was just like one of those times in life where you're just like, just have to keep your head down and just not quit.

• 52:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  Literally, do not quit. Um, yeah, I mean, cats out of the bag, I made it. But it was a hellish experience.

• 52:25Speaker 06

  Did you do, um, I'm, did you do a combat deployment with the, with the Apaches?

• 52:31Speaker 03

  No, not with the Apaches.

• 52:31Speaker 06

  Okay, and then why, uh, why did, like, why is the Apache, uh, to, like, uh, the CH47, so why is that, is it because they're both heavier, like, aircraft, or?

• 52:46Speaker 03

  No, I honestly think it's, it's simply because of the demand of the unit. Um, I think there, I mean, there's a very, very small handful of AH-6 pilots. In the 160th, there's only one company in one battalion. Um, now for the 47s, they're in three of the battalions out of the four. There's mu- many, there's a lot more pilots. So when the deputy comes in, the, the, I guess, like, the demand from the arm, or the supply from the conventional army on the 47 side is much lower than the 64, and when you, when you bring that over into the 160th organization, they need to kind of cross-load that supply, um, into the 47 category.

• 53:24Speaker 06

  And when he, when he said he didn't think you'd get in, obviously, he wasn't talking about your capability, but was it more just like the number of people they selected? And probably a lot of people had a lot of experience coming into that unit?

• 53:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I mean, there's me, no combat deployment. I have like maybe 500 hours, um, maybe, maybe 25 hours flying goggles, you know, because we did not fly goggles in the 64. Um, I mean, I have no prior military experience. I am, I don't fit the, the mold of what a typical little bird pilot looks like at all. And I'm a chick, you know? No woman has ever favorably assessed for the aircraft. Women have tried, but there've been a lot of reasons why they haven't made it. So, I mean, he was not wrong in telling me, like, your chances of getting to fly little birds is basically zero percent.

• 54:16Speaker 06

  Right.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Um, and...

• 54:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I never really asked. I mean, I know kind of why I got in and why I was selected to fly little birds, but I mean, the overall reason, I, I don't know.

• 54:33Jack Murphy?

  Well, before we get there, tell us a little bit about assessment and what that was like. I mean, you said you were kind of blacked out through half of it, but if you have any, any recollections or stories from that time, I'd love to hear them.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, so it's a week long assessment process and which isn't a lot of time, right? I mean, obviously, if you're going through assessment for other organizations, it's a lot longer of a process. So a week sounds like nothing to most of these, you know, tier one organizations, but um, it kind of is composed of like a physical aspect of flying. You do a lot of psych evals and then you do, um, like, I guess that kind of falls into the physical stuff, like swimming, you do a PT test and all this other stuff. Um, for, for my assessment,

• 55:20Speaker 03

  it, my main goal going into it was to, to just not quit. No matter what I did, I was just, I just told myself, no matter how hard things get, no matter what happens, I'm just going to not quit. I'm just going to keep trying until they tell me you failed. Now it's time to stop. Um, and that, that played out, I think, really, really well for me. We did a swim assessment where you had to jump off the high dive, whatever, and all of your gear, stand to water and then swim, um, for as long as you possibly could underwater. And I just told myself, I'm going to drown in this pool because I'm not coming out of the water until they tap my head and I'm going to try and swim as far as I, as far

• 56:04Speaker 03

  as I literally physically can. And I swam the furthest that day than any other, anyone else in the pool. So like, it's just like those little types of things, right? You just put your mind to like the right kind of outcome and you just tell yourself like, they're not going to let me die in this pool. So I'm just going to swim.

• 56:21Jack Murphy?

  That's bold, that's bold of you. That's very bold of you to assume that.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  I know, because I basically did pass out in the pool.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, but um, and then there was another instance where I had to, I mean, obviously flying little birds, it's, it's a very physically demanding aircraft to fly, not only just physically, but we reload all of our own ammo. You know, you're getting out your, your refueling yourself. So you have these fuel blibbits that weigh, you know, over a hundred pounds. You have to lift, reload the aircraft with an ammo can. So one of the things I had to do was just after one of our flights was get out and reload the aircraft and lift the ammo can off the ground. It seems very, very simple, but it's something that little bird pilots do literally all the time. But this is like the one thing that women really struggle with because it's like maybe a hundred and twenty-five pounds. That might be a slight exaggeration, but somewhere in that ballpark of, of weight and it's just very awkward, you know?

• 57:16Speaker 03

  It's filled with ammo and it's massive.

• 57:20Jack Murphy?

  You're talking about that big like rectangular can that sits in the back area of the, of the bird?

• 57:25Speaker 03

  Exactly. Um, and so it's just bulky and weird and women are smaller and well, there's a lot of small little bird pilots too, which is kind of funny, but um, you just had to like clean it and get it on like on the rail and then slide it in. And they brought the entire company out to watch me lift this ammo can because they were like, there's no way in hell she's lifting this ammo can. So it was just like another, it was just like another mental thing for me, right? Like I was just like, I will pull both of my hamstrings, both of my shoulders. I would make sure this ammo cam gets, gets lifted up if it's the last thing that I do. And I did it on the first try. Um, and apparently like no other woman who assessed for little birds had ever done that before. So that was like a, and I didn't know that at the time, right?

