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

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

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/oplyappFind Lindsey herehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-danilack-chrismon/https://www.instagram.com/lindsey.chrismon/New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport 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/HOUSEfor up to 40% off!!The Perfect Jean ⬇️http://theperfectjean.nyc/HOUSE15for 15% off!!GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 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 guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️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/1501191241The 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: ⬇️[e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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 students 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 like I thought you have to get to the top of the ladder obviously climb and pull yourself into the aircraft and then hook yourself in so they can fly away and I just remember thinking of myself I'm going to fucking fall

up this ladder and fall 30 feet into the ocean and I'm going to fail a green platoon because I can't climb this damn caving ladder It was so fucking physically challenging for me. I don't know what it was. It was just all my muscles. Every ounce of my body was like, poof, this might be it. And it was a really, really challenging thing to do, but did it. Hey guys, it's your pal Jack.

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Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. This is episode 340 of the team house of 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 AH6 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. Thanks, Jack, and thanks, David. It's really awesome to be here. 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. Yeah, definitely. So thinking back, I mean, I grew up in New Jersey. And I was 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 guys. G.I.J. Yeah. Yeah, literally G.I.J.

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. and I just kind of just like had this like innate I guess like calling towards it. When we were a little bit older, I grew up with two younger brothers and my dad who loves our country's history brought my brothers, our whole family up to West Point. We grew up only about an hour away from the academy. So it was very easy drive, easy day picnic. And like from that moment on, I was 11 at the time when he brought us up there. I was just like, this is exactly where I want to be.

Wow. I just absolutely fell in love with everything that I saw. 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. 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 West Point ended up being the only college that I applied to. Really? Yeah. What did you're coming from like a not military family, what did, because you sort of had that a drive or that desire at a young age. What did your parents think of that? 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. 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 when I was, like, doing my interview with one of the congressmen in order to get, like, the nomination to go to West Point. He asked what ranch I wanted. You know, now I know he meant, like, do you want aviation, infantry, air defense artillery?

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 when you lead with a little bit of ignorance, it kind of pans out in a positive way because just having that little bit of blinders on, sometimes if you know too much, you're not kind of want to like put your, you know, actually jump in.

So I think it kind of ended up working out a little well that we kind of really didn't know exactly what we were dealing. 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 going to happen. Yeah. I think it was, I mean, I was a very like disciplined child just innately.

It's just who I was. Like my parents never had to ask me to like make my bed or, you know, wake up and get ready for school. I was always just like very, I guess, like structural in my day to day. And I think that that was 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, especially in college when you should be like partying and actually having fun. But yeah, I did think that it was just kind of, it was like in my blood almost. And I don't remember reading military books 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 good athlete growing up. I went to the Junior Olympics for track. I was a track athlete. I ran the heptathlon, the pentathlon. I still have somehow my high school's 400 meter record, which is, come on, Montfield High School. Someone has to get in there and beat this record. And I just was like really, really, really into fitness and health. And I had a personal trainer, and I went to, I had like a nutritionist and like all this stuff growing up where it just like really helped kind of like me physically. And I think that also kind of helped leading into West Point, like why I wanted to go there and continue that like health journey, I guess.

That's awesome. And so you get into West Point, the only college you applied to, that must have been a happy moment for for you and the family at that point. Yeah, it was, I mean, 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 valedictorian of my high school class. but I remember 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 every call. And she called again. I was like, shit, I got to go to the bathroom. I got to check out and see, like, did something happen? And I called her back and she was like, you got into West Point. I was like, you open my name. This isn't where I'm supposed to find out.

And, but it was exciting all around. I mean, I did put all of my eggs into one basket applying only to one college. And I had I had teachers 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 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. So it's just kind of like continue to light a fire, I guess.

Like the doubt, it's like bring it on. 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? 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. I look at that. That's awesome. That's fantastic. A little bit of revenge doesn't hurt, right? No, there's a little bit of a bravado here that I can see carrying itself into being a helicopter pilot. Yeah. I like it.

So you make it into West Point. What's like plebe year and then you became the, I guess the position is called first captain? Yeah. Yeah, I was a very different human being between my freshman, my plea 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 4,400 students there. You are the one that dismisses the class on graduation day. You're basically like the face of the core. And so when I first

started, I was, I mean, I was a fucking mess getting 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 I was like what the fuck am I doing here? This is not for me. I was like I think I've made a grave mistake. This is this is way more intense than I thought it was going to 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. my times and track completely declined. I was running worse times than I had run when I was,

I don't know, an 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, you know, to want to be serving the army. And I had to kind of regain all of that confidence throughout my couple of years while I was at the academy because, I mean, if you saw, I've, I've, I could show you guys a picture. I was fat and disgusting and just scared of literally everything. I didn't know anything about the military. I didn't understand the rank structure.

I had no idea while 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. 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. I'm out of curiosity, it sounds like it was sort of the military discipline, the rigor, like all the nittinoid stuff that was kind of overwhelming to a civilian. Because a lot of these people have probably been in like JRTC, JROTC or something.

Like they had some idea what they were getting into, right? 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 just can't do

it until you actually like really test yourself and get through the actual physical and mental components of all of this. So it was a really developmental, I guess is probably a good word to describe it as like those couple of years as I 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 order is pretty high. And then when you were going through that, like in that first year, you know, I'm sure it's like 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? Yeah. Definitely. I mean, we have tack NGOs and in tack officers that we come. kind of like would be mentored by. And then I also had, we called them instructors at West Point,

instructors that definitely like helped, I guess, like encourage me. You know, it wasn't that I was doing bad. I had a crazy high GPA. I was probably ranked like top 50 militarily. Maybe my physical score wasn't as good as where I needed it to be. But like, it was all in my own head. I'm my own biggest critic. And that was like the biggest thing I think that I needed to break away from.

and just like proof to myself that I deserve to be there because the imposter syndrome, and this could be like a reoccurring theme throughout my entire life, is just always there at the start. And it's really hard to kind of overcome that. And yeah, the mentors, the instructors, the TACNCOs, 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. If you sleep hot at night, you know just how disruptive it can be.

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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. I got to, you know, meet just incredible people. Madeline Albright, president, President, President Obama. was there, General 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 core. 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. Lizzie, I want to ask you about pure leadership because it's an interesting topic, right? In the military, maybe 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 don't have to worry, like you have your peers and you don't have to worry about do I mesh with my subordinates so much. but here you are a student.

You want to have friends. You have, right? You have peers. But now you're a peer leader. How does that affect your relationship with other students? 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, you know,

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 because it's a very easy thing to let the, like, the first captain entity take over everything else that's going on. Right. In terms of peer leadership, I think the big, 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 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 have to follow the individual who is wearing the rank above ours. I mean, we're bound by law to do so. 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 mission still get accomplished, regardless of really how strong that leader is. And what I've learned, like, during my time as first captain,

that wasn't the case because cadet rank is fake. It doesn't matter. You know, 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, 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.

And it's just one thing that I'm learning in the civilian world, too. It's like, there's 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 going to make it. 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 buy in? Or was it something that you learned along the way? 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 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 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 want to. to see the same thing that you see as the end state. And so it's a really hard thing to be able to do that if you can't put yourself in their shoes or understand where they're coming from and find a way to inspire them to want to do 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 trial and error too. You know, 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. It's fascinating. 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?

No, it's all based on your OML. Now, as the first captain, you're not going to have a low OML. So you're pretty much guaranteed to get whatever branch you want. 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 in life. But yeah, there's no, 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 eat off of gold platter. It's just not the cake at all. You know, 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, it would be nice if our grades were frozen, but whatever. How is the order of merit list generated? Is it just grades or is it a combination of a lot of different things? So it's a combination of your academic standing, your physical standing, and your military standing. So we take, obviously, all of our academic classes, the core curriculum,

And then that's based off of your major starting, I think, your junior and senior year. And then your physical grade is based off of your sport. And every cadet is an athlete. So whether you're on a D1 team or if you are on a club team or even a company team, you get a grade from that. And then you also take survival swimming classes, combatives classes, boxing classes, and all of those kind of build into your physical score. And then you have your military aspects to things. So 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. So like mine was first captain in 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 whatever position you hold over the summer, then you get graded militarily in that component. And then everything is aggregated and you get an overall class standing. For the lower ranks, like the and maybe the younger years,

Are those positions like squag leader or are they rotated through like in ranger school where everybody gets, you know, a time to shine or not shine? Exactly. It's not as obviously frequent as ranger school, but I think it's, I want to say it's every semester you're changed. Or maybe it's every term. I honestly can't remember. But it does change. So like the company commander will only be whether it's a semester or quarter long of a period of time where you get you get the opportunity to kind of dip your toes into different types of positions. Yeah. So you got into aviation, I assume, was your first choice. Yeah. It was, yeah. 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? 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 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 what I want to do. I was like, boom, I figured it out. I found what I wanted to do. And it kind of just followed that same path where I was like,

I 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. 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 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 Apaches. When you're in flight school learning how to be a rotary wing pilot, I mean, what do they have you training on like Hueys or something like that to get everyone kind

up a basic speed. Yeah, we trained on the TH67. So it's just a single engine aircraft. It's actually larger than the little bird. I don't remember if it has hydroly. I think it does have it does have hydrolyx. I think. I could be wrong there. But it's still kind of one of those very manual type of helicopters to fly on. 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. there's just a lot of like as limitations with that aircraft that the new students are training on but i'm sure they i think they have much better like instrument capabilities so there's kind of tradeoffs between what we flew in flight school versus what the students now are flying what was that first

flight like for you 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 I picked it up pretty quick. I grew up playing drums, percussion. I played the drum set. Like for my fifth grade talent show, I did a drum solo on a kit. So I just like good, I guess like 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.

