Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys in the community. All right, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of Software Radio today. Excited
Speaker 1: to have Senator Martha mccally, retired colonel's fighter pilot and
Speaker 1: a senator from Arizona. First woman to fly in combat,
Speaker 1: first to command a fighter squadron, incredibly impressive. And she
Speaker 1: has a new book out today called Dare to Fly,
Speaker 1: Simple Lessons and Never Giving Up. Which excited to read
Speaker 1: the book, which I will. I'm gonna have you back
Speaker 1: on the show, but please support her and go get
Speaker 1: the book. From what I could see, it's it's something
Speaker 1: that would be incredibly useful, especially in an environment like today.
Speaker 1: We we're dealing with a lot of adversity. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being on the show, Martha, and excited to get kind
Speaker 1: of dive in. Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Brandon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and never when I decided to publish it, I never
Speaker 1: would have imagined we'd be facing the challenges we are
Speaker 1: right now. But the lessons are certainly timeless about how
Speaker 1: to overcome your fear and persevere get through adversity. I've
Speaker 1: had some unique experiences, but we all have common human
Speaker 1: experiences of how to deal with some of these really
Speaker 1: difficult things and break through them, break through those barriers
Speaker 1: and find your courage and find some good wingman and
Speaker 1: thrive through the darkness. So there's a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: of good lessons in there that are applicable today. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: for sure, I would love to get into your kind
Speaker 1: of origin story where you where did you grow up,
Speaker 1: What made you decide to join the Air Force academy,
Speaker 1: what made you get interested in aviation, and kind of
Speaker 1: like bring us to speaking with where you're at today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I do share share a lot of this in
Speaker 1: my book, but it is important to do what motivates us. So.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Rhode Island, the youngest of five kids.
Speaker 1: My dad came from very humble circumstances. His dad passed
Speaker 1: away before was born, his mom passed away when he
Speaker 1: was a teenager. He started working at age eight and
Speaker 1: never stopped. But he's a great American story of through
Speaker 1: hard work and people believing in him and serving in
Speaker 1: the military and using his g I Bill, he was
Speaker 1: able to get a good education and it really drove
Speaker 1: him for a passion to make a better life for
Speaker 1: his kids and also serve others. I benefited from all that.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that growing up. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a middle class family, very stable, really was told
Speaker 1: I could be anything I wanted to be. And when
Speaker 1: I was twelve years all between sixth and seventh grade,
Speaker 1: my life was turned upside down and my dad very
Speaker 1: suddenly passed away. We were just hanging out together on
Speaker 1: the beach one day as a family, and he later
Speaker 1: went up to lie down, wasn't feeling well, went upstairs
Speaker 1: while we were, you know, outside playing like kids used
Speaker 1: to do, and uh came inside afterwards and found out
Speaker 1: that my brother had drove him and my mom to
Speaker 1: the hospital. They came back that night and my mom
Speaker 1: said my dad had suffered a heart attack. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know what that was, but he he was stable
Speaker 1: and we were gonna need to help in his recovery.
Speaker 1: And I remember not going to bed with any fear, thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: we get to take care of dad. And my dad
Speaker 1: knew in his spirit, even though he was stable, that
Speaker 1: in his spirit he knew he was gonna die. So
Speaker 1: when the middle of the night, in a trench of rainstorm.
Speaker 1: He said, get my children now, I need to talk
Speaker 1: to my children, and so we were rushed to the
Speaker 1: hospital to spend time with them. I didn't really understand it,
Speaker 1: but I get to visit with him, talk about the
Speaker 1: mundane things in life like many of your listeners talked
Speaker 1: about to their love ones today, but also school and
Speaker 1: sports and siblings and other things the dog. But also
Speaker 1: in that conversation he told me to make them proud.
Speaker 1: The next day he had another heart attack and left us.
Speaker 1: And he propelled me on this path through grief, through questioning,
Speaker 1: through trying to find my own way and my mom.
Speaker 1: Then going back to school and back to work with
Speaker 1: five kids as a single mom. And I was just
Speaker 1: looking for an opportunity to get a good education, not
Speaker 1: sat on my mom with debt. I had no idea
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. I mean, I was a
Speaker 1: motion sick, shy kid, very sheltered, and I ended up
Speaker 1: kind of stumbling into go into the Air Force Academy
Speaker 1: and I got in. I decided to give it a chance,
Speaker 1: so that you know, you pay back in service instead
Speaker 1: of student loans. And I thought it would also channel
Speaker 1: my energy into something positive. I was spicy, little rebellious.