• 58:09Speaker 03

  I'm just there lifting this stupid ammo can. Um, and I go on to do the other tasks and whatnot. Um, you have to, you have to do like navigation flight at night and you're flying with paper maps that you had to make the night before and then you have to do all these like briefs and, um, and the, it wasn't the battalion commander, but it was the deputy commander who was on my flight who's my trail. So like, there was just a lot of like pressure, I guess, in that regard. They just really wanted to make sure that, um, it wasn't a mistake allowing me to one assess, um, continue my assessment and then obviously get the handshake at the end. Um, but. Yeah, just don't quit.

• 58:48Speaker 06

  When you talk about the Little Bird being a physically like demanding airframe, you know, like I think that anybody who's ever watched a TV show sees the helicopter pilot sitting there like, can you, can you tell us why the, the, the Little Bird is physically demanding?

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, so the first reason is because there's no hydraulics. So it's a literally a physically demanding aircraft to fly. So, um, I mean, every input that you make actually tilts the rotor system and actually maneuvers the aircraft itself. So there's, there's no assistance whatsoever. And then the, the profile that we fly the aircraft itself is, is challenging. So there's, it's very, I mean, we're always almost at max power. So over torquing can happen literally in the, in a split second. Um, you can get like blowback through the rotor system, which could like spike your, like there's just like a lot of things that can happen. And if you're not on top of it, then things will escalate and, and get worse very, very, very quickly.

• 59:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Um, so it's not only just like physically demanding to fly without hydraulics. It's also a physically like challenging aircraft to fly because you have to pay attention to everything that's going on as opposed to in the Apache, it was a very, very smart aircraft.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  You know, I'm sure most of our viewers are too young to get this reference, but, but the idea that I always think of is before we had power steering, people actually had to turn their steering wheels. Um, you know, and, you know, and so, um, you know, people don't understand these days that our, our steering is assisted and you know, you're talking about that same thing that you are physically manipulating the cables in the aircraft. There's not like a hydraulic system that's making it easy for you.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. And another thing too about the little bird is you can't take your hands off of the flight controls whatsoever. And the Apache, you had hold modes. It wasn't like the greatest invention that's ever been put into a helicopter before, but like you could take your hands off of, off of the flight controls. You 100% could not release the flight controls at all in the little bird. Both feet were on both pedals at all times, as well as cyclic and cocked.

• 1:01:07Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. It's interesting, yeah, to hear you describe it and how like this machine becomes an extension of your body. You know, both like, you know, you were saying with the Apache, how you're using your eyes, but you're looking through the sensor on the top of the bird, or with the AH6 and actually your feet are moving the aircraft, literally. That's pretty cool.

• 1:01:27Speaker 06

  Is there a lot, oh, sorry. Is there a lot of like fatigue through vibration and stuff like that? Or is it pretty smooth? No?

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, there definitely is. And it really depends on the environment that you're flying in. So like if you're up in the mountains, you get basically like blowback. So if you fly like faster than a certain airspeed, the aircraft doesn't do very well. And so you're constantly like shut, like I, we flew cross-country from Campbell to Albuquerque or Colorado or somewhere for, for just training. And I was physically sore the next day because of how aggressively I had to continuously like push the cyclic forward. It keeps pushing you back. It's, yeah, there's a lot. And like the vibrations too. I mean, I think now the unit's starting to wear sensors. I know the DAP pilots are definitely starting to wear sensors because just like the

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  vibrations, the repercussions of like the, the weapon systems that are feet away from you.

• 1:02:21Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  You know,

• 1:02:22Speaker 06

  Deal the pressure you guys are getting from that?

• 1:02:24Speaker 03

  That goes on.

• 1:02:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, I bet. Yeah. I mean, it, it, you know, talk about like flying cross-country. It's like the difference between taking a car ride and a motorcycle ride cross-country, right?

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's physically abusive to your body.

• 1:02:37Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:02:39Jack Murphy?

  And so as you finish your training on the little bird, like we've had some people tell us in the past that the testing is pretty stressful because you have to make target, you know, plus or minus 30 seconds. What, what were some of those like final exams like for you?

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely stressful. I mean, there's like, there was pressure, and it's not just on me. It was on all of the students. There were, we had, there were four of us in the class that were, that had assessed around the same time, that were going to the company at the same time. And one of them was a very experienced Cobra pilot. He had a lot of hours, was very, very experienced. So he stood out far beyond the remainder of the, the three of us. And so there was always just pressure on us to try and not exceed expectations in that sense, but like far beyond meet expectations. I remember one thing really, really challenging about the train, it's called Green Platoon, like during Green Platoon,

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  we did some overwater training. And you have to climb a caving ladder. So you get dropped into the ocean, essentially. And then your stick buddy basically flies out with an IP and they hover above you. And you're bobbling in the water and this other student's trying to hover the helicopter over you and obviously is sucking at doing so. And they drop a caving ladder, which is a ladder that's as thin as, I mean, it's the tiniest little thing. So you're like putting your heels in this caving ladder and pulling yourself up out of the water with all of your gear. I remember, once again, just thinking to myself, I'm like completely at physical max capacity.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Like I thought, because you have to get to the top of, of the ladder, obviously, and climb, pull yourself into the aircraft and then hook yourself in so they could fly away. And I just remember thinking to myself, I'm gonna fucking fall off this ladder and, and fall 30 feet into the ocean. And I'm gonna fail Green Platoon because I can't climb this damn caving ladder. It was so fucking physically challenging for me. I don't know what, what it was. It was just all my muscles, every ounce of my body was like. This might be it. And um, yeah, it was really, really challenging thing to do, but did it. Um, training in the pool was way easier than training when we were actually like out there doing it um, in the ocean. So I was like, I just caught myself off guard and how challenging that was, that was for me.

