LT. Col. Jackie Parker was the first woman pilot to become combat qualified in the F-16 and became the first woman to attend U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California in 1988. Parker is considered a hero of women’s aviation. In the 1990s, she was a minor celebrity, praised by Hillary Clinton, and was considered the avant grade of a new generation of women combat pilots. But everything you would expect to happen when a woman enters the masculine world of fighter pilots in an age of mandatory integration happened in Parker’s case.  A story in The Los Angeles Times from 1998 gives the details of her experience training with the New York Air National Guard, which the newspaper called “one of the most destructive explosions of gender conflict since the integration of women in the military began.” Parker left a number of derailed careers in her wake and allegedly had a romantic relationship with the unit’s operations chief:

One year after Maj. Jacquelyn S. Parker began training to become the Air Guard’s first female F-16 pilot, her fighter career was over, two superiors had been ousted in disgrace and the 174th Fighter Wing was on its way to a top-to-bottom reorganization.

Here are details in The New York Times of October, 22, 1995 about the sex discrimination case that resulted from Parker’s experience:

On Friday, the commander of the 174th Wing, Col. David Hamlin, was relieved of command, denied the chance to be promoted to the rank of brigadier general, and was asked to resign, Mr. [Daniel Donohue, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon]  said. If he refuses to resign, Mr. Donohue added, “He’s history anyway. It’s just a matter of time.”

Col. Thomas D. Webster, the vice commander and air commander of the wing, was also relieved of his command and was reassigned to a low-level position, Mr. Donohue said.

The investigation resulted from a June visit to the Syracuse wing by Brig. Gen. John Fenimore, commander of the New York Air National Guard, who was told in passing by Ms. Parker that she was not planning to stay with the unit, Mr. Donohue said. Gen. Fenimore pressed her for reasons, and she described how she had been held back from qualifying for particular missions when male pilots who had performed no better had moved ahead, Mr. Donohue said.

Ms. Parker told the general that the standard rough banter among pilots had in her case gone far beyond the norm, with some pilots suggesting that her sex had played a role in advancing her career, Mr. Donohue said.

Hamlin later contested his demotion.

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