Speaker 1: I thought I could go either way, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be channeled into a positive challenge, and so
Speaker 1: off I went. I wanted to be a doctor, but
Speaker 1: when I got there, I found out that just because
Speaker 1: I as a girl, I couldn't be a fighter pilot.
Speaker 1: And it just made me mad. And so I decided
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I wanted to channeled my rebelliousness into
Speaker 1: like a dream instead. Right, Yeah, that's great. I mean
Speaker 1: I had a similar story about it. I got kicked
Speaker 1: out of the hall and sixteen we were on a
Speaker 1: family sailing trip, so it was like kicked out of
Speaker 1: the boat into heati sailed back at sixteen, living on
Speaker 1: the boat. I grew up working on a school boat.
Speaker 1: The owner let me kind of finished my senior year,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what the hell to do. So
Speaker 1: I'll joined the Navy for for college for the GI bill.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think you agree with me, Like,
Speaker 1: if you don't know what your purposes, the military will
Speaker 1: help you figure it out really quick. Absolutely, Just there's
Speaker 1: so many young, many women. It just gives them the purpose,
Speaker 1: the direction, the discipline. Exactly. It's a it's a great
Speaker 1: place to to go find what you're made of and
Speaker 1: give you direction some My oldest son, han Or, was
Speaker 1: born when I was in af Gas now and still
Speaker 1: Team three rout after No. Eleven and he just graduating
Speaker 1: as a senior this year, and I tried to talk
Speaker 1: him into going into the Air Force Academy. He's like, Dad,
Speaker 1: I don't know if people telling me what to do,
Speaker 1: Like all right, but he's going to go study computer
Speaker 1: science and probably Scotland next year. Andrews. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: how we all like make these decisions as teenagers, you know,
Speaker 1: and they start start pushing the path of your life.
Speaker 1: But I mean you're teenagers, so like you know, if
Speaker 1: you made a different decision on Tuesday versus Wednesday, you
Speaker 1: may have ended up in a very different different Yeah.
Speaker 1: My biggest thing to him was his follower heart. Whatever
Speaker 1: you're passionate about and take risk, good lessons. What is
Speaker 1: your most challenging kind of situation you've dealt with post military?
Speaker 1: I mean I read the New York Times piece. I
Speaker 1: gt a pretty good sense to your career, and I
Speaker 1: love the story of you wearing the men's garrison cap.
Speaker 1: Change the command because I'm like, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a pretty My parents were spies, right,
Speaker 1: so I grew up in a pretty liberal household. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, why can't we all just be the same, Like,
Speaker 1: what the hell do we need to have like different
Speaker 1: different hats. And I read that piece. I was just
Speaker 1: cracking myself up so that that was actually a hilarious
Speaker 1: example by the way of the media of my one
Speaker 1: of my first early experiences of the media, you know,
Speaker 1: with their own agenda taking things out of context. When
Speaker 1: we first went to keep a fighter pilot, that was
Speaker 1: the hat the fighter pilots war, and they put a
Speaker 1: crush in the back of their hat, and the regulations
Speaker 1: did not say that women couldn't wear that hat. And
Speaker 1: I literally had the commanders saying, you better wear that hat.
Speaker 1: The other hat, the male hat, right, looks like a well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't describe it, but anyway, it's just different,
Speaker 1: and you can't put the crush in the back. And
Speaker 1: so I was doing what my leaders told to do.
Speaker 1: And I and me and many of the women pilots
Speaker 1: have been wearing that hat all along. And little did
Speaker 1: I know that some uniform board had met and somebody
Speaker 1: teed up a recommendation to get rid of the women's hat.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about this, and so there I
Speaker 1: was taking the guide on wearing the same hat that
Speaker 1: I've been wearing for years with women information out there
Speaker 1: in my squadron wearing the same hat as me. And
Speaker 1: right after I took over command, the next morning, I
Speaker 1: go out in my backyard and my next door neighbor says,
Speaker 1: you're on the front page of the paper. And I
Speaker 1: said for what, And they said, some hat controversy. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the next morning, but I was like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about, you know, on this challenging the hating.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have no idea. It was literally made up,
Speaker 1: Like the controversy was made up. My first experience of
Speaker 1: the media just making things up for their own agenda. Man, yeah,
Speaker 1: great context because I read it and I was looking
Speaker 1: at it from a different angle. So what about your transition, right,
Speaker 1: I know it's it's tough, at least for me. When
Speaker 1: I got out. You're in such like a regimented schedule,
Speaker 1: you can trust people, and then you're out in the
Speaker 1: wild and it's kind of a totally different environment. But
Speaker 1: what's one of your biggest challenges post military. Well, I retired.