• 1:05:06Speaker 06

  How were you? I mean, you know, that, what you're talking about would be challenging for 90% of men, right? Like, you know.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, the guys struggle with it, too.

• 1:05:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  I'm just the one to admit it.

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• 1:06:45Speaker 06

  You know, and but obviously, like, women don't generally have the same upper body strength to to weight, you know, ratio. Like, did you, how were you training? Like, were you doing a lot of pull-ups? Were you doing a lot of, like, you know, how, that's a lot of upper body strength for anybody.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, for sure. So before I, when I, before I got to the one sixtieth, after my assessment, but like while, like right before I got into green platoon, I was really into, um, like bodybuilding.

• 1:07:14Jack Murphy?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  I did bikini competitions. So I was very, I was very lean and I was very fit. Um, I mean, I could do probably upwards of over twenty push up or pull ups, pushups. Um, I mean, I was running my fastest two mile ever, like sub thirteen two miles. Like things were just, I was like just cruising. So I came into green platoon in phenomenal shape and then just continued to try and keep up with it. Obviously, like green platoon is very, it's very stressful. Sorry, this thing keeps beeping. Um.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  It's, it's just like mentally stressful. So sometimes when you're, when you find yourself exhausted mentally, it's a really hard thing to get to the gym and continue to train.

• 1:07:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  Um, you just had to push through it because there was no like dedicated time to stay in shape in green platoon. It was like work, work, work, work, work for, you know, fifteen hours a day and then find time to, to get into the gym. But you just had to do it.

• 1:08:11Jack Murphy?

  So what was that like when you finally passed and you get assigned to, what did you, uh, is it Bravo Company?

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  Yep, BCO. Uh huh. Uh, very intimidating.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  I mean, I came in as a platoon leader and, um, it's just kind of crazy because like you come from the conventional army, you're doing all this stuff, you're a platoon leader and, you know, you have your warrants and whatnot. And like the most senior warrant in your company is like maybe a W three, you know, it's, who has just gotten there and they have a track, whatever it is. The one sixtieth is so different. Like these guys have been, like these warrants are,

• 1:08:45Jack Murphy?

  They're salty.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  You know, for ten years, you know what I mean? And then who, then there's me coming into the company like, yeah, I'm going to make things better around here. They're like,

• 1:08:55Jack Murphy?

  I was, I was going to say, uh, when we had, uh, I think it was Clay Hutmacher on here, uh, he, uh, he told us a story about one of the pranks they did, was, uh, the parking spaces reserved for the AH six pilots, they painted them blue with the handicap signal on them because they were all so old, they were all grandpas.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's hilarious. That's actually hilarious. Yeah, we did, we, there was definitely some good stuff that went on. I mean, we, when we would go out to, um, Virginia Beach for the underways, like some shenanigans happened, that's for sure. I mean, one of my, one of my good friends, he's one of those warrants that flew for the unit for god knows how many years. Um. He, we like went down to the beach and had like a bonfire like after we were flying or whatever. And this dude just stands in the fire, bare feet in the fire and then eats alive crab. Like, these guys are literally, that's, that's an insane thing to do. Who does that?

• 1:09:48Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  And like, it's, you just like start to just love these individuals, like they're your brothers. Even though like, you know that they're ruthless killers, they're also just like such good human beings. I don't know, I just, at first going into the unit, like to go back to your original question, incredibly intimidating. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't fit in, but you just kind of slowly like keep your head down, keep working. Um, try and relieve yourself of the imposter syndrome because you still have to perform, you still have to learn. Um, you have to put yourself in like, put yourself on the flight schedule and get out there and suck so that you can always get, so you can keep getting better. Um, and then you just start to just love every single one of them.

• 1:10:28Jack Murphy?

  When, you were the, correct me if I'm wrong, you were the first and so far the only female little bird pilot that is?

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  AH6.

• 1:10:35Jack Murphy?

  AH6 pilot, okay.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Yep, there was a MH6, um, female that, that was, that, that she flew the MH6. Probably maybe five years ahead of when I was there.

• 1:10:45Jack Murphy?

  Okay, okay, great. We'll, we'll have to talk to her next time.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:49Speaker 06

  So when, um, when you did being the first female AH6 graduate of the, of like the green, green platoon and stuff like that. Did they pull you aside? Did they like say, hey, this is, or you're just one of the guys and?

• 1:11:03Speaker 03

  No, I'm one of the guys.

• 1:11:04Speaker 06

  And?

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Literally did not matter. There was, I, the psych at one point pulled me aside and was like, how's it going? Like, are you okay? Is this, is this going all right? And I was like, yeah, don't care. Like, remember back, like, when I was a kid, I shaved my head because like I wanted to be one of the guys. And I was like, this is my dream. Are you kidding me? Because it's perfect.

• 1:11:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  Um, and yeah, it was, there was absolutely no differential training or treatment whatsoever. Like, there wasn't even a female, there wasn't even a woman's bathroom in the hangar. Like, it was two dudes bathrooms and I just had to be like, okay, I'm coming in, like.

• 1:11:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Put your dicks away.

• 1:11:41Speaker 06

  And, and do you think that, do you think that because everybody knew that like no allowances were, you know?

• 1:11:48Jack Murphy?

