When I was born, my dad called me his 9G girl. On that side of the family, there were no female offspring. Scotts produced boys. But Dad was pulling 9G’s in F-16 training when I was conceived—something research later showed may affect sperm. Only the strongest survived. When baby showers for squadron families all had pink wrapping paper, they called us the 9G girls.
***
I might have joined the service had I known there were other jobs. All we kids knew were pilots and the spouses they married. We spent our childhoods at air shows, airplane museums, and looking upward. “It’s a V-Tail Bonanza with tip tanks!”
My Navy grandfather had been a flight instructor and later an airline captain by his mid-twenties. My Army Air Corps grandfather navigated a B-24 through harrowing Pacific bombing missions.
Airplanes were king.
It made sense my brothers followed their impressively large footsteps and joined the Air Force. The middle child started on F-16s and now flies F-35s. The baby is a bomber, commanding the B-52.
When Dad offered to send me to flying lessons in high school, I regret that I had no interest.
I’m the family’s black sheep. It’s a joke my audiences don’t always appreciate, but it holds a plank of truth. I’ve never quite fit in.
I’ve always been a bookworm, excelling in writing and editing. I don’t horribly mind sitting at a desk all day. (And not the kind of “desk” my dad started flying when he left the service for a slower-paced American Airlines.)
I started my career in the magazine world, trying to find a place of my own. When my last job wasn’t working out anymore, I saw an opening at Marine Corps Times. During my final interview, the top Military Times editors told me, “Of all our candidates, you have the best journalistic experience. However, unlike them, you have no military reporting background.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, my dad was an A-10 pilot.”
It was an accidental ace card I hadn’t intended or even known to play, but I won the hand.
I wondered where I’d fit in the military reporting world.
***
When I started my job in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Trump-Clinton election, I wasn’t aware what a Russian bot was. What I was aware of were the inflammatory comments assailing our social media pages. While I later discovered some were made by bots, many were from real readers.
“I’m convinced the admin for this page is a left wing quartosexual lesbian,” one person wrote, as verified by the folder of screenshots still on my phone.
I had started a new video endeavor—a one-minute daily news roundup, which I was quite proud of. It was bringing our company views and success. But the comments rolled in.
“Is this chick a dependa yet?”
“Why does the pitch in your voice change so much? Plz stop,” someone wrote.
Someone else responded, “That’s a natural side effect of being a America hating communist liberal. All MCT fake news propaganda drooling employees suffer from it.”
“Once again the douchebag civilian editors of Marine Corps Times post a derogatory article about patriotism loving America.”
I was working endless exhausting hours, day and night, to rebuild reader trust and the journalistic integrity of our news brand. And all I felt was constant hate from “readers” who weren’t actually reading the content of our pieces or didn’t know how important we thought balanced journalism is for democracy.
I asked the question: Did I really belong in this space?
***
If my career ever becomes a movie (we all can dream, can’t we?), the first time I walked into the Pentagon likely will be the opening scene. An outsider and non-CAC holder, I had to park at the shopping mall across the street. Naturally, I was late and wearing four-inch heels.
The sweaty walk through a damp tunnel then through a baking parking lot kept twisting my pencil skirt around my then-tiny waist. I had to stop every twenty-five feet to spin it around, catching the stares of seasoned and camouflaged service members wondering why this imposter was on the highest of military grounds.
To say I felt silly and stupid is an understatement.
Finally meeting my official public affairs escort, as I couldn’t be trusted alone in the halls, my heels echoed across the glossy floors. My blonde hair, carefully curled and likely leading to my late arrival, cascaded my shoulders like an extra thumb as I clanked through a sea of high and tights and slickly-coiffed buns. My cheeks burned red hot as I felt out of place among the refined generals and noncommissioned officers around me.
A later meeting didn’t help.
When a decorated Marine shook my hand without introduction, I asked him, “And remind me who you are, sir?”
It was the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps—the highest enlisted Marine. And I had just called him sir.
I was horrified.
Growing up, my dad had taught me to call every man sir. I felt confident in my respectful intentions. But, I also knew very well that enlisted service members often do not like, and sometimes detest, being called sir or ma’am.
For the next three years, I tried to convince myself it was okay. And, luckily, eventually, it was okay. When I finally met that same Marine for an exclusive interview nearly three years later, I was anxious—not for the interview, but for the fact he maybe still remembered.
The plan was to ignore it, always my intent in embarrassing situations. But, in my true fashion, I blurted it out as soon as we took a seat. He very much remembered. Instead of being displeased though, he was kind. He had been raised with Southern manners, and had been surprised, not offended, by my gesture. It gave us a cordial starting point to an excellent interview.
One of my most embarrassing professional moments—one I sat with for three years—actually had given me an opportunity to connect with this important Marine on a human level. My flop had allowed me to know who he was and the work he was doing in a unique way, and gain trust and access for future important stories.
Now every time I see him at an event, I call him, “sir.”
***
Over the years I have helped build our Marine Corps Times brand to maybe its best place yet—increasing our traffic, rebuilding our reputation, breaking exclusive news, and leading a team of phenomenal reporters—always while asking outsider questions and being myself.
Learning to navigate the military community has been difficult and humbling. But, I also have learned there’s something special outsiders can bring to a conversation. It’s not necessarily because an outsider is special—but more so that an outsider is a minority. And minorities often have unaccompanied perspectives from the majority.
When military journalist Natalie Gross and I started The Spouse Angle, a podcast and news brand for military spouses and their families, we both felt like imposters.
We’ve made it very clear neither of us are military spouses (though we both greatly admire our “retired” military spouse mothers). We simply saw a journalistic need we wanted to fill in a new way. With thousands of podcast downloads each month and guests waitlisted to be on the show, I think others are appreciating our tactics.
After many fumbles, I now have confidence and a place of my own in military circles. But I always want to retain some outsider-ness. I never want to get to a point where I’m so comfortable I forget to ask the right questions. Or that I think I know enough that I become stagnant.
People can scoff at outsiders. They can make them feel small, unwelcome—or leave nasty social media comments. But if you can persevere past that, you realize people also can relate to the outsider, connecting in a way no one else could.
While I’m still sometimes tempted to follow the military path of my family, my own path has served me well. I don’t get to wear a sharp uniform or accomplish heroic combat feats, but I am trying to support our country by being a megaphone for the needs, problems, and incredible stories of our United States service members and their loved ones.
I’ve never pulled 9G’s in an airplane and probably never will, but when things get tough I remind myself that I’m a 9G girl. I have fighter pilot blood running through my veins.
While my role may look different, I belong here. I am strong and can get through anything. And maybe I can bring an important outsider voice to the table with me.