Speaker 1: I was serving overseas at the time, and I got
Speaker 1: selected to be a professor at a place called the
Speaker 1: Marshall Center, and so I stayed overseas and I was
Speaker 1: teaching in national security studies. So I was still around,
Speaker 1: you know, the security culture, you know, US national security culture.
Speaker 1: But I just felt this conviction and called a duty
Speaker 1: as I was seeing what was going on in our
Speaker 1: politics in Washington, d C. That I maybe needed to
Speaker 1: step up and do more. And I tried to lie
Speaker 1: down to that feeling in away after you know, serving
Speaker 1: all those years, I had served as a legislative fellow,
Speaker 1: so I had worked for Senator John Kyle instead of
Speaker 1: going off to Air Command and Staff College. So it
Speaker 1: was just part of my national security education that I
Speaker 1: was given to the Air Force. But I didn't walk
Speaker 1: away from that was back in the nineties and then
Speaker 1: walk away like, oh, I want to run for office
Speaker 1: some day. Some people love the politics. I can't stand
Speaker 1: the politics, but I love to make it. You know.
Speaker 1: I love to fix things that are broken. I love
Speaker 1: to make things that are wrong right. I love to
Speaker 1: give people a voice who don't have a voice. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the passion and purpose of my life. And so
Speaker 1: as I was feeling this call to duty to maybe
Speaker 1: step up and run for office, I really had to
Speaker 1: think through is this the is this the best way
Speaker 1: to serve at this moment in time? And I you know,
Speaker 1: I stepped into the to the ring to run. I
Speaker 1: had no political experience at all, and eventually, I mean
Speaker 1: it took I thought I had one. In twelve when
Speaker 1: I first ran, I went to freshman orientation, voted for
Speaker 1: the speaker, but they counted ballots for fourteen more days
Speaker 1: and ended up losing by point eight four percent. And
Speaker 1: then I ran again in twenty fourteen and I won
Speaker 1: by whopping hundred and sixty seven votes after a forty
Speaker 1: three day recount out And so my new call signs landslide.
Speaker 1: So you know, since I've been in the House and
Speaker 1: now in the Senate, I think, you know, this is
Speaker 1: I look at it like as a continuation of my service.
Speaker 1: It's the same oath of office that I took as
Speaker 1: an officer. But as you mentioned, like it's so frustrating
Speaker 1: when you don't know who you can trust and you
Speaker 1: know you're you're looking for people who have a similar
Speaker 1: mindset of the core values that we had in the
Speaker 1: military service before self integrity, first, excellence, and all we
Speaker 1: do are the Air Force core values. All the services
Speaker 1: have them. They're about service and duty and honor and
Speaker 1: country and sacrifice. And you know, it's just it's not
Speaker 1: what Washington, d C thrives on unfortunately, So trying to
Speaker 1: be effective in the midst of the insanity and the
Speaker 1: show horsing and the politicizing of everything in d C
Speaker 1: and the media, it's just it's been extremely difficult. But
Speaker 1: I just stay, you know, focused on what can I
Speaker 1: do today to make a difference, same like I do
Speaker 1: and everything in my life. What can I do today
Speaker 1: in this environment to make a difference. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest eye openers though, was how the
Speaker 1: media treating me for the longest time when I was
Speaker 1: breaking barriers to become a fighter pilot and taking on
Speaker 1: the Pentagon for making our women where burkas. Like the media,
Speaker 1: the mainstream media loved my story. Until I became a
Speaker 1: Republican candidate for Congress, not so much. Yeah, God, I
Speaker 1: could tell you stories. I mean, I I run and
Speaker 1: own a media company today that we we had a
Speaker 1: group in New York bring us in to talk about
Speaker 1: acquiring uh UM, and I'll just go ahead and say
Speaker 1: it. It It was a group nine media had two meetings
Speaker 1: when one of the Court Development guys pulled me aside
Speaker 1: on the second meeting. He's like, yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: just got words from top down. We we just don't
Speaker 1: think this is a cultural fit for us. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what the hell are you talking about. And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, you know, your military guys and the
Speaker 1: founders put you know, see an office and they just
Speaker 1: really don't see a fit here. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you don't even like we haven't even had to talk
Speaker 1: about politics, like, but they just judge you. And it's
Speaker 1: like there is for sure with liberal media and bias
Speaker 1: that exist. And I used to have a lot of
Speaker 1: respects in your time, and you can have your opinions
Speaker 1: about about Trump, but the bias is just out of hand.