  Nobody made any allowances for you in training like that. They're just like, hey, like she's here. She's here like.

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was like everywhere that I went every. I mean, the only I guess like benefit was when we traveled. Um, like when we stayed in hotels, I got my own room. I didn't have to have a roommate because there was no other one to room with. So I mean, I guess that's a perk. But other than that, like, no, absolutely nothing different.

• 1:12:12Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that's fantastic. And so.

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  How it should be. It should not. There should be absolutely no difference in standards, no different in treatment, like nothing. It should always be exactly like based on your qualifications. And like if I sucked, I I sucked and it was brought up in the briefs and like we debriefed it and it was just like the same trajectory as everyone else.

• 1:12:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Yeah, they're really ruthless with their AARs in these units.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, brutal. Good, though. I mean, you you learn how to like pay attention to details. That's for sure.

• 1:12:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's how how you get better. Uh, so you did, uh, two deployments to Afghanistan with the unit. Um, tell us about the first one, uh, as much as you're able to anyways.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, obviously because I hadn't one, I never wanted to admit to anyone that when I was in the one six eight that I hadn't deployed before. Because like all these guys have so many like deployments and no, no dismissions, blowouts and all of this, you know, history. And I'm sitting, I'm like, oof, I've never been Afghanistan. It's like we're like towards the end of the war at this point. Who am I? Um, so I kind of just like played it really cool. It's like, yeah, here we go. But on like on the inside, I was like, shit, like us. This is crazy. And, uh, but I mean, it was, it was typical. It was good. Um, got to do what I signed up for. And that's really that all that I wanted to do really essentially is like, I got to actually take what I learned in all of these years of training.

• 1:13:40Speaker 03

  Whether it was in the sixty four through Green Platoon, you know, in BCO and actually put it to the test and that was good.

• 1:13:47Jack Murphy?

  And and how your first like timeout, your first combat op.

• 1:13:52Speaker 06

  With the training that you'd been both, you know, with the Apache and now here, like, did it all just come together for you?

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a hundred percent. I mean, it really does translate. I mean, they especially, maybe less in the 64 world, but definitely in the Littleburg world, like how the 160th trains, like they definitely train how they fight. And it is very similar. I mean, it's, they do that on purpose so that when you get into these situations, you just know how to react, how to respond, how to like, what contingency are we, you know, falling into at this point? There was one mission, it was like an airfield seizure and it was, you know, we were working with all of our customers and it was a very long operation and I was the air mission commander for the entire thing, you know, and it was, it was intimidating.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  At like when I first like was assigned to be the AMC and have to do all the briefs and everything. But it was one of those experiences that I'll literally never forget because I realized in that moment that they trusted me. And like, that was like the one thing that I think resonated just like for myself as a human being. I was like, this whole organization, all of these things that, you know, you've worked so hard for. There's finally that one moment in time where they put the trust in you and it's now it's your time to not fuck it up. And things went fine on, on mission. And so, you know, I had other opportunities after that to serve as the AMC. So I was just, I was just thankful that I could take all of the experiences that I've had prior to it. And I showed up when I, when I needed to.

• 1:15:25Speaker 06

  Yeah. And so, you know, you mentioned your, uh, your reception at the 160th and, and, and BCO.

• 1:15:35Speaker 06

  How was your reception with the various customers and was there any like, hey, what's up?

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  I think I know what you're, what you're getting at and obviously.

• 1:15:46Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:15:47Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I mean, but the thing is, is like, you just have to, you cannot fall into those types of traps. Because the second that you do, you're not only screwing yourself, but you're also tarnishing the unit. Like they put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders to be professional in that sense. And there was, I, I just kind of held myself as once again, one of the guys, you know, it just, it didn't faze me at all. It was just kind of just like, yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

• 1:16:19Speaker 06

  So the, uh, the hair care products did not win you over. I'm just, yeah.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, no.

• 1:16:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:30Speaker 06

  No, it's, it's fascinating. So what's?

• 1:16:36Speaker 06

  What was the thing or was there a thing that once you were actually in combat?

• 1:16:42Speaker 06

  Was different than you, what you thought it would be was the same, like, what was that like having that? You know, from being this little girl who cut off all her hair to train for the army to now like you're laying hate. Like, what, what was that for you?

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  Um, I didn't think about it in the time, you know, like while it's happening, obviously you're just very dialed in and very focused. But I think afterwards, when you do a little bit of reflection, it's, I don't know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, I want to do it again. Like, I like it. I love, I love this job. Um, I want to be given every opportunity to, to fly the aircraft and to be put in those positions. Um,

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I've never really like thought too deeply about like that aspect of it, but I guess like, right now, my initial reaction is,

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  I don't know, it's kind of crazy to think like, I don't know, I'm, I feel like I'm like even now where I am in my life, I feel like, it's like a whole nother world than who I was before, where I'm right now, at right now. And I feel like, I don't know, jive my memory and be like, okay, yeah, what was that like?

• 1:17:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  It's like a movie, really. It's like watching a movie, but it's real.

• 1:18:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. Do you, do you consider yourself, because I'm sure that there are like, both, both guys and girls who find you an inspiration, your story, having, you know, such a single minded determination and achieving it. But, you know, obviously for, for girls who want to go into that field, there, there are fewer role models. Do you find yourself, you know, being that role model or considering yourself a role model?

