Retired Air Force pilot speaks out on DEI rollbacks and erased military history

Hello, and welcome to Weapons and Warfare. For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host

Ryan Robertson. On tap for this week, a very important conversation about history and the

fight to preserve it. American author and Naval Academy graduate Robert Heinlein once wrote

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. Despite those wise words

there are those who would like you to ignore history, maybe even forget it. But there are

others who are even more determined to make sure historical acts are not just recognized when they

happen, but their memory endures the test of time and those who would rather erase it. I recently

had the chance to visit with retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jessica Ruttenberg about her

fight to keep decades of American military history alive. All right, thanks for joining us today

Colonel Jessica Ruttenberg. We just went over how to pronounce that name. Hopefully I said it

correctly 30 seconds later. Colonel, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your

time. You know, before we kind of get started into why I asked you to come on the show

if you can kind of give our audience a Reader's Digest version, if you will

of your Air Force and aviation career up to this point. Yeah, absolutely, Ryan. And thanks for having me. Well, I grew up in Florida and I saw the Blue

Angels flying, but it was back in the day when women couldn't be fighter pilots. But I still

was fascinated and went on to go to high school and college. And eventually women could be fighter

pilots. Unfortunately, I wasn't tall enough to be a fighter pilot, which we can get into later

But basically, almost half the women in the United States are tall enough to fly

fighters currently with our current inventory. But I was lucky enough to fly the KC-135 and got

to see the entire world. And I served for 21 years in the Air Force. I did a lot of deployments

to flying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later in my career, I had three children. I married to another

Colonel, I am retired. If you didn't say that, I am retired Lieutenant Colonel Jessica Rettenberry

My husband is currently serving at Maxwell Air Force Base. And at the end of my career

the things that prevented me from meeting my fullest potential, as well as my airmen

are policies I worked on that just happened to benefit women. And from there, you know

I left the Air Force. I continued to work in the nonprofit sector in aviation

offering scholarships to underserved communities. And Colonel, what kind of caught my eye when I was scrolling social media, you had a post with some tape over your mouth, 404 not found

And it was in response to the Secretary of Defense and the Trump administration as a whole, kind of their campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion and how some of your and your fellow airmen's history was being removed from the online archives

Um, can you kind of talk about how that impacted you, how it impacted you

Cause I know that you had some personal achievements while in the air force and can't find those

online right now. It was initially sad, but you know, I think we saw it for coming for months

Um, and then when the executive order came out in late January, I think they call it

restoring America fighting force, which went on to talk about DEI makes us weaker

eventually translated into a DOD document from the Secretary of Defense's office

eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion across our publicly facing social media platforms

and articles, websites, those kind of things. So there was instant panic. But even before that

I was on a team called the Department of the Air Force's Women's Initiative Team, WIT. I didn't

and joined that until later, which gave me a platform to talk about database-driven solutions

to help women serve to their fullest potential, was immediately disbanded, immediately, as well

as several other organizations that was a volunteer, all organization volunteered, millions of dollars of work a year, of people that are impacted that want to see the service improved

We never fell under DEI. As a matter of fact, we were established in 2008 under the Bush

administration and we just got lumped in it. It was collateral damage. And we were just dismissed

Thank you for your service. Thank you for helping. And we were dismissed. So that kind of started

that. And I think we all stopped, took a deep breath. We knew that was coming, but you know

our advocacy work and being leaders, you don't necessarily need a position or a forum to do that

You can be an informal leader, but then all the accomplishments that we had done over the years

that were like actual helping the Air Force, saving the Air Force millions of dollars by

eliminating old barriers, 30, 40, 50 years old. They just didn't know they still had. They didn't

intend it to be that way. Those stories started getting erased. So our history started getting

erased about the women's initiative team. And then one by one, these stories started disappearing

as well as stories of individuals anywhere from the Tuskegee Airmen to the WASP from World War II to some of the firsts like Nicole Malachowski uh beefy She was the first female Thunderbird pilot And then a lot of people

who had nothing to do with being a first was just doing their jobs. It's just my friend is Jennifer