Speaker 1: It's so bad. I'm now in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: I mean I saw it from you know, just as
Speaker 1: a citizen, but I'm now in the middle of it
Speaker 1: every single day, and it's just it's so bad. It's
Speaker 1: unfortunate because people in the country deserve to have a professional,
Speaker 1: objective media getting them the facts and letting them decide
Speaker 1: their own views and their own opinions. And the mainstream
Speaker 1: media are just beside themselves, like they just it's so
Speaker 1: bad and it's so blatant, and it's just unfortunate because
Speaker 1: the country deserves better. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I
Speaker 1: had another question for you, if you had a magic
Speaker 1: wand what would you change to kind of remake America
Speaker 1: for the better? Given that it seems like to me,
Speaker 1: you know, we've lost our path with foreign policy. It's
Speaker 1: it's like the schizophrenic fan policy. We're behind in so
Speaker 1: many sectors. Like I'm at this course at Harvard Business
Speaker 1: School now for business owners and and listening to my classmates,
Speaker 1: like we're so far behind fintech and telemedicine and education, healthcare.
Speaker 1: So he had that magic wand like, what what would
Speaker 1: you change because it seems like we need to get
Speaker 1: back together. Well, we don't want to have a magic
Speaker 1: wand so, but I do think that this crisis we're
Speaker 1: going through right now, as awful and as unprecedented and
Speaker 1: as diary it has been towards lives and livelihoods. I
Speaker 1: think there is an opportunity for us to wake up
Speaker 1: on some things. And specifically, I mean my focus is
Speaker 1: on China. You know, China has been in plane sight.
Speaker 1: You know, for those of us who serve, we've been
Speaker 1: seeing the rise of China for the last decades in
Speaker 1: plain sight. They have been on a path to replace
Speaker 1: us as the world leader, and they've been taking advantage
Speaker 1: of our free society, are economic setup, you know, investing
Speaker 1: in and allowing outsourcing of our critical national security and
Speaker 1: healthcare needs to China. They're cheating either legally by the
Speaker 1: way that they make people do business in China by
Speaker 1: scooping up their technology or or just cyber attacking stealing
Speaker 1: our technology. But they're also like investing in our infrastructure
Speaker 1: in America, and there's cities who are allowing it for
Speaker 1: you know, for them to be bidding with Chinese owned
Speaker 1: companies for public transportation and major cities, which is a
Speaker 1: national security risk, and what they're doing in our research
Speaker 1: institutions and universities. So I think the coronavirus has been
Speaker 1: a wake up call that China has been on the rise,
Speaker 1: that we have been a bit asleep at the switch.
Speaker 1: Our European allies even more so. And if we now
Speaker 1: work together, we can bring that manufacturing home. We can
Speaker 1: continue to be the leader in technology. Let's not outsource it.
Speaker 1: We've got the best, we have the best minds here
Speaker 1: in America. We've got to make sure that we ensure
Speaker 1: our future for national security, for health security, for other things.
Speaker 1: And we've got to stop allowing China to cheat. I
Speaker 1: think this is the biggest challenge of these next years.
Speaker 1: The window is closing, and it's the biggest challenge of
Speaker 1: these next years going forward. And there's things we can
Speaker 1: do about it with our foreign policy, with our economic policy,
Speaker 1: and because of the virus especially, I think Americans are
Speaker 1: going to demand that the outsourcing of our our ppe
Speaker 1: and our medicines and everything that it comes home to America.
Speaker 1: And it's important that we do that. There's so many
Speaker 1: things that we need to do, but that's the one
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on right now. Yeah, I think people are
Speaker 1: shocked to find that most of the prescription medicine was
Speaker 1: being manufactured in China. For talk about a supply chain risk. Right,
Speaker 1: critical minerals that are needed for our defense systems. They're
Speaker 1: all rare earth minerals, they're all in China. They're all
Speaker 1: being manufactured process in China. Minded China. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I was watching like just the Huaweisu, which I agree
Speaker 1: with MS handling it quick kind of China bullying Germany
Speaker 1: and the EU, like well we're you know, they're buying
Speaker 1: a lot of automobiles. You better let Hahwei continue to operate.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't believe what we were saying related
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus and related to technology and these other things,
Speaker 1: look at what they're doing in Hong Kong. And they
Speaker 1: have an agreement in that starting in for the next
Speaker 1: fifty years in Hong Kong would have its freedoms and
Speaker 1: way of life and autonomy. And now they're basically with
Speaker 1: a vote that they may do this week, they're basically
Speaker 1: reneging on that, starting the path to take over Hong Kong. Like,
Speaker 1: wake up, We need to wake up. China is not
Speaker 1: our friend. They're adversary and they want to replace us.