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, definitely. I've I've mentored a lot of women. I really, really enjoy that. It's part of, I just found that like when I was kind of like going through the rigor of finding out, you know, the challenges that I would inevitably be facing, you know, whether it was going to West Point or flying Apache use or going to the one sixtieth, whatever it was, that there wasn't really like this like image of a person that I wanted to be like, I was kind of like creating it for myself.

• 1:18:56Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  And I hope that I could be that image for the younger generation to be like, it's definitely doable. You know, you just have to put your mind to it. You have to be in really good shape. You gotta be smart. Like, there's just those, I just, I hope that that's kind of the case, I guess.

• 1:19:10Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  In like a non-conceited way. I know it kind of could come off like conceded, but but it's just because like I was lacking that in my life.

• 1:19:18Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  And I hope that I could be that for others.

• 1:19:21Jack Murphy?

  Sure. What was the the difference between deployment one and deployment two for you?

• 1:19:27Speaker 03

  Um, just honestly, like then it just turns into normal. I don't know. It was honestly very, not very different, I guess, in a sense, but you just kind of just get get into the groove of things. My first one was a little bit longer. We were there for a little bit of a longer amount of time. Um, so you kind of, it was almost like two deployments in one, I guess, in that instance, um, based on like how long our deployments are in the one sixtieth, but honestly, I just felt more comfortable. I understood kind of just like the rules of the road, you know, like who to talk to, who not to talk to, what what my role is as a BMQ, you know, who, whether I'm like serving in like the jock position, like a battle captain role or as a pilot. Like there's, you just, you just understand kind of like the playing field a lot, a lot better.

• 1:20:12Speaker 03

  It's a lot smoother.

• 1:20:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Jack Murphy?

  Oh, Dimitri has a question. What is a BMQ?

• 1:20:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so a BMQ is, um, so when you come into the one sixtieth, it's your, like the lower, I guess, qualified, I think it's like basic mission qualified.

• 1:20:32Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  And then you go through an assessment process to become fully mission qualified. And then the next level up is flight lead, and that's the pinnacle is being a flight lead.

• 1:20:41Jack Murphy?

  Awesome. Uh, so before we move on, I mean, any flight stories, ops that you can tell us about that maybe were particularly memorable for you?

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  I mean, there was, there was this one instance where it was like, I think it was like Christmas Eve. It was one, it was an eve of a holiday and we didn't think anything was going to go down that evening. We were all just kind of like, um, hanging out by a bonfire and all of a sudden like our beepers go off. We gotta run to the jock and there's like this vehicle that's approaching. Um, and so we just like sprint to the aircraft and, and take out this vehicle. We're just like in the middle of the night and we were thinking that it was going to be a, a very, very chill evening where we could just kind of hang out, but I don't know. I, I love that kind of, you know, th- those types of instances where it's like, okay, yep, here we go. We're going to do our job. You like change your mindset instantaneously from like relax mode.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  We're like playing video games, just hanging out to, all right, now we're going to go protect the base.

• 1:21:44Jack Murphy?

  Oh, because the base was getting hit?

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Jack Murphy?

  Was this, was this the one down in, uh, down in Soler now?

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  Uh, no, we were in, uh, that was at Dwyer.

• 1:21:58Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:00Jack Murphy?

  Dwyer, that's Helmand, isn't it?

• 1:22:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:22:05Jack Murphy?

  And, and that was like a particularly spicy time, I feel like that you were there in Helmand as well.

• 1:22:10Speaker 03

  It was, it was all right. It really wasn't that spicy. Um, I know like a couple of years before we were there, it was way worse. Um, but I mean, things were still popping off.

• 1:22:22Jack Murphy?

  So, so Charlie was in the wire and you guys had to spin up?

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, in the middle of the night, Christmas Eve, good times.

• 1:22:31Jack Murphy?

  Nothing a few gun runs can't cure.

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  Exactly. It really didn't, it wasn't a very long, uh, operation, if you know what I mean.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  I have a sick, uh, prayer rug from it. Um, I don't know if I should admit that, but whatever. Um, the guys went out and did S S C afterwards and brought us back some, some trinkets.

• 1:22:51Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 1:22:52Speaker 03

  Bullet holes all through it.

• 1:22:58Jack Murphy?

  Hey, man. Shit happens in Helmand. Uh, okay, so two deployments to Afghanistan on the AH-6. You get back home, what's going on after deployment number two? Kind of like, what are you thinking about, you know, your future at this point?

• 1:23:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, um. So I wasn't, if you ask any of my friends, like, there was very little, I guess, like, inkling that I was ever gonna get out of the military. Um, everyone was like, oh, Lynn's gonna be a general one day. Like, this was just like my trajectory. It kind of just like fit the mold. But when I got back and I was serving in a different position, I had left, I left BCO and I was in LNO, so a liaison officer for one of our customers. And, um, I don't know, like, I was just sitting there and I was like, I don't want, I'm not gonna become a warrant officer. I love flying, and if I want to keep flying, then I basically have to become a warrant officer.

• 1:23:56Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  And I was just sitting in this position, like, almost like in an operations role, sitting behind a desk. And I was like, I don't want to do this the rest of my life at all. This isn't exciting to me. Like, out flying and being in the company, that's exciting to me. That gives me life. Um, and so, and then I like looked over to the S3 position and I was like, if I stay in, I will be an S3 in the 160th one day in First Battalion. And I, I already know what they're doing day to day, day in and day out. You know, I'm working as basically like their right-hand man, and I don't want to do that job down the line. It's not where I see myself. So I just kind of like slowly but surely like started to consider other options, you know, getting out of the military or whatever else I kind of wanted to do.