Cannon. She was, um, flying the F-15 and they did a piece on her in Iraq about her. I forgot which

sorty was like her 100th combat sorty. And it was just removed simply because it mentioned that she

was a woman. And that really hurt. And that to me started telling me as a red flag, this is

censorship. We're not erasing diversity, equity, inclusion. I think our definition of diversity

equity, inclusion are different. Just because we happen to not look like each other in a story

doesn't mean that story needs to be eliminated. Not to mention there was a time, yes, we didn't let

black people fly airplanes. Yes, there was a time we didn't let women fly airplanes. Yes

there was a time we didn't let women fly combat airplanes until 1993. And yes, there was a time

we didn't let women be in combat. And some of those were as late as 2016. So I don't think

eliminating those first is a DEI message as much as it's eliminating our history. And eliminating

history is censorship. When you see the removal of some of those things and some of the rollback

of some of the progress, and not progress in the term of liberal, Democrat, progressives

conservatives, but progress in the terms of we used to do things one way that was bad

and then we progressed to do things another way that was better. When you see the rollback of that

that progress. Do you, you know, do you agree with critics that the secretary of defense is

trying to return things back to, you know, essentially white, straight white males being

in charge of everything and running everything? I mean, how do you, how do you swallow the pill

that you're being asked to swallow? Well, I don't like to attack individuals. I like to

challenge ideas. So I do feel like the progress we made, it feels like two steps forward

one step back. But I am hopeful that as others stand up and that I thought about it for a minute

before posting that thing on LinkedIn, I said, there's going to be some blowback. Some people

are not going to be too happy, maybe even inside the Department of Defense that I'm putting such

a public forum out there. But as a veteran, I felt a deep, not desire, that's the wrong word

a deep, what do you call it, possibly? Sense of duty? Duty, a sense of duty to those who I had served with that are currently serving

that don't have the latitude to speak publicly on behalf of themselves

or the United States Air Force of how they feel. And I think there's some people that are still even out, not retired

but maybe even just veterans that are afraid, even in the civilian sector, that they're too right or left wing, they're going to be also singled out and that can lose

opportunities for them, especially that can be frightening when you have a single income family

you're a single parent, or maybe one working parent outside the home. Those actually have

real possibilities if you're going to be targeted and lose your job. Let's say you work for the

government because we know that one third of the government employees are veterans

So have you experienced I mean, you you said you were expecting some some blowback

What what sort of blowback have have you experienced, if any, at this point

What's very specific other than undoing the women's initiative team is a lot of policies that we worked on that we had shown was increasing the warfighter capability and our readiness was labeled as a female item and was rolled back

One was early as last month. The women's initiative team worked with several agencies, such as A3 and the Surgeon General's Office, to expand the role of women flying during their pregnancy

The FAA does not consider pregnancy a grounded condition for a normal, healthy pregnancy in a non-combat environment

So don't think of an F-15 in Afghanistan pulling IGs. Think more of a Boeing 737 flying stateside

And women have been doing this for decades. I flew three pregnancies, two different aircraft

But when we looked at the data, we saw that it was just generalized

We had dozens and dozens of different aircraft with different types of hazards

And most of the restrictions we had didn't apply to those aircraft

And women were wanting to continue to fly and continue to pilot the mission or be a flight nurse or a boom operator in the back

And so it was kind of like a self-inflicting barrier. And during a pilot crisis and air crew members take so long to train in years and millions of dollars to make, wouldn't you want them to stay in the cockpit as long as possible and minimize their recoil program

That was overturned last month for fighters and bombers, high performance aircraft ejection seats

Again, they were flying less than three G's takeoff and landing currencies

And then they restricted how long the individual could fly as well for the heavy aircraft