Speaker 1: We're stronger and better, but we need our European allies
Speaker 1: to wake up, and we need to be using all
Speaker 1: elements of national power in order to stop them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with one of my HBS
Speaker 1: classmate who's a billionaire from China, and she we were
Speaker 1: talking about just how they handled the coronavirus and she's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, like it's well known, like China kind of said,
Speaker 1: we need to let this out in the world or else,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to be the only one with
Speaker 1: the economic disaster on our hands. And just the fact
Speaker 1: that they like thought, we're just gonna unleashed this to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world for our own self interests,
Speaker 1: it's just so up. We still don't know who patients
Speaker 1: was right. We still don't know exactly where it came from.
Speaker 1: We do know by a study done in the UK
Speaker 1: that had they acted three weeks earlier, percent of the
Speaker 1: cases could have been stopped. We do know that they
Speaker 1: restricted travel internally, but they did not restrict travel internationally,
Speaker 1: and they continue on a cover up. They blame the
Speaker 1: U S Army. They lied to their own people. They
Speaker 1: were welding people into their own homes, left to die.
Speaker 1: I mean, their solitary and regime is ruthless, and they're
Speaker 1: on a continued propaganda campaign to the world and to
Speaker 1: their own people to cover it up. This is their
Speaker 1: Chernobyl moment. There's going to be you know, a mini
Speaker 1: series about this some time in the future. But this
Speaker 1: is also our spot nic moment where we can wake up, unite,
Speaker 1: put all of our energy together, and make sure that
Speaker 1: we stop the path that they are on. Yeah, I agree,
Speaker 1: a better time to wake up to that, because it
Speaker 1: just seemed like nobody was paying attention. Even one of
Speaker 1: my friends, Josh is the former CMO of the Intermedia,
Speaker 1: and we're having this conversation just about TikTok, which is
Speaker 1: just kind of stayed owned social media platform, Like I
Speaker 1: don't see this lastly too much longer in America because
Speaker 1: they're just collecting intel on on all of us, Like
Speaker 1: what how could nobody's saying anything all these American influencers
Speaker 1: or promoting everywhere and it's just you know what I
Speaker 1: have been lately on I am going to introduce legislation
Speaker 1: that allows people to know when they shop online whether
Speaker 1: something is made in China or made in America. If
Speaker 1: you go to the store, you can look on a
Speaker 1: label of the clothing or if you're going to buy
Speaker 1: dog biscuits. But when I'm shopping on Amazon, I can't tell.
Speaker 1: And I've had some conversations as I'm trying to order
Speaker 1: some things on Amazon, saying excuse me, where is your company?
Speaker 1: Where are things made? And as soon as they come
Speaker 1: back and Nina, I say something like, your communist government
Speaker 1: is responsible for many American deaths and I'm not buying this,
Speaker 1: you know, And but I want to know something made
Speaker 1: in China is something made in America. We deserve to
Speaker 1: have that information so we can make good choices. Agree
Speaker 1: onto some light of subject. What are you still flying today?
Speaker 1: Are you active or not so much? Oh? I have
Speaker 1: my paragliding license, so I do paraglide from time to time. Um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing getting out in the mountains and and
Speaker 1: flying nearly like a bird. I do have my private
Speaker 1: license as well, and from time to time, when I'm
Speaker 1: going out to the rural areas in Arizona, I will
Speaker 1: fly in a little plane. I always have a safety
Speaker 1: pilot with me because I'm, you know, to subscribed and
Speaker 1: distracted trying to solve the problems of the country, to
Speaker 1: be doing good risk management and planning. But it's great
Speaker 1: to get careborn anytime, anytime I can. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: love to try her gliding. I ended up falling in
Speaker 1: with a group of guys that the former Air Force,
Speaker 1: Marine Corps Navy pilots, and they have this kind of
Speaker 1: underground fight club in San Diego. We meet up twice
Speaker 1: a year to do a c M and yacts. Most
Speaker 1: of the planes are the activities. These guys just trained
Speaker 1: me up because I always actually my childhood dream was
Speaker 1: to be a pilot. I just weird, weird being homeschooled
Speaker 1: on and off, I just didn't have the grades to
Speaker 1: go into the any of academies. But yeah, I got
Speaker 1: my form card with those guys. Now like fighting two
Speaker 1: fighters and four bandits and fighter block and it's just
Speaker 1: like extremely extremely fun and a great, great group of guys.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, that's really cool. Well, you know some
Speaker 1: stories in my in my book about flying the A ten.