• 1:24:42Speaker 03

  Um, and I sat down with my battalion commander at the time and, and told him, I was like, alright, sir, uh, I am going to get out of the military. And I thought like, at first, he was, I mean, at first, he was definitely like disappointed because I was slated for a command position, um, like all this stuff in the 160th. They had like, you know, I was, I was on the path to do these things. Um, but then after I kind of explained myself to him, I was like, yeah, I feel a little bit intellectually capped. I eventually want to have children. This really is not the place to have kids at all. And, um... He was like, honestly, I kind of wish I made that decision when I was in your shoes. So I was like, oh, that is a sigh of relief for sure. And so from that point on, I kind of just worked on, on my transition and getting out.

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  I applied to-

• 1:25:29Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:25:43Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:25:54Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:25:59Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:26:05Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:26:53Speaker 03

  Well, actually, I started off taking the GRE. That was a nightmare and a half because, I mean, what was it, 10 years since I opened up a book? You know, other than like flying or studying like manuals and dash 10s for aircraft. So re-trying to like learn geometry fucking sucked. And then I applied to a bunch of different businesses. I played at seven business schools. And I did my interview for one of them when I was deployed to Jordan, which was hilarious. And yeah, the rest is history.

• 1:27:24Speaker 06

  Did you, did you at all ever consider going warrant? Or was that just not going to be a thing for you?

• 1:27:31Speaker 03

  I mean, I thought about it. I did some research on it. I talked to people who had done it. Um. It wasn't, it wa- it never made it past like the discussion phase.

• 1:27:41Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  I guess it like, it it never got to the point where I was like, highly, highly considering it.

• 1:27:47Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:27:48Speaker 03

  Um, I did think of it as an option, um, but it didn't really, it didn't really like ma- amount to too, too much.

• 1:27:55Speaker 06

  I imagine that of any place, the one sixtieth might be like, eh eh, I don't know how often officers kind of take that step back. But I imagine of any place, the one sixtieth probably is where, if it happens at all, it's where it happens.

• 1:28:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. There's exactly. And they tell you when you're assessing for the one sixtieth, you get to pick your schedule. Like you get to, you know, like, it's very easy to take vacations with your family. You're always with your kids and all this stuff. And it's just not really the case, especially when you're in the company.

• 1:28:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Speaker 03

  Um, so that was just like an extra layer of

• 1:28:30Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 1:28:30Speaker 03

  of complexity that was put on top of everything.

• 1:28:33Speaker 06

  Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:28:35Jack Murphy?

  So you get into Harvard Business School?

• 1:28:38Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yep. Yeah, I um, I got into all seven business schools that I applied to, which is hilarious. Yeah.

• 1:28:46Jack Murphy?

  That's awesome.

• 1:28:46Speaker 03

  So I got into MIT, um, Wharton, Harvard, which is where I am. I got into Columbia, Kellogg, Booth. I don't know if that's seven, but um, it was, yeah, absolutely. Like would have never thought in a million years that that would have been the case. But I guess business school really loves special operations pilots. Um, and I've just been, I've been here. I'm in Boston right now. I've been here for the past two years. I actually graduate in a couple of weeks.

• 1:29:13Speaker 06

  Wow. What, what was it uh, about Harvard? Was Harvard Boston? Like, why did you choose that of all them?

• 1:29:20Speaker 03

  Um, I Harvard was where I wanted to go. It was my top school um, that I, that I had ambitions to go to. I actually, I think it's in, in my West Point yearbook where I wrote, one day I'll go to Harvard Business School. So again, it was just one of those things I kind of had in the back of my mind that I finally brought to the, to the forefront. And Harvard is. It's a it's a very intense school, especially for a business school. It's very different than anything else that's out there. We have class essentially five days a week. From, you know, early in the morning through the afternoon, that there's no, there's no um electronics in the classroom. So everything has to be handwritten. It's chalkboards, it starts on time. You're not allowed to leave in the middle of class. Like it's very rigorous. It's actually

• 1:30:02Speaker 03

  kind of similar to West Point in a sense. We're not wearing uniforms, but it's I I like that structure and it's all the case methods. So um you read the case, the I it's like a case study on a business before class and then you're expected to know the material before you show up in class. So it's it's a very unique way to learn the material and I enjoyed that because I had a lot to learn coming from ten years in the military to the business world.

• 1:30:30Jack Murphy?

  And what do you see as the next step? You said you're going to graduate in a couple of weeks. What's uh I I sense that you have some direction in life. Where where are you heading to next?

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I started um my husband and I actually started a company together. It's um it's a tech platform. Uh it's called Opely. And essentially what we're doing is we are using AI to predict home maintenance for homeowners. And then auto booking their services for them. So we're creating essentially an operating system for your home. So homeowners don't have to remember to do literally anything in their home and it will it will we've built all of these agents that uh learn your home systems inside and out without any hardware installation on your property. Um and then it'll auto book those services that are most needed through the CRMs of um the home service providers. So

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  saying goodbye to like any of the days of like having to call a plumber or reach out to an HVAC guy, remember to change your filters, all of that. You know, the nuanced things of of being a homeowner, we're just streamlining the entire process.

• 1:31:34Speaker 06

  How who how did you guys come up with that? That's fascinating.