That is like the KC the C the C they don let them fly in their first trimester And it was a knee reaction And from what I could see that was inquired from Congress from some of the Democrats was

hey, can you tell us why you said women shouldn't fly in the first trimester? And it was simply

well, you're more likely to have a miscarriage. But that's not really data-driven. That's kind

of like a bias, because women are always going to be more likely to have a miscarriage in the

first trimester, but flying a plane doesn't change that. And furthermore, once you have a heartbeat

which is usually around six to eight weeks, that significantly drops the risk to less than 1%

If less than 1% was acceptable in the second trimester, why wouldn't it be acceptable in the

first trimester? This is not a pro-life or pro-choice argument. This is just showing you

there really isn't that much risk. But when you just kind of have this benevolent, I'm going to

look out for you and not actually look at risk models and medical data

That was the first blowback about women having autonomy over their own bodies in the DOD

You know, one of the things that when I was doing my research on you, one of the things that you did

kind of champion was the idea of a maternity flight suit. So obviously, the Air Force has

been okay with pregnant women flying before because you brought this flight suit, you know

to market essentially. So when you see that rollback and like you called it a knee-jerk

reaction, how do we fix it? How as a society, how as a veteran community, I'm not a part of

the veteran community, but like I support the veteran community. How do we make sure that the

folks who the data shows can and maybe should be flying, how do we make sure that they can stay in

the skies. Right. Well, I mean, that's a very niche, you know, group of individuals. We have

about four flyers per year, so you don't get as much media attention on that. But I do want to say

that Captain Chelsea Jones, who was a C-130 pilot at the time in 2019, came up with this concept for

the maternity flight suit after we were able to advance some of the windows women could fly. And

it was other individuals like Boss, Chrystia Presco that was working at the Pentagon. I was

able to connect the two and I was aha moment for me I had been flying three pregnancies actually I

had a miscarriage my first one which is statistically normal um and I've been flying

these pregnancies with just bigger and bigger flight suits that were like draping on my arms

and my legs became tripping hazards they would actuate the controls inadvertently and if I did

you know velcro them down I looked like you know for an 80s 90s reference empty hammer pants

and then Chelsea came out and like just sewed it and made it and I was like why didn't I even

think I should be asked you know they told me just wear your husband's flight suit I'm like

first of all you're assuming my husband's a pilot and then two like that's not the answer I'm

physically it's a safety uniform to do my job and women have been flying for decades without one so

So that just shows you the culture change that I was in my generation allowed to be there

But her generation, I'm not just allowed to be there and tolerated that I deserve to have all the berries removed for me to do my job to support the national defense

And so what I think we need to do with that moving forward, the second part of your question is what do we do is we need to push back

And that's what I'm doing on these posts. At first, I pushed back by posting about a different woman every day since around Thanksgiving and telling their stories

And I think it's great that people have attention. Thank you for listening to this. If you're still listening to this, I have plenty of articles about me on the Internet

I'm worried about, you know, the 20, 30,000 other individuals that don't necessarily have someone like Ryan calling them and asking them to do an interview or, you know, CNN calling, you know, Fifi from the Thunderbirds to do an interview

I'd like, you know, our mid-level enlisted to be honored and not, you know, they may not have the same resources or a lieutenant that served that has one story about them

If we're not like putting a light on that and saying this is not okay, those just quietly go away

So that's the first thing is to make some noise. So first was preserving the stories

Second was to make some noise. Third, I started making videos on how to FOIA the Freedom of Information Act and to verify that they're actually archiving this and not just getting rid of it, which would be, you know, illegal so that we can FOIA this information in the future

Just make sure at least it's preserved and then work with our lawmakers like I did working with several Democrats to push back on the secretary of defense about the policy in the Air Force about flying while pregnant

And with that, you know, if you're the subject matter expert or you're the veteran, I mean, they go to you and say, what do you think the problem is

