Jet Girl

September 15, 2019
A former Navy jet pilot looks back on her training and career with a mixture of affection and dismay. Johnson's first book alternates between chapters on her training in the Naval Academy and in flight school and those on her deployment on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Middle East in 2014. Her story begins in 2005, when she entered the academy as a freshman, transforming from "a somewhat privileged Colorado debutante with doting parents" into "property of the United States Navy." Perhaps surprisingly, she looks back on her years of strenuous training with more gratitude and enthusiasm than those of her deployments. Although she clearly relished the thrill of flying jets and even of killing "terrorists," an experience she likens to "playing the most important video game of my life," she found flying extremely hard on her body and resented the constant low-level--and intermittent higher-level--sexism of life on a ship with very few women. The most intriguing segments of the book deal with the nitty-gritty details of Navy life, from the complications of female urination during a jet flight to the mental and physical challenges of SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) school to the supportive relationships among the few women aboard the carrier. (The author's female solidarity does not extend to the "chickenhawks" and "homecoming queens" married to other officers and allegedly jealous of the time Johnson spent with them.) Less fascinating are the passages that deal with Johnson's romantic relationship with the emotionally distant Marine she nicknames "the Minotaur" due to his "chiseled upper body and skinny legs." It's not clear why the book moves around in time so frequently, since the jumps can cause confusion for readers and the segments don't shape themselves into a narrative arc. A realistic look at a difficult, dangerous profession.

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September 30, 2019
Former weapons system officer Johnson debuts with a garrulous memoir recounting her training at the U.S. Navy’s flight school in Pensacola, Fla.; the camaraderie she developed with her fellow “jet girls”; and her decision to leave the “fighter community” as a result of “harassment and gender discrimination.” After graduating at the top of her flight school class, Johnson was selected for the Blacklions, an elite fighter group based out of Virginia Beach, Va. Immediately upon joining the squadron, however, she was subjected to the kinds of “microaggressions” that, she argues, wear down the navy’s female aviators over time, causing four out of every five of them to stop flying at the first available opportunity. Though she took out three armored vehicles and killed 16 ISIS fighters during the 2014 campaign to rescue 50,000 Yazidis under attack by the terrorist caliphate on Mount Sinjar, Johnson stopped being assigned “prime events” after she told her commanding officer that she felt isolated by her squadmates. Eventually, she asked to be reassigned to the naval academy as a leadership instructor. An enthusiastic narrator, Johnson’s love of flying comes through clearly. This no-holds-barred account will interest aviation buffs and those invested in making the military more welcoming to women.

November 1, 2019
Johnson served in the U.S. Navy as a weapons systems officer on the F-18 Hornet stationed on the USS George H.W. Bush and flew combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. With coauthor Williams, she provides a fairly straightforward account of her military career, from her student days at the U.S. Naval Academy to her return there after her combat experiences as a senior leadership instructor. Johnson takes pains to note her desire to maintain her femininity throughout her time in uniform, finding ways to wear regulation-approved nail polish and makeup despite the difficult demands of the job. Although her combat experience is emphasized, the most harrowing aspects of her career appear to be the sexual harassment she suffered at the hands of the men who served by her side. Johnson writes often of her constant drive to be the best and the many ways in which she excelled. Fans of military biographies and memoirs will enjoy this inside look at the experiences of a determined woman in the cockpit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)