• 1:31:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very, it's very interesting and it's gaining a lot of traction. It's actually growing way faster than we ever thought, which is great. But we so my husband and I actually started our first company. This is our second company. We started our first company when he got out of the military.

• 1:31:54Speaker 03

  And it was in restoration. So we did water, fire, mold remediation. I ran like business operations. He kind of grew the team, scaled the scaled the business to multiple cities. And what we learned was that homeowners just simply had no idea how to maintain their home.

• 1:32:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  And all of these large losses in homes, you know, this water mold, all of these like, you know, things that you had to call insurance companies to come out for and the and the adjusters and everything was due to things that could have been prevented. And it was because homeowners don't know what to do. They don't know where their water shut off valve is. They don't know that they have to flush their water heater annually or get their HVAC system checked up, like all these little types of things. And so we wanted to figure out a way, how can we streamline this process without building another Angie's or Thumbtack, you know, like this antiquated marketplace type of model. And so I just started to do a whole shit ton of research in AI and all of the new developments and everything that's being built.

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  Um, now, and so we have like three patents out on our on our technology. We're a very, very AI native platform that is using the newest technology to completely streamline how homeowners are interacting with their property, like their person, like their residential property that they live in, um, but also if they have multiple properties. So we're, we're trying to get rid of like, just destroy, honestly, all property management companies, um, any type of search, like having to go to Google to search for anything, um, as well as like Thumbtack and Angie's.

• 1:33:25Speaker 06

  So did you, um, did you guys hire out, uh, people to build the AI? Did, did you guys like just, uh, train your own like models to do it? Like, how, how do you guys, that's fascinating. How did you get into it?

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we have a team of two engineers and a product manager that builds everything. They're in-house, like they're part of the Opely team. We actually met our CTO through our, our old business, our insurance guy went to high school with Joel, who's our CTO. So just kind of like these weird connections that we got introduced to him and he's absolutely phenomenal. Has 15 years of like full stack development. He's an ML engineer, like this guy's got it all. And so I can bring the vision to the table and him and Corey, who's our lead DevOps can build it. And it's, it's been work. I mean, you could go into the App Store and download Opely and check it out too.

• 1:34:19Speaker 06

  That's fantastic. I absolutely will. For people who are listening, it's, it's O P L Y or O P?

• 1:34:27Speaker 03

  O P L Y.

• 1:34:28Speaker 06

  Uh, so go to the App Store and download it.

• 1:34:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, give it a download. Check out the website, opely.app. Um, we're on all social media platforms as well. You know, what we're, what we're really trying to do is build trust between the homeowner and the home service provider. Right? Like, I feel like there's just this hatred towards and just like this thought that this guy's going to come in my house. His butt crack's going to be hanging out. He's, he's going to break my vase. It's going to be a nightmare. He's not going to have insurance. And it's just really not the case with a lot of these home service companies. And what we do is we vet every single entity that's, that's part of this ecosystem that we're building. So that homeowners get the best quality, but also don't have to think about anything because it automates it.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

  It, it like, it builds this vector database on your individual home and then we predict exactly what your home needs. And then we, we take care of all the rest of it.

• 1:35:24Speaker 06

  That's amazing.

• 1:35:26Jack Murphy?

  Well, thank you, Lindsay. And is there anything that we haven't asked that you'd really like to talk about before? Do we have any questions, Steve?

• 1:35:37Jack Murphy?

  Anything, anything else that you'd like to bring up or get into that maybe we didn't ask?

• 1:35:42Speaker 03

  No, I mean, not really. Um.

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, this has been really fun. Honestly, it's kind of, it's kind of fun to think back and to remember things. I hope, hopefully it wasn't boring.

• 1:35:52Jack Murphy?

  No, not at all.

• 1:35:54Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's, I, I really, really appreciate you guys having me on.

• 1:35:58Jack Murphy?

  Cool. Yeah, no, I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

• 1:36:00Speaker 13

  All right, we got a couple of questions, uh, from M. Corbin. What is your all time favorite airframe? Also, do you have any funny stories about the Kentucky Air National Guard from the GWAT?

• 1:36:12Speaker 03

  Um, I don't have any funny stories from the Kentucky National Guard. Um, I didn't ever work with them. And then my favorite airframe. I mean, I would argue it's the AH-6. I think it's an absolute fucking beast of an aircraft and I love the mission and the profile.

• 1:36:30Speaker 06

  Was there like a friendly rivalry, rivalry between the AH, AH-6 pilots and the MH-6 pilots in terms of like ability to fly, precision, stuff like that?

• 1:36:42Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. The MH-6 pilots, they're, they're just better pilots. Like they really are. I mean, what those guys do, they land on, you know, the, the edge of a rooftop and they've got four dudes hanging off the side. It's, it's a completely different profile. Now, if you put an MH-6 pilot in the cockpit of an AH-6, they can't shoot for shit. Like it's just, it's a totally different dynamic. Like you just learn how to, it's almost like a different airframe. Flies different, feels different. Um, and the profiles are so different, but there's, there's like a, a fun rivalry. There's a couple of guys that, um, especially in the company, one of my good friends, he was an MH-6 pilot. Uh, and then came over to fly the AH-6. So it, it does happen.

• 1:37:21Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, I'm always, you know, obviously the, the, you know, the AH-6s are a godsend. But I've always been just so impressed by, you know, uh, by the other pilots.

• 1:37:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:35Speaker 06

  The way they can deliver, you know, troops on target and stuff.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it's, that's just like what the one, that's like the mission of the 160th, obviously plus or minus, like arrive on ti- time on target plus or minus 30 seconds.

• 1:37:46Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:37:46Speaker 03

  So it's, and they land, I mean, skids down on that building exactly when they need to.

• 1:37:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:37:52Speaker 03

  So the customer can always depend that we'll get them there on time.

• 1:37:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:37:57Speaker 13

  Alrighty, we have a couple more. Thoughts on the MV22 offspray? Has the 160th ever considered using this airframe?

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  So, to my knowledge, no, the 160th has not considered using it. My thoughts on it, I think it's an incredible piece of technology. The fact that it can basically lift as if it's a helicopter, but fly as if it's a plane. But I do find it to have a lot of technical challenges, mechanical challenges. I mean, it's caused a lot of issues, a lot of deaths. So I think it's a very risky aircraft. If whoever's asking the question is considering possibly flying one one day. Just, obviously, there are offspray pilots that are out there. But I personally think that it's just kind of one of those aircrafts that may fade away into the distance over time just because there's a lot of assumed risk around the technicality of the airframe itself.

• 1:38:54Speaker 06

  What do you think of, you know, because they've talked about getting rid of AC130s, A10s? I mean, and this is supposed to, isn't this supposed to replace the Blackhawk?

• 1:39:04Jack Murphy?

  No, there's a new aircraft that's coming out to replace the Blackhawk.

• 1:39:08Speaker 06

  You know, what do you think of? Do you think that our military, especially when it comes to airframes?

• 1:39:17Speaker 06

  Do you think that they have a realistic view of like what we need and what works? Or do you think that they look at these shiny objects and go, well, this will replace what we have when there's no reason to replace what we have?

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think like history paints a good picture here. So if you think about like where we started and where we're at right now, there's, there is obviously some difference in the helicopters that we've adopted over time. But like, where I think the military, and this is just Lindsay's opinion, and I'm not really tied into the space at this point. I haven't really kept up with the newest technology. But I don't, I don't think that autonomous aircraft is necessarily the answer, like without pilots physically in the aircraft making the decisions, because we can't even get cars to be autonomous these days. Successfully, but I do think that there's a huge opportunity for drones to kind of

• 1:40:10Speaker 03

  take the forefront of where aviation is. I think that's, that's like the next frontier of, of aviation in terms of warfighting, especially in the types of wars that we might find ourselves, you know, getting into against those adversaries. The drone capacity, I think, is, is a very unique tactical approach to, to win some of these types of wars.

• 1:40:34Speaker 13

  All right, we got one more. What was it like flying with Nods?

• 1:40:40Speaker 03

  I mean, it took me a while to, to get used to it, but I ended up absolutely loved flying at night. It was not a problem for me. I had, I kind of picked it up pretty quick, I think, just coming off of like 25 hours flying with it under the 64 and then getting into the 160th where it's, that's all you do is fly at night under Nods. We had, we had white phosphor, so it wasn't like a green picture. It was white. And honestly, it was almost like flying in daytime, especially if there was high lume.

• 1:41:13Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Speaker 13

  One more. Have you ever supported any marine units?

• 1:41:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, we worked with, we definitely worked with the Marines for sure. Good group of guys. Marsoc was pretty much the ones that we would work with the most.

• 1:41:32Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:41:46Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:41:57Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:42:02Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:42:08Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:42:28Speaker 10

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Jack Murphy?

  Cool. Lindsay, thank you for doing this interview, joining us on the show tonight.

• 1:43:11Jack Murphy?

  Again, people can go check out the app. It's called Oply, out on the app stores right now, and presumably they can find, you have a website, or any social media presences that you want to clue people into.

• 1:43:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, everything is just going to be oply underscore app. That's all our social media, so O P L Y underscore A P P. And then our website is just oply.app.

• 1:43:34Jack Murphy?

  And what about you? If people want to follow you, are you present on social media?

• 1:43:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just my name, Lindsay Crisman. I think on Instagram, I don't have a TikTok, but my Instagram, I think, is just Lindsay dot Crisman.

• 1:43:48Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:43:49Speaker 03

  And then LinkedIn, you'll find me there, too.

• 1:43:52Jack Murphy?

  Awesome. Thanks a lot for doing the show, and we will talk to everybody out there soon. Thanks, and please stay in touch.

• 1:44:01Speaker 03

  Definitely. Thanks, guys.

• 1:44:04Jack Murphy?

  Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show, if you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this. You can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com/the Team House. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of The Team House ad-free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast, Eyes On, with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, McMulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad-free.

• 1:44:37Jack Murphy?

  And you support the channel and the show and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business, survive, especially during our early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going even as we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page. And there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop. So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have patches. And I should mention, if you sign up for Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail you this patch as well.

• 1:45:21Jack Murphy?

  So we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch shop. And additionally, they got t-shirts up there, water bottles, a tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff. So please go and check them out and support the show. We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

• 1:45:43Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:45:58Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:46:09Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:46:14Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:46:20Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:46:40Speaker 12

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:47:16Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:47:31Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:47:42Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:47:47Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:47:53Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:48:13Speaker 12

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:48:49Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:49:03Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:49:14Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:49:20Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:49:25Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:49:45Speaker 12

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:50:22Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:50:37Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:50:48Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:50:53Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:50:59Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:51:19Speaker 10

  Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:51:50Speaker 00

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects, such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems, have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair,

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:52:49Speaker 10

  Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.