What is the answer? Can you help us write the letter? And that's what I did in this single case

So when we're, you know, the criticism or I guess the supporters of doing away with DEI and supporters of kind of this idea of restoring the warrior ethos is kind of how it's been characterized

do in your experience your opinion do women hurt the readiness capability of the United States military And do pregnant women hurt the readiness or lethality of the United States military

I get what you're asking. I think, unfortunately, the first 10 years I was so busy trying to make a name for myself

I didn't think about these things. So I can see how someone could kind of go down that path without any more information

But I will say that we can't do it without women. If you look at the Army recruiting, they just met their first recruiting goals in the last 10 years

It wasn't because they had a surge of men. It was because they had a surge of qualified women

Women were more likely to be qualified because they weren't going to be disqualified for medical conditions, being overweight

They had higher education. They were less likely to have a criminal record. So the surge of women was able to meet the Army's recruiting goal

Second of all, I think it's a very narrow vision to say women who are pregnant are going to hold us back

I get it. You can't deploy during your pregnancy. That feels like you're maybe a burden to your unit

But the truth is, it's just a drop in the bucket when you zoom out and look at the larger picture

We have a lot of people that are non-deployable. Men are more likely not to be deployable because they have administrative actions, such as the Article 15 that they have to process, which takes quite a bit of time

Yet we don't focus on men are less likely to be deployable because of judicial, you know, administrative issues going to the JAG

We focus on women who are pregnant as the only piece of data

So I think it's a little lopsided to look at it one way or the other. Does that make sense

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Why, you know, I can suppose and I can, you know, make my suppositions about why that might be

But why do you think the military is still so focused? Like it's a lopsided view, if you will, on not what the data is showing, but kind of what culturally we just assume to be true

Well, change is hard. Women haven't been in ground combat operational roles for 10 years

So it was 2016. We had our first female Rangers, but the legislation changed in 2013

So I think the generations are changing. When I was an instructor pilot, one thing that really surprised me was as I became older

Lieutenant Colonel, the things that I experienced was not necessarily the same views and experiences

of those that were 15 years younger than me. I would take out warning, just pause if you don't want to hear this, but I would take out my pump

after having children and I would fly and it very discreetly just pop it in and pump I was flying

And I found that was like, oh my gosh, you know, with a certain generation, when I first started

that were flying, they were a lot older than me. And not to say that just because you're older, you're going to feel that way. But I think the younger generation was more socialized with it

I was flying with this guy and he's just like, oh yeah, is that a Medela breast pump my wife just gave birth five months ago

You know, is that the cordless or the bat? I was like, whoa, when did this conversation change

So I think with time and education, it'll be okay. I just think we have a lot of people that are like the things the way they've always been

Change is hard. Change is scary. And in the absence of information, you know, we're going to have fear

And fear drives poor decisions. My last kind of question for you, and if you have more to say after this, then great. Why to you, why is it important for the stories that have been removed, it mentions a woman or it mentions a black individual or a Chinese individual that's serving in the military

Like, why is it important for you that those stories remain untouched on the Internet for future generations

Why the fight? Because this is the story of America. We are not just a white nation

We come from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of religions. And that is our recruiting population

And I don't want to see a all volunteer force that relies on just part of a population because we start isolating them

I do think it's in our national interest if we want to be a competitor with China and Russia that we have our talent pool to fool from

And we don't just say, OK, I just want males from this section or this ideology because we won't make our recruiting goals

We won't have the most talented pool. And when we eliminate our history, we're saying you don't matter

or there's not enough representation to have young individuals see themselves in those roles

Colonel, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your time. If there's anything else you'd like to say, Sherwood, you know, now's your chance

No, I just thank you for having me on here. And if you want to help and you want to be very simple about it

you see a post about some amazing individual that was a veteran, just repost it

It doesn't matter who they are. Just repost it. Absolutely. Colonel, thank you so much for your time

Appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan