Airmen look back, celebrate progress

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Joe Kreidel
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  For the broadcast story, click here.

"We've come a long way," said Brig. Gen. Ken Wilsbach, 18th Wing commander, in his closing remarks at the Women's Equality Day Luncheon, held Aug. 26 at the Rocker NCO Club. 

First celebrated Aug. 26, 1971, fifty-one years to the day after Secretary Bainbridge Colly certified the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, Women's Equality Day honors the efforts and achievements of women and women's rights activists. Wednesday's event was focused on the progress of women in the military. 

Just how far we've come was articulated by Chief Master Sgt. Victoria Gamble, 18th Maintenance Group superintendent and the event's guest speaker. 

"I'll be damned if a girl will work on my flight line," said her maintenance flight chief when Chief Gamble reported to her first duty station in 1985. 

Determined to learn, Chief Gamble told the 100 or so people in attendance at the luncheon that she struck a deal with a more magnanimous NCO: she'd bring him dinner from the chow hall when he was working the night shift if he'd break ranks with the good old boys and train her as a maintenance technician. Her ruse apparently worked quite well. 

A fellow female Chief Master Sergeant, now retired, told Chief Gamble that the Air Force had yet to determine a utility uniform for women when they first entered the maintenance career field in the 1970s. Constrained by a lack of guidance on the one hand and a lack of options on the other, she wore a wraparound skirt and low quarters to her work repairing planes on the flight line. 

"Mary said, 'Oh, it was awful!'" said Chief Gamble, relating her friend's reaction to this unfortunate uniform. "She said she'd be trying to drag that heavy box and keep her skirt together while getting up the hatch of a C-130 and that the maintenance truck would always sit out front and wait until she had cleared the hatch." 

Younger female Airmen in attendance were impressed by Chief Gamble's depictions of what life was once like for women in the military. 

"It's crazy what these women went through," said 2nd Lt. Ashley Jensen, a maintenance officer with the 353rd Maintenance Squadron and the luncheon's coordinator. "Skirts on the flight line, hair-and-makeup instruction during basic training - it's strange to think about that kind of thing actually happening, but that's what she [Chief Gamble] said today. They really paved the way for the generations of female Airmen who came after them." 

The Air Force, of course, eventually came around to the idea of women in the service. According to Chief Gamble, when asked by headquarters how the presence of women was affecting the command, Alaskan Air Command responded, "Please send more."