Speaker 1: First takeoff is solo. There's no two seat models, there's
Speaker 1: no simulators, never flown the airplane before, and then some
Speaker 1: combat sorties and uh the Canyon and Afghanistan in particular.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing plane. I mean I missed the you know,
Speaker 1: flying a little so many plan is not quite the
Speaker 1: same as doing closer support and talking to an American
Speaker 1: on the ground under fire and figuring out where the
Speaker 1: good guys and where the bad guys are, and then
Speaker 1: delivering firepower so they can get home with their family
Speaker 1: safely and live to fight another day. Yeah. No, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Some great, great stories in the book. I actually when
Speaker 1: I was guest and we were there around October two,
Speaker 1: dover one to February two, to one of the first
Speaker 1: mine lines I got to call in. It was actually
Speaker 1: a woman pilot and I think she was the Air
Speaker 1: Force pilot. And then I come back home and I'm
Speaker 1: at my brother in law's wedding and I'm telling the
Speaker 1: story and like, oh, do you know, like she's a
Speaker 1: pilot over there in the Air Force and it was her,
Speaker 1: Like that's crazy. Yeah, because we we had to call
Speaker 1: back controllers that touched to our steal tune, and those
Speaker 1: guys were just excellent on the radio, but they got
Speaker 1: so bored calling it all this fire like oh, that
Speaker 1: they just started letting us do the fireness of ourselves.
Speaker 1: So yeah, crazy. When I to the A ten, I
Speaker 1: loved the plane. I was doing cast training out on
Speaker 1: their Valgus and that one of amazing. It's incredible. I
Speaker 1: had the choice of the F fifteen, the F fifteen
Speaker 1: E F sixteen, F one eleven or A ten, and
Speaker 1: I picked the A ten. It's the folklore is that
Speaker 1: they built the thirty millimeter gun, which is like the
Speaker 1: size of a passenger car and as far as length
Speaker 1: length goes, and then they went to the engineers and said,
Speaker 1: figure out how to fly this gun. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true, but it sounds cool. It's ugly. It's
Speaker 1: survivalbal We can take direct hits. We can lose all
Speaker 1: our hydraulics, are electrics, flight controls, damage to the to
Speaker 1: the wings, and still lose one engine and still fly
Speaker 1: back to friendly territory safely. It was really built to
Speaker 1: being down and dirty. We got the titanium bathtub around
Speaker 1: us in the cockpit to protect us from small arms fire.
Speaker 1: It's just extraordinary. There's nothing like it, you know. I
Speaker 1: picked it. It's we're like the uh not the fast
Speaker 1: moving culture of our air force at the time. It
Speaker 1: was not the top pick of most people, but I
Speaker 1: chose it because I just thought it was an awesome mission. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great mission, great great plane. And so even the trainer
Speaker 1: is not a two C, just a single there were
Speaker 1: there were no two C trainer. They built a couple
Speaker 1: of two seaters in the initial making of the A ten.
Speaker 1: I think one of them crashed. There's one any museum somewhere,
Speaker 1: but they never operationalized it, so there were no simulators
Speaker 1: at the time that I went through training their simulators. Now,
Speaker 1: so your first flight solo, and you've got your instructor
Speaker 1: pilot in the plane next to you, but you've never
Speaker 1: clowed the plane before you've been through I mean, you
Speaker 1: have your pilot wings, so you're an aviator, but you've
Speaker 1: never flown that plane. And you've had three weeks of
Speaker 1: very intense training on all the procedures, all the systems,
Speaker 1: all the emergencies. But I remember, like it was yesterday
Speaker 1: when they cleared me for takeoff that first time, and
Speaker 1: I just thought I was gonna throw up. And I
Speaker 1: was like, never flowed this way before. And so I
Speaker 1: talked about in that in my book like this as
Speaker 1: a practical example of how you learn to do things afraid.
Speaker 1: You could either let fear overpower you and I could
Speaker 1: have just taxied back in and I would have just
Speaker 1: taken a different path in life. But instead I pushed
Speaker 1: up the power and I took off afraid. I reached
Speaker 1: back to other experiences in my life growing up where
Speaker 1: I was able to push through fear, and I talked
Speaker 1: about that like as an athlete, almost build muscle memory,
Speaker 1: you know, to build your courage, And but it didn't
Speaker 1: mean it was an absence of fear. It meant that
Speaker 1: I actually chose to move forward in the midst of
Speaker 1: my fear. And then you realize that the fear doesn't
Speaker 1: have power over you. And of course, once I got airborne,
Speaker 1: I I had a sigh of relief. I looked over
Speaker 1: at my wingman and I could see or my instructor pilot,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, hey, ma'am an a ten pilot. And
Speaker 1: it was about a ten year dream in the making.