I picked it up very, very quickly. And I absolutely loved it. Like, I never wanted to land. We just, I just wanted to keep flying, like, as much as possible. 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? Yeah. Yeah.

So most, 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. 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 at the 64. 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. Yeah. And it went pretty quick. I mean, people are always wanting to fly.

attack helicopters. That and Chinooks are the top two. We did not have any fixed-wing assets available to our class for selection. 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 it 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. So when you go through flight school, there is a fixed-wing portion and there are fixed-wing options at the end of that? So we don't fly fixed wing as students, but you can fly fixed wing in the Army. The C-12. It's a small.

It's kind of a VIP aircraft. It's a very hard airframe to be selected or to select for just because there's maybe like two every year. Okay. So we have to get really lucky in your timing, and then you have to definitely be number one out of your class. Interesting. Okay. So you get assigned to the Apache, and what is it? then off to Fort Campbell, where did you go?

So after I got assigned to 64, I went through the remainder of the training that was for that airframe. And then I actually went to Fort Bliss, who 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 the best command I could ever have imagined.

It's the reason I got into the 160th was because of those guys. And I just had a really, really, great time living there and I loved the I loved everything about it. The unit was great. I ended up going there because so my husband, who's now my husband, he went to West Point two. We met at West Point. And he was a different cadet. He wouldn't hate on me for saying this, but like he was like, he walked 200 hours while he was there. We were like total opposites. And when he got assigned, he was an infantry officer when 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 one of fucking asses ever closer. So you can for sure go to Fort Bliss. But yeah, I had it. I loved flying at Fort Bliss. 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. Great training because it's all in the mountains, but it's also desert.

Yeah. I mean, you learn how to fly like a pilot. It's not this like, four camels, just like rolling hails. You have like a couple of like pieces of open terrain to land into. When you're flying out in those mountains out in El Paso, like it's a completely different environment. So that was really great. But it was, I think the reason that I enjoyed my time so much was because of my command. I was in three six calf.

My battalion commander was absolutely phenomenal. And then my company commander was one of the best leaders. that I've ever had the privilege of working with. 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 take risk,

like almost too much risk. But I think that that's like the reason why I was able to get into the 160 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 dumb ass training meeting slides and like all this other, 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 you, yeah. For the people who might not be familiar with it, can you tell us about the Apache

Airframe kind of give us. And then also sort of the, I guess the Army's T-O-E, like how you guys are set up, like you said, you went to 3-6, how you guys are set up with other units and things like that. Yeah, so, I mean, the Apache is an attack helicopter. There's, it's, it's, 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 seat. So your one's in the front. It's the gunner. position and then the pilots behind, but both positions can both shoot, both fly. A range of weapon systems on the aircraft, 30 millimeter gun. You have rockets with all different types of variations of rockets. I think it's a 19-shot rocket pod. Obviously, hellfire missiles. So there's a bunch of

different configurations that the aircraft can deploy with. Some aircraft had the FCR, the fire control radar, which basically allowed us to identify, you know, any type of vehicles in the vicinity that we could track them from it from a distance. And it helped with when we were shooting hellfires. But it's it's one of those airframes where very, very different than like the attack profile than a little bird has, because basically what you would do in the Apache is you'd fly at a thousand feet 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 support when needed. Yeah. So with the gunner sitting up front and the pilot in the back, is there a like a seniority

to that as to which is which and things like that? I mean, typically the pilot in command who would be the more senior, who owned the aircraft, they would probably be sitting in the back. But it really doesn't matter. Now that the pilot in command could be sitting in. any of the seats, but typically they'd be sitting in in the backseat. Okay. Like flying, I guess like more or less flying the aircraft. The front seat had the tads. 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 basically with your thumbs. So you weren't on the flight controls. And so you can lock in the the sensor on whatever, you know, objective you were going after 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. And then would that be a partnership? I mean, I'm thinking like Maverick and Goose. Is that like a partnership or could it be anybody assigned to any two people in the squadron or whatever assigned to a bird? Yeah, it's any two people that are assigned. And I think it should have probably been more of 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 anyone within the unit. That's fascinating. So what happens, and maybe you didn't have this in your

unit, but I feel like every unit has one, like the person that nobody wants to fly with. Yeah, I mean, for sure, there's, I'm not going to 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. Yeah. 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. We'll 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 so did you have a problem was one position more fun than the other so i always found that it was easier to like physically fly the aircraft from

the back seat 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 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. So there's just that like that parallax. I think that's what we called it. But just a difference between where the sensor is and where you're physically sitting. So it was it was just a little bit more of a complicated position is 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. But in terms of like being the

primary pilot or the primary gunner, did you have a preference for that? So yeah, I mean, I, in the Apache, it's very different than a little bird. It really sometimes did, like the back seat would be flying and the front seat would be the gunner. Yeah. Little Bird, if you're flying, your shooting. I preferred in the Apache to kind of take 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. That was my preference. And it was just really just because I trusted myself. Right. For over

another individual. But obviously you have to have trust in your co-pilot in those instances. So if you were flying and shooting was the person in the front seat where they basically just like doing Sudoku or something? I mean, like drinking coke. Yeah. Hanging out. Yeah. I mean, it could get a little boring. No, you're like, you're monitoring radios, you're throwing in grids. 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. 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. can get a little disorienting.

So the front seat is just basically just to kind of bring everything back, big picture and update the pilot. So now, in terms of how the Army does it, were you guys attached to like an infantry, like a brigade or a battalion or like how does that work? Yeah, pretty much. They're just an infantry unit, whether it's a light or heavy, it really, for us, we would fly with whoever needed,

the support at that time. Okay. But you weren't like part of a unit, a part of like an infantry unit? No, no. Okay. So when does the idea of going to assessment for 160th start to creep up into your mind?

So it was always there. I kind of lost track of it a little bit while I was just trying to make piloting command and air mission commander flying the 64. But it was always and I've, I mean, 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 160th 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. And us as 64s, we were attached as some sort of like additional asset that the 160th could train with. and kind of just like add them into their stack and add another layer of complexity into the planning process. And I remember being there and integrating 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 64 pilots. I felt so amateur. And I honestly just kind of felt embarrassed. I was like, I cannot stand up on one leg compared to these guys.

this is just another and absolute another level of aviation skill, not only just flying, but planning and briefing and everything. 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 as these guys are? And so I got the opportunity to fly in the jump seat of a 47 on one of these flight lead eval rides,

and it completely, I mean, it completely changed my mind. I was 100% dead set. This is exactly what I want to do. And from that point on, I think it was 2016 or so at that point. So I was two years out of West Point, two years flying, or I guess maybe like end of 2016 into 2017. And so I still had a little bit of time left at 3-6 Cav at Fort Bliss before I had to go to the career course. 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 160. And he was like, oh, good, you want to fly 47s?

And I was like, because they don't have a patch to use in the 160th. And I was like, no, I want to fly the age six. He laughed, literally did exactly that. But the crazy thing is he was also a B-Co pilot. He flew in the 160th 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 not. never going to get into that unit. 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 47s. It's just kind of like the trajectory for Apache pilots if they don't make the attack platform. And so I was like, all right, bring it on. Let's go. So I just, I mean, I did everything I possibly could to kind of prepare myself for the assessment. Now, the assessment itself is a whole another world.

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

Did you do a combat deployment with the Apaches? No, not with the Apaches. Okay. And then why did, like, why is the Apache to, like, the C.H. 47, why is that, is it because they're both heavier, like, aircraft or? No, I honestly think it's simply because of the demand of the unit. I think there, I mean, there's a very, very small handful of H6 pilots. In the 160th, there's only one company in one battalion. Now, for the 47s, they're in a three.

of the battalions out of the four, there's a lot more pilots. So when the deputy comes in, I guess like the demand from the army or the supply from the conventional army on the 47 side is much lower than the 64. And when you bring that over into

the 160th organization, they need to kind of crossload that supply into the 47 category. And 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? Yeah, 100%. Like, I mean, there's me. No combat deployment. I have like maybe 500 hours,

maybe 25 hours flying goggles, you know, because we did not fly goggles in the 64. I mean, I have no prior military experience. I don't fit 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 have 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. Right. And, 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 don't know. 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 recollections or stories from that time, I'd love to hear them. Yeah. So it's a week-long assessment process, which isn't a lot of time, right? I mean, obviously if you're going through assessment for other organizations,

is a lot longer of a process. So a week sounds like nothing to most of these, you know, tier one organizations. But it kind of is composed of like a physical aspect of flying. You do a lot of psych evalves. And then you do like, I guess that kind of falls into the physical stuff, like swimming, you do a PT test and all this other stuff. For my assessment, my main goal going into it was to just not quit.

No matter what I did, 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. And 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 your gear, stand to water, and then swim 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 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.

That's bold of you. That's very bold of you to assume that. I know, because I basically did pass out in the pool. You're not going to. Yeah, but, and then there was another instance where I had to, I mean, obviously flying little birds, 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, you're refueling yourself, so you have these fuel blivots,

that way, you know, over 100 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 Pals do literally all the time. But this is like the one thing that women really struggle with because it's like maybe 125 pounds. It might be a slight exaggeration, but somewhere in that ballpark of weight.

And it's just very awkward, you know, it's filled with ammo and it's massive. You're talking about that big, like, rectangular can that sits in the back area of the bird? Exactly. Yeah, okay. And so it's just bulky and weird, and women are smaller. Well, there's a lot of small little bird pilots, too, which is kind of funny. But 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, 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 lifted up if it's the last thing that I do. And I did it on the first try. 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? I'm just there lifting this stupid ammo can. And I go on to do with the other tasks and whatnot. 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 they

need 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 When you talk about the little bird being a physically, like, demanding airframe, you know, like, I think that anybody who's ever watched the TV show sees the helicopter pilots sitting there, like, can you tell us why the little bird is physically demanding? Yeah.

So the first reason is because there's no hydraulics. So it's literally a physically demanding aircraft to fly. So, I mean, every input that you make actually tilts the rotor system, it actually maneuvers the aircraft itself. So there's no assistance whatsoever. And then the profile that we fly, the aircraft itself is challenging. So there's, it's very, I mean, we're always almost at max power. So overturking can happen literally in a split second. You can get like blowback through the rotor system, which could like spike your, like, there's just,

a lot of things that can happen and if you're not on top of it, then things will escalate and get worse very, very quickly. So it's not only just like physically demanding to fly without hydraulics, it's also a physically 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. You know, I'm sure most of our viewers are too young to get this reference, but the idea that I always think of is before we had power steering, people actually had to turn their steering wheels. You know, and, you know, and so, you know, people don't understand these days that 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 a hydraulic system that's making it easy for you. Exactly, yeah. And another thing, too, about the little bird is you can't take your hands off of the flight control. 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 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 clockediff. 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. 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. 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, um, Albuquerque or Colorado or somewhere, um, 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. Yeah. It's, yeah, there's a lot. And like the vibrations too. I mean, I think now the unit's starting to wear, um,

sensors. I know the DAP pilots are definitely starting to wear sensors because just like the vibrations, the repercussions of like the weapon systems that are feet away from you. Right. You know, 50 cows. There's a lot of that goes on. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I mean, 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? Yeah. It's physically abusive to your body. Yeah. Yeah. 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.

Yeah. What were some of those like final exams like for you? 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 three of us. And so there was always just pressure on us to try and not exceed expectations in that sense, but far beyond meet expectations. I remember one thing really, really challenging about the train. It's called Green Platoon, like during Greenfield. platoon, we did some over-water 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 students 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 the 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. Like I thought, because you have to get to the top of the ladder, obviously, can climb and pull yourself into the aircraft and then hook yourself in so they could fly away. And I just remember thinking of itself, I'm going to fucking fall off this ladder and fall 30 feet into

the ocean. And I'm going to fail a green platoon because I can't climb this. damn caving ladder. It was so fucking physically challenging for me. I don't know what it was. It was just all of my muscles. Every ounce of my body was like, whof, this might be it. And it was really, really challenging thing to do, but did it. Training in the pool was way easier than training when we were actually like out there doing it in the ocean. So I was like, I just caught myself off guard and how challenging that was that was for me. How are you? I mean, you know, that, what you're talking about would be challenging for 90% of men, right?

Like, you know. Yeah, the guy struggled with it too. Yeah, exactly. And, and, 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. body stream for anybody. Yeah, for sure. So before I, before I got to the 160th, after my assessment, but like while, like right before I got into Green Platoon, I was really into like bodybuilding. I did bikini competitions. So I was very, I was very lean and I was very fit. I mean, I could do probably upwards of over 20 push up or pull-ups, push-ups. I mean, I was running my fastest two mile ever, like sub-13 two miles. Like things were just, I was like just cruising. So I came into Green Platoon in phenomenal shape and then just continue to try and keep up with it.

Obviously like Green Platoon is very, it's very stressful. Sorry, this thing keeps speaking. 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. Yeah. But you just had to push through it because there was no like dedicated to. time to stay in shape in Green Platoon. It was like work, work, work, work for, you know, 15 hours a day and then find time to get into the gym. But you just had to do it. So what was that like when you

finally passed and do you get assigned to what is a Bravo company? Yep, BECO. Mm-hmm. Very intimidating. I mean, I came in as a platoon leader and 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 W3, you know, it's who has just gotten there and they have a track, whatever it is. The 160th is so different. Like, these guys have been, like, these warrants are, they're salty.

They can't know for 10 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. I was, I was going to say, when we had a, I think it was Clay Hutmocker on here. He told us this story about one of the pranks they did was the parking space is reserved for the H-6 pilots. They painted them blue with the handicapped signal on them because they were all so old. They were all grandpas.

Yeah, it's hilarious. That's actually hilarious. Yeah, we did. There was definitely some good stuff that went on. I mean, when we would go out to Virginia Beach for the underways, like some shenanigans happened, that's for sure. I mean, one of my good friends, he's one of those warrants that flew for the unit for, God knows how many years. 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, fuck, bare feet in the fire, and then eats a live crab. Like, these guys are literally, and that's an insane thing to do. Who does that? Right. And, like, 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. Try and relieve yourself of the imposter syndrome because you still have to perform. You still have to learn. You have to put yourself and 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.

And then you just start to just love every single one of them. You were the, correct me if I'm wrong, you were the first and so far the only female Little Bird pilot that is. AH6. AH6 pilot, okay. There was a MH6 female that she flew the MH6 probably maybe five years ahead of when I was there. Okay, okay, great. We'll have to talk to her next time. Yeah.

So when you did being the first female A86 graduate of the like the Green Platoon and stuff like that, did they pull you aside? Did they like say hey this is or we're just one of the guys and no one of the guys and literally did not matter there was I this psych at one point pulled me aside was like how's it going like are you okay 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 my dream are you kidding me because it's perfect 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, yeah.

Do you think that, do you think that because everybody knew that like no allowances were, you know, nobody made any allowances for you in training? Like, they're just like, hey, like she's here or she's here. Like, yeah, that's exactly what it was. Like everywhere that I went, every, I mean, the only, I guess, like, benefit was when we traveled. 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. Yeah. That's fantastic. And so. It could. 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 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. Yeah. Yeah, they're really ruthless with their AARs in these units. Yeah, brutal.

Good, though. I mean, you learn how to, like, pay attention to details, that's for sure. Yeah, it's how you get better. So you did two deployments to Afghanistan with the unit. Tell us about the first one. as much as you're able to anyways. Yeah, I mean, obviously because I hadn't, one, I never wanted to admit to anyone when I was in the 160

that I hadn't deployed before. Because like all these guys have so many like deployments and no, notice missions and blowouts and all of this, you know, history. And I'm like, ooh, I've never been to Afghanistan. It's like, we're like towards the end of the war at this point. Who am I? 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, this is crazy. And, but I mean, it was, it was typical. It was good. Got to do what I signed up for. And that's really all that I wanted to do, really essentially, is like I got to actually take what I learned in all these years of training, whether it was in the 64, through Green Platoon, you know, in B-ECO,

and actually put it to the test. And that was good. And how your first, like, timeout, your first combat op, 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? Yeah, it was 100%. 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 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.

Yeah. And so, you know, you mentioned your reception at the 160th and VECO. How was your reception with the various customers? And was there any like, hey, what's up? I think I know what you're getting at. And obviously. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, but the thing 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 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. So the hair care products did not win you over it. I'm just,

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's fascinating. So what's what was the thing or was there a thing that once you were actually in combat 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.

Yeah. Like what was that for you? you? 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. I want to be given every opportunity to fly the aircraft and to be put in those positions. Yeah, I mean, 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, I don't know, it's kind of crazy to think. Like, I don't know, I feel like I'm like even now where I am in my life, I feel like it's like a whole other world. Yeah. Who I want is before where I'm at right now. And I feel like, I don't know, jive my memory to be like, okay, yeah, what was that like? Yeah. It's like a movie, really. It's like watching a movie, but it's real.

Yeah. Do you consider yourself? Because I'm sure that there are like both guys and girls who find you an inspiration in your story, having, you know, such a single-minded determination and achieving it. But, you know, obviously for girls who want to go into that field, there are fewer role models. Do you find yourself, you know, being that role model or considering yourself a role model? Yeah, definitely. 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 Apaches or going to the 160th, 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, you know, whether it was going to West Point or flying Apaches or going to the 160th, 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. Right.

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 got to be smart. Like there's just those, I just,

I hope that that's kind of the case, I guess. Yeah. In like a non-conceded way. I know it kind of could come off like conceded, but it's just because like I was lacking that in my life. Sure. And I hope that I could be that for others.

Sure. What was the difference between deployment one in deployment too for you? Just honestly, like, then it just turns into normal. I don't know. It was honestly, not very different, I guess, in a sense, but you just kind of just 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. So you kind of, it was almost like two deployments in one, I guess, in that instance, based on like how long our deployments are in the 160th. But honestly, I just felt more comfortable. understood kind of just like the rules of the road, you know, like who to talk to, who not to talk to, 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. It's a lot smoother. Yeah. Oh, uh, Dimitri has a question.

What is a BMQ? Yeah. So a BMQ is, um, so when you come into the 160th, it's your, you're, like the lower, I guess, qualified. I think it's like basic mission qualified. Okay, gotcha. 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 as being a flight lead. Awesome.

So before we move on, I mean, any flight stories, ops that you can tell us about that maybe we're particularly memorable for you? Um, I mean, 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 hanging out by a bonfire. And all of a sudden like our beepers go off. We got to run to the jock. And there's like this vehicle that's approaching. And so we just like sprint to the aircraft and take out this vehicle. We were just like in the middle of the night. We were thinking that it was

going to be a very, very chill evening where we could just kind of, hang out but i don't know i love that kind of you know those types of instances where it's like okay yep here we go we're going to do our job you'd like change your mindset instantaneously from like relax mode we're like playing video games just hanging out to all right now we're going to go protect the base oh because the base was getting hit yeah was this was this the one down in down in Salerno? No, we were in, that was at Dwyer. Okay.

Yeah. That's Helmand, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, okay. And that was like a particularly spicy time, I feel like, that you were there in Helmand as well. It was, it was all right. It really wasn't that spicy.

I know, like, a couple years before we were there, it was way worse. But, I mean, things were still popping off. So Charlie was in the wire and you guys had to spin up. Yeah. Yeah, in the middle of the night, Christmas Eve, good times. Nothing a few gun runs can't cure. Exactly. It really didn't take it wasn't a very long operation, if you know what I mean.

If you have a sick prey rug from it, I don't know if I should admit that, but whatever. The guys went out and did S-S-C afterwards and brought us back some, some, some, some trinkets. Holy shit. There's bullet holes all through it. Hey man. Shit happens at Helmand. Okay, so two deployments to Afghanistan on the AH6.

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? Yeah. So I wasn't, if you ask any of my friends, like there was very, very, little, I guess, like, inkling that I was ever going to get out of the military. Everyone was like, oh, Lindsay's going to 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 B. Co. and I was in L&O, so a liaison officer for one of our customers. And I don't know. Like, I was just sitting there and I was like, I don't want to, I'm not going to become a warrant officer. I love flying. And if I want to keep flying, then I basically have to become a warrant officer. Right.

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. And so, and then I 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. 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. And I sat down on my battalion commander at the time and told him. I was like, all right, sir, 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

Like all this stuff in the 160 they had like you know I was I was on the path to do these things 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 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 side of of relief for sure. And so from that point on, I kind of just worked on my transition and getting out. I applied to, well, actually, I started off taking the GRI.

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 tens for aircraft. So re-trying to like learn geometry fucking sucked. And then I applied to a bunch of different business. I played a 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. Did you, did you at all ever consider going Warren?

Or was that just not going to be a thing for you? I mean, I thought about it. I did some research on it. I talked to people who had done it. It wasn't, it never made it past like the discussion phase. I never got to the point where I was like highly, highly considering it. Right. I did think of it as an option, but it didn't really, it didn't really like amount to too, too much.

I imagine that of any place, the 160th might be like, I don't know how often officers kind of take that step back. But I imagine of any place, the 160th probably is where if it happens at all, it's where it happens. Yeah, exactly. And they tell you when you're assessing for the 160. Do you get to pick your schedule? Like, you get to, you know, like, it's very easy to take vacations with your family. And 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. Yeah. So that was just like an extra layer of complete city that was put on top of everything. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you get into Harvard Business School. Yep.

Yeah. I got into all seven business schools that I applied to, which is hilarious. Yeah. So I got into MIT, Wharton, Harvard, which is where I am. I got into Columbia, Kellogg, Booth. I don't know if that's seven, but 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.

And I've just been here, I'm in Boston right now. now I've been here for the past two years. I actually graduate in a couple of weeks. Wow. What was it about Harvard? Was Harvard, Boston? Like, why did you choose that of all them? Harvard was where I wanted to go. It was my top school that I had ambitions to go to. I actually, I think it's 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 forefront. front. 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. There's no 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 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 you read the case. 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 a very unique way to learn the material. And I enjoyed that because I had a lot to learn coming from 10 years in the military to the business world. And what do you see as the next step? You said

you're going to graduate in a couple weeks. I sense that you have some direction in life. Where are you heading to next? Yeah, so I started, my husband and I actually started a company together. It's a tech platform. It's called Opley. 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 we've built all of these agents that, learn your home systems inside and out without any hardware installation on your property. And then it'll auto book those services that are most needed through the CRMs of the home service providers. So say 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 nuance things of being a homeowner were just streamlining the entire

process. How did you guys come up with that? That's fascinating. Yeah, it's very, it's very interesting and it's gaining a lot of traction. It's honestly 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.

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 homeowner. just simply had no idea how to maintain their home. 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 adjusters and everything was due to things that could have been prevented. And it's 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 street 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 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 residential property that they live in, but also if they have multiple properties. So we're trying to get rid of, like, just destroy, honestly, property management companies, any type of search, like having to go to Google to search for anything, as well as like Fumtack and Angie's. So did you, did you guys hire out people to build the AI? Did you guys like just train your own like models to do it?

Like how do you guys that's fascinating? How did you get into it? 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 Opley team. We actually met our CTO through 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 been work.

I mean, you could go into the app store and download Opley and check it out, too. That's fantastic. I absolutely will. For people who are listening, it's OPLY or OPLY. So go to the, app store and download it.

Yeah, give it a download. Check out the website, oply.app. We're on all social media platforms as well. You know, 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 crock's going to be hanging out. 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 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. It builds this vector database on your individual home. And then we predict exactly what your home needs.

And then we take care of all the rest of it. That's amazing. 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? Yeah. Anything else that you'd like to bring up or get into that maybe we didn't ask? No, I mean, not really. Yeah, no, this has been really fun. Honestly, it's kind of fun to think back and to remember things. I hope it wasn't boring. No, not at all. But yeah, it's, I really, really

appreciate you guys having me on. Cool. Yeah, no, I'm glad you that you enjoyed it. All right, we got a couple questions from M Corbyn. What is your all-time favorite airframe? Also, do you have any funny stories about the Kentucky Air National Guard from the GWAT? I don't have any funny stories from the Kentucky National Guard. I didn't ever work with them. And then my favorite airframe, I mean, I would argue it's the H-6. I think it's an absolutely fucking beast of an aircraft.

And I love the mission and the profile. Was there like a friendly rival? rivalry between the H-6 pilots and the MH-6 pilots in terms of, like, ability to fly, precision, stuff like that? 100%. The MH-6 pilots, they're just better pilots. Like, they really are. I mean, what those guys do, they land on, you know, the edge of a rooftop.

They've got, you need, four dudes hanging off the side. It's a completely different profile. Now, if you put an MH-6 pilot in the cockpit of an H-6, they can't shoot for shit. like it's just it's a totally different dynamic but you just learn how to, it's almost like a different airframe flies different, feels different and the pros are so different. But there's like a fun rivalry.

There's a couple of guys that, especially in the company of one of my good friends, he was an MH6 pilot and then came over to fly the H6. So it does happen. Yeah. Yeah, I'm always, you know, obviously the, you know, the H6s are a godsend, but I've always been just so impressed by

you know, by the other pilots the way they can deliver, you know, troops on target and stuff. Yeah, I mean, that's just like what the one, that's like the mission of the 160th, obviously, plus or might arrive on time on target plus or minus 30 seconds. Yeah. So it's, and they land, I mean, skids down on that building

exactly when they need to. Yeah. So the customer can always depend that we'll get them there on time. Yeah. All righty. We have a couple more. Thoughts on the MV22 Osprey? Has the 160th ever considered using this airframe?

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, 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 ospy 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 airfare itself. What do you think of, you know, because they've talked about getting rid of AC130s, 810s. I mean, and this is supposed to, isn't this supposed to replace the Black Hawk? No, there's a new aircraft that's coming out to replace the Black Hawk. You know, what do you think of, do you think that our military, especially when it comes to airframes, 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.

have. 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, 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 take the forefront of where aviation is. I think that's like the next

frontier of aviation in terms of war fighting, especially in the types of wars that we might find ourselves getting into against those adversaries. The drone capacity I think is, is a very unique tactical approach to win some of these types of wars. All right, we got one more. What was it like flying with nods? I mean, it took me a while to get used to it. But I ended up absolutely love flying at night. It was not a problem for me.

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 you're that's all you do is fly at night under knots we had we had white phosphorus so it wasn't like a green picture it was white and um honestly it was almost like flying in daytime especially if there was high allume yeah one more and were it done hold on uh have you ever supported any marine units yeah we worked with we definitely worked with the marines for sure um good group of guys. Marsoc was pretty much the ones that we would work with the most.

Yeah. Cool. Lindsay, thank you for doing this interview, joining us on the show tonight. Again, people can go check out the app. It's called Opley 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. Yeah, we're going to be able to. Yeah. Everything is just going to be. The Opley underscore app. That's all our social media.

So OPLY underscore APP. And then our website is just oply dot app. And what about you if people want to follow you? Are you present on social media? Yeah, it's just my name. Lindsay Chrisman. I think on Instagram. I don't have a TikTok.

But my Instagram, I think, is just Lindsay.crisman. Okay. And then LinkedIn, you'll find me there too. Awesome. Well, thanks a lot for doing the show. And we will talk to everybody out there soon. Thanks, and please stay in touch. Definitely. Thanks, guys.

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