Speaker 1: And then I remember being terrified of the thought like
Speaker 1: I got to figure out how to land this thing.
Speaker 1: I get about two yes, yeah, no. I think what
Speaker 1: you're saying about fearing incredibly powerful. Right when you and
Speaker 1: may got a habit in life, it's just very few
Speaker 1: things can hold you back. I transitioned from a Yak
Speaker 1: fifty two, which is the Russian trainer, to a Yak fifty,
Speaker 1: which is a single seed plane the Russians designer to
Speaker 1: compete on the world. They're about e stage and same thing,
Speaker 1: single seat. I was sitting in the Born and horse
Speaker 1: Power tail dragger radio engine. I'm sitting in there like
Speaker 1: doing all the emergency procedures, visualize everything, and one of
Speaker 1: the Air Force kind of pilot mentor guys walked over bones.
Speaker 1: He's all that four guys like you're gonna fly that
Speaker 1: damn saying or what that was like my my duds.
Speaker 1: Very different platform, but I had that same feeling, which
Speaker 1: should I've never flown this plane before and then it's
Speaker 1: amazing plane to fly and saying I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna land it right, So it's yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we realized as pilot's like, well, if you
Speaker 1: push up the power and you let off the brakes,
Speaker 1: eventually air play, I'm gonna get Airborn when it picks
Speaker 1: up an up Steve right the hard Everyone listening, please
Speaker 1: go get Dare to Fly, Dare to Fly dot you
Speaker 1: so people can get it there. But they also can
Speaker 1: share their own stories because I need to be inspired
Speaker 1: every day too, so they can contact me. It won't
Speaker 1: be public to anybody else. I'd love to hear any
Speaker 1: inspiring stories that can encourage me and others during this time.
Speaker 1: So awesome. I would love to have you back on
Speaker 1: I know you've got a busy schedule with gay job
Speaker 1: as a sign and publishing the book, but I love
Speaker 1: to have you back, love to support your re election.
Speaker 1: Did anything we can do help please let us Thanks Brandon.
Speaker 1: Everybody be safe out there and go to Dare to
Speaker 1: Fly dot us. I've had some unique stories and experiences,
Speaker 1: but we can all relate to fear and resilience and
Speaker 1: perseverance and overcoming barriers and so hopefully it can inspire
Speaker 1: you in your own walk and your own jour need today.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview.
Speaker 1: Pretty fascinating just to learn a little bit about Martha's story.
Speaker 1: Her PR folks reached out to us, and I did
Speaker 1: a lot of digging um into the background, and you know,
Speaker 1: she dealt with so much adversity, and I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get into it on the interview because
Speaker 1: she kind of already talk about this and it had
Speaker 1: been reported on. But she was Martha was actually a
Speaker 1: victim of a rape in the Air Force and shows
Speaker 1: not to press charges and came out about about a
Speaker 1: month later and spoke about it openly as a politician,
Speaker 1: but pretty fascinating just how she really being the first
Speaker 1: is never easy. Just a lot of respect for her
Speaker 1: and kind of pushing the boundaries, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: if you read it in her book. She was actually
Speaker 1: five five ft three, which was at the time not
Speaker 1: high enough to be a pilot in the Air Force,
Speaker 1: and ended up getting pushing to get a waiver, pushing
Speaker 1: to become the first combat pilot. Just overcoming like adversity
Speaker 1: after adversity. So then, like she said, talk about her
Speaker 1: father literally on her father's deathbed, you know, just make
Speaker 1: me proud. Pretty powerful stuff, which which shows you how
Speaker 1: powerful words can be in general. But amazing career in
Speaker 1: the Air Force, you know, she went on to retire
Speaker 1: as a colonel, was the first woman to command a
Speaker 1: fighter squadron. Uh, and now doing something that you know,
Speaker 1: a few people ask me if I was interested that
Speaker 1: in running from politics, and I just it's just not
Speaker 1: something I wanted to do because I had enough friends
Speaker 1: in politics to understand that, you know, in today's world,
Speaker 1: as a politician, every everything is fair game. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: want to subject myself and my family to this kind
Speaker 1: of scrutiny and asking us that it takes to be
Speaker 1: a modern politician. But a lot of respect for presentator
Speaker 1: Nick Sally and what she's doing just to continue to sermon.
Speaker 1: And she's essentially devoted her life to making this country
Speaker 1: a better place to live. So lots of respect for her.
Speaker 1: We'll definitely have her back on accounting. Could call Scott
Speaker 1: Kelly and centem a text and give me give him
Speaker 1: a hard time. I did remember reading it is it
Speaker 1: knows of you don't remember Scott Scott, the longest American
Speaker 1: in space. We had him on the show a while back,
Speaker 1: was an astronaut. Admitted to me actually that he was
Speaker 1: afraid to apply for the astronaut program because he didn't
Speaker 1: think it was good enough. It just shows that you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta push you this here some time and a
Speaker 1: lot of time. It's much worse in your head than
Speaker 1: in reality makes it. But I can't wait to be
Speaker 1: a Scott a hard time because if his twin brother
Speaker 1: is that, it's also an astronaut family of underachievers. But
Speaker 1: running against Martha and Arizona as a Democrat, so be
Speaker 1: will be fun to give him get ribbing over that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I hope you enjoyed that interview. I know
Speaker 1: I did. We got some great guests lined up. Upcoming
Speaker 1: guests we have on the show Bob Dr Bob who
Speaker 1: was a seal um and went into the Army and
Speaker 1: became an m D who just had a new book
Speaker 1: out himself. We're gonna have a Bob on the show
Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. Um has some more
Speaker 1: exciting guests lined up for you. And we are now
Speaker 1: on officially on the I Heart Radio podcast network. We
Speaker 1: have really good partnership with I Heeart. Grateful to be
Speaker 1: part of the Heart family and it also gives us
Speaker 1: access to two more interesting, yes, bigger, bigger audience reach
Speaker 1: as well. So declanded to be a part of my
Speaker 1: Heart family. You know. We just kind of an update
Speaker 1: on the site. We continue to put out some really
Speaker 1: great contents on the main site Software dot com videos
Speaker 1: as well. We have some more teams videos planned to
Speaker 1: shoot lago this year. Just trying to kind of wade
Speaker 1: through this new world of COVID TV production. I just
Speaker 1: I finished my first novel that's being looked at for film, right,
Speaker 1: How pretty excited about that. That book is called Steel Fear.
Speaker 1: It's actually about a serial killer on a Navy aircraft
Speaker 1: career based on true events sexual predator on the u
Speaker 1: SS Abraham Lincoln, who was never caught when I was
Speaker 1: deployed on the linking with HS six Helicopter Squadron before
Speaker 1: before I went to seal training. So it's excited about
Speaker 1: that that book book to film, and we've got some
Speaker 1: cool uh software production in the work. We're pitching in
Speaker 1: Netflix and a few rather network TVCs. So excited about that.
Speaker 1: Lots lots of cool stuff coming on the line. We
Speaker 1: also are investing heavily in the load out room our
Speaker 1: survival store, really remaking it with American made prod ux.
Speaker 1: We first started the store, we had there's a place
Speaker 1: you can go to to sign up products and we
Speaker 1: ended up having a ton of products in there from China.
Speaker 1: But it was just a terrible experience, but just kind
Speaker 1: of the guy who runs e commerce for US ex
Speaker 1: Army guy, Jacob him and I just decided, look, we're
Speaker 1: going to focus on kind of American brands, American manufacturing.
Speaker 1: So excited to kind of lean into the load out room,
Speaker 1: which is the software online to bravel store, and then
Speaker 1: really invest to make that store as unique as possible
Speaker 1: and our kind of vision. There's there's so many choices
Speaker 1: on the internet right now, on Amazon everywhere else. You know,
Speaker 1: what boots do you buy? What knife do you buy?
Speaker 1: What medical kids? So our job is really to kind
Speaker 1: of pick the best products, best brand and and make
Speaker 1: make things easier for the for the buyer. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the latest from us. If you haven't
Speaker 1: signed up for a software subscription, please can that are
Speaker 1: doing that? It does good to support an all veteran
Speaker 1: writing team of those you guys are familiar with the
Speaker 1: site now that that, uh, you know, we've come a
Speaker 1: long way in eight years, but hasn't always been easy,
Speaker 1: and we definitely don't shy away from controversy and telling
Speaker 1: it like it is, regardless of popularity or not. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys tune in this week. Look forward
Speaker 1: to catching you with Bob teen And that's all I
Speaker 1: have out here. You've been listening to Self rep Radio.
Speaker 1: New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio.