A Trailblazing Journey in Flight Test Engineering and Military Leadership -13

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Kim [: 00:00:03

Imagine being a woman with a passion for math and science in the seventies, where opportunities were scarce and discrimination was rampant. Now, picture that same woman defying the odds, trading her computer programming job for a seat in the back of a fighter jet.

Dakota [: 00:00:19

In this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, we explore the remarkable journey of a trailblazer who turned barriers into breakthroughs, carving out a ground breaking career as a flight test engineer in the airport. Join us as we delve into her story of courage, resilience, and the pursuit of adventure in a male dominated world.

Kim [: 00:00:42

Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries, where military women share true stories. We are your hosts, Captain Kim.

Dakota [: 00:00:50

And Captain Dakota. The stories you are about to hear are powerful. We appreciate that you have joined us and are eager to learn more about these experiences and connect with the military women who are willing to share their stories in order to foster community and understanding.

Kim [: 00:01:07

Military women are providing valuable insight into their experiences, struggles, and triumphs. By speaking their truth, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and the resilience they demonstrate.

Dakota [: 00:01:21

We appreciate your decision to join us today to gain insights and knowledge from the experiences of these courageous military women. Thank you for being here.

Kim [: 00:01:38

In this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, we sit down with a remarkable woman who came of age during a transformative time in American history, the late 1960s early 1970s. With a natural talent for math and science and a love for sports, she was anything but typical in an era when women were just starting to gain more opportunities, yet still faced significant discrimination.

Dakota [: 00:02:03

Her journey took her from a computer programming job to a groundbreaking career in the Air Force where she became a flight test engineer overcoming the limitations placed on women in the military at the time. We'd like to welcome Eileen Bjorkman. Thank you for coming on our podcast.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:02:22

Well, thank you for having me on.

Dakota [: 00:02:24

Yeah. Of course. So we like to start the podcast with asking what your childhood was like and what you were like as a child.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:02:33

I think I had a pretty typical childhood for the sixties other than the fact that my dad was in the air force. And so I moved around quite a bit, got to meet, you know, lots of different kinds of people, live in different parts of the country, never lived overseas, but still got to experience the cultures of the Midwest, the Southwest, and the South, and then, you know, wound up moving out to the Seattle area, when I was 17. So, yeah, so I got to see a lot. And I was also very much, as you mentioned, you know, I was kind of a tomboy. I was very into sports. I was always I think, you know, probably the best thing is I was always very interested in lots of different things. So and I wouldn't say my parents necessarily encouraged a lot of that, but they didn't discourage it either. So and they gave me opportunities like, having a chemistry set and encouraged reading.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:03:23

My parents were both big readers, you know, and those kinds of things.

Dakota [: 00:03:26

That's awesome. I wish I had chemistry set. That sounds good fun.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:03:30

Yeah. And the chemistry sets they had in those days too were nowadays, they're, like, quite diluted with the chemicals. But in those days, they were full strength chemicals. Oh. Yeah. Oh, wow. Sometimes I'm surprised I never burned the house down.

Kim [: 00:03:47

So did your father, was he the one that influenced you to start your career in the Air Force?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:03:53

You know, it wasn't so much that he influenced me. I you know, there were things that I liked about being an air force dependent. You know, I actually, to some extent, enjoyed the moving around. I it wasn't that I enjoyed making new friends and stuff, you know, all the time, but I did like to kinda see different parts of the country and everything. And when I was, you know, I worked for a year as a computer programmer after I graduated from college, and I was actually just getting a little bored. And when I was thinking about what I might do, you know, knowing about the Air Force and having been a dependent, you know, it seemed like the Air Force was just something to look at. So but I wouldn't say he inspired me. You know, it was more that because he was in the Air Force, I knew about the Air Force as an opportunity.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:04:37

And by then, it was becoming a more welcoming place for women. When I first graduated from high school in 1974, it was not a welcoming place for women. In fact, I remember my dad, at one point when I was applying for college, mentioned that perhaps I should think about going to ROTC. And I don't remember exactly what I said to him, but it was something along the lines of why would I do that? Because because it was just not it didn't seem like a great place to be a woman at that time. But things had changed. Like I said, by 1980, when I was looking at coming in, things had changed quite a bit. Still not perfect, but there was a lot more opportunities for women.

Kim [: 00:05:15

So did you enter the military?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:05:17

I came in 1980, and that was actually the same year that, women graduated from the service academies for the first time. So things were really starting to I would say change was accelerating at that point. So yeah.

Kim [: 00:05:30

Yeah. But you were still in the thick of it?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:05:32

Oh, yes. Definitely. So yeah. We still had quite a ways to go. So yeah. In particular, with the combat exclusion law that, you know, shaped a lot of the policies towards women and, you know, actually led to my decision to become a flight test engineer.

Dakota [: 00:05:48

Yeah. Tell us more about that.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:05:50

Yes. So when I first came in, my dad had been a pilot, but my eyes weren't good enough to be a pilot. And so I was they actually brought me in to be an engineer. And once I got to officer training school, I started to realize that, you know, if you're going to be in the Air Force, you probably really ought to be flying at least in those days. Yes. Less true nowadays. And I was also more interested in flying at that point. I started getting interested more in airplanes and and actually flying.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:06:18

I thought, well, maybe I could be a navigator because you don't have to have perfect eyesight to be a navigator. I was actually in school to get a second bachelor's degree in engineering. I thought, well, when I'm done with school and I go be an engineer for a couple of years and then I'll apply for navigator school. But I knew that if I was gonna be a navigator that I would be limited in what I was allowed to do because of that combat exclusion law and I wouldn't be allowed to fly in fighters or bombers, I'd only be allowed fly in cargo aircraft, transport aircraft, refueling aircraft. And there's nothing wrong with those aircraft. You know, they have wonderful missions, and they make wonderful contributions. But, you know, I was like a lot of young people. I was excited about the idea of being able to fly in a combat aircraft.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:06:58

Aircraft. Yeah. And it annoyed me that I wouldn't have the opportunity to compete for that because I was a woman. It didn't matter how good I was at navigator school, I wouldn't be allowed to fly in one of those airplanes. And then while I was going to engineering school, I found out that you could be a flight test engineer. And as a flight test engineer, I could fly in the back seat of fighter aircraft or I could fly in bombers because those were considered test airplanes, the ones that I would be flying and then as a flight test engineer. And so they weren't considered combat, and so I could actually fly in a in the backseat of a fighter. And I thought that's what I wanna do.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:07:33

I wanna go and do that and have that opportunity instead. So I never even applied for navigator school. I just decided I wanted to be a flight test engineer and and everything just kinda went from there.

Dakota [: 00:07:44

Yeah. That's amazing. It's kinda like you found, like, a loophole to be able to do what you want with the limitation.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:07:51

Yeah. Definitely a loophole. And I wasn't the only one. I mean, there were there were other women a few other women who had gone before me. You know, I wasn't the first. So but it was a great opportunity for a handful of us, you know, that we're able to to kinda get around that law that way.

Kim [: 00:08:07

It's such a shame that the law was in effect because it sounds like and that you're an intelligent capable woman who probably would have done even better than more of the male candidates that were selected. Right. Yeah. And so it's a shame that law was in effect that we weren't able we, being women, weren't able to take those positions. Tell us a little bit about because you said there was other women who wanted those positions as well. Did you have discussions about how you all were feeling?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:08:40

Yeah. There was, you know, almost from the beginning, I started to meet, women pilots, you know, women navigators, who were frustrated that, you know, that they had not had those opportunities. Some didn't care. I mean, some were perfectly happy flying transport aircraft. That's actually what they wanted to do. You know, just like some men, that's what they wanna do. But, yes, there were women, I would say almost from the beginning that I started to meet, you know, not many, but, you know, there were a handful of women, pilots and navigators by that point, and I met some of them. And and, yes, they were also frustrated that, you know, they had graduated in the top of their class, and yet they weren't, you know, they weren't allowed to compete for those combat aircraft.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:09:19

They were very frustrated by that. And it was also, you know, as we got older, you know, at first, it wasn't that big of a deal, but as we got older and started to get promoted and move more into leadership positions, women started to realize that not being able to be in those combat aircraft was limiting their ability to compete for higher leadership positions within the Air Force. Then, again, things have changed today, but in those days, you know, being a fighter pilot was kind of at the top of the food chain. And if you weren't a fighter pilot, everybody else get in line. Right? You know? And so women automatically could not be in that top tier and, you know, just because they were women. And it also wasn't fair to commanders when you think about it because the best people in a pilot training class are the ones that, you know, a fighter squadron commander wants those top people, you know, in his or her squadron. In those days, it was all men, of course. And those best pilots were not getting, you know, were not allowed to go to those fighter squadrons.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:10:15

We're not allowed to fly those fighter aircraft. Now, the people who were going, the men who were going were obviously still very qualified. You know, they're still at the top part of their class, but they're not the best qualified. And so, if you're talking about the people who are best qualified, the squadron commanders are not necessarily getting those best qualified people. And it also caused problems even in the non combat aircraft because you have non combat aircraft, transport aircraft, refueling aircraft that are flying into hostile areas. And it just the law just said that women couldn't engage the enemy in combat. It didn't say anything about being in a combat zone or, you know, flying into a hostile area. And so you had individual commanders who were now making decisions about whether or not to send their women pilots and navigators and other crew members into a combat zone.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:11:04

In many cases, again, they were the most qualified people to be doing that position. They were already on the schedule. And if you pull them off the schedule, it's disruptive, you know, and it just caused all kinds of operational issues to have this exclusion in in place and have to treat the women differently.

Dakota [: 00:11:20

Yeah. That's a really good point. And like you said, like, the women have been there the entire time. They just weren't officially recognized as being there because they weren't allowed to be there according to the military, but they were right there doing the job as well.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:11:34

Exactly. Yes.

Kim [: 00:11:36

What was it like being a flight test engineer? Like, give us a day in the life of you.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:11:42

Yeah. So one of the things that's really cool about being a flight test engineer is the day in the life is different every day. So I think that's one of the things that I really liked about the job. On a typical day, if I was gonna fly, I would typically, we would have test objectives that we were trying to meet in a particular mission, and we would normally go to some kind of a preflight briefing. It's it's kinda like operational flying in that way, where you go to a preflight briefing, you talk about what you're gonna do on the mission, you talk about any limitations that you're gonna have, any other aircraft you might be flying with. So, you know, if I was flying in a big airplane, you know, it might just be that particular aircraft. And if you're flying in a smaller aircraft, a fighter, you might have a chase aircraft. Even a bigger plane, you might have a chase aircraft sometimes, but you might have an aircraft that's taking photos or an aircraft that's doing safety chase.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:12:31

So everybody's there at the briefing. You also, in some cases, might be working with a a ground control, so a mission controllers on the ground. So think of NASA. You know, you have the big mission control. It's a similar kind of thing in testing. Not all missions have that, but, you know, we might also be working with people on the ground. And so they're also in the briefing. So you can have these gigantic briefings, you know, where you've got 30, 40, 50 people in them, you know, all looking at, you know, me and the pilot, you know, about, okay, you know, don't screw this up.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:13:01

Right? Here's the test points we want you to fly and go do that. So then you, you know, you go out to the airplane after you have the briefing. You go out to the airplane. You do you know, pilot does does a walk around, you know, you get in and you strap in and you go take off and and fly the mission. My job, in a lot of cases was to sometimes I ran equipment in the back seat of the airplane. Sometimes I would just anytime I was up there, I was there to help the pilot get through the test cards. I would monitor what we were doing. Okay.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:13:31

Here's the next test point. I would verify that the pilot was on the proper conditions, kind of a backup in a lot of ways. So and if something went wrong, then I would have a discussion with the pilot about it. What do we do? You know? And then if you have people on the ground, then you might be talking with the people on the ground as well about, you know, maybe something that went wrong and, you know, what do we do? Do we re we fly the point? Should we go home? You know, those kinds of things. So it's a very dynamic environment. And then you come back, you land, and then you go to a debriefing, and you talk about how the the test went. Depending upon the mission, I might write up some kind of a report. It would depend.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:14:05

Sometimes I was flying in the back seat for, other people, so I might just be done with it at that point. But in other cases, if it was a program that I was working on, then I would have to write up some kind of a mission report or something. And then, later on, you get involved with taking the data and actually analyzing it, writing up a final report. And then you have many days when you're not in the airplane, but you're sitting in the control room. So or days when you're waiting for somebody else to come back and you wanna look at the data and you're just going to the mission briefing and then the debriefing. And so, like I said, it's it's a very different environment almost every day. And there's almost always something that goes wrong during testing. You almost never have a mission where you come back and you go, oh, what did it do? Perfectly, we got all the data.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:14:48

The controls, you know. So there's always some and sometimes there's very big things that go wrong, and now you have to go into troubleshooting mode and, you know, you have some kind of a scheduling problem or something. So it's like I said, it's a very dynamic environment. And I always tell people, if you want a job where you do the same thing every day, do not go with the flight testing. That will that will not happen. So yeah.

Kim [: 00:15:08

Well, that sounds like it fed your soul because you said as a child, you liked diversity.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:15:13

Yes. I often told people, you know, I have told people if I don't think I would have ever been a doctor, but if I had been a doctor, I probably would have gone into I probably would have been in the emergency room. Yeah. Because I kind of feed off that adrenaline of that change all the time. So yeah.

Kim [: 00:15:28

You never know what's coming in, that unpredictability, those adrenaline highs.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:15:33

Yes. Yes. So yeah. Yeah.

Kim [: 00:15:35

Yeah. So when you did the round tables and the debriefings, as a woman, did you feel like your testimonies were respected?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:15:45

Yeah. You know, I think it helped a lot to be in the Air Force. You know, first of all, I was an officer and especially, like, when I my first assignment, I was flying, testing the nurse navigation systems in larger aircraft, so C-130s and C-141s. And, there was a lot of enlisted, folks that I worked with, listed folks that flew with me as aircrew and being an officer kind of brings you some instant credibility. So I think that helped kind of get that. There were times when I felt that there were people who, you know, especially in those days, were not that supportive of me, but some of them actually were my bosses. So, yeah. I felt at times there were some of my peers that maybe tried to undermine me a little bit, you know, that maybe there was that they didn't like me because I was a woman or maybe they thought I was getting some kind of preferential treatment, which certainly wasn't true, You know? So I I though but it was all very subtle.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:16:37

You know? There was never anything overt. And so, you know, I just, you know, I maintained my professionalism. You know? That was the way I dealt with that was maintaining my professionalism, you know, showing that I belong, you know, showing that I was confident. You know, that was probably the biggest thing, you know, was, you know, being confident in what I did. So and learning from my mistakes. Like, I was far from perfect, you know? I made a mistake. I, you know, I tried to learn from it and not make that mistake again. So that helped a lot.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:17:04

So the other thing that helped me, especially after I got to Edwards, was was that I was selected for the Test Pilot School. Test Pilot School doesn't just train pilots, they train navigators and flight test engineers and, nowadays, you know, remote pilot operators. You know, they have they have a variety of courses and and it's pretty much all the same thing. You go through the same academics, you do the same flying, but if you're a flight test engineer or a navigator, you do it in the back seat or the right seat instead of the front seat, you know, the pilot's up front. And then the engineers spend a little bit more time in the control room as well, you know, versus the pilot. So, but I got selected for for test pilot school in 1984. I went off and did my, work on my master's degree before I went there and graduated in 1986. And being a test pilot school graduate also, especially at Edwards or one of the other test bases, again, brings you some instant credibility.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:17:58

So you walk in the door, you've got your little patch on that says you're a TPS grad, you know, and they go, oh, TPS grad. She knows what she's doing. Now, again, there were also some people who didn't like TPS grads. You know, they thought we were a bunch of arrogant, you know, whatever. You know? So, you know, I had to deal with a little bit of that from time to time. But for the most part, having those kinds of credentials, I think, really helps. So, I was, I don't know if you can stay on one more story. You're ready.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:18:29

I was when I first went to the Pentagon, I was actually hired into 1 a position at the Pentagon. And, you know, one of the guys I was gonna be working with called me and, you know, was telling me all about the new job and everything. This is where I got into more modeling the simulation, which I think we're gonna talk about later. But, anyway, one of the guys who was gonna be working with called me and told me all about how the job was gonna be and everything. And about a week later, I got a phone call and he said, you're actually gonna go to another section in our organization. I was like, oh, what happened? He goes, you got traded. I was like I was like, oh, how'd that happen? How did that happen? Yeah. Exactly.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:19:12

So then later on, I talked to the lieutenant colonel. I was an agent by then. I talked to the lieutenant colonel that stole me, if you will. And he he said, oh, yeah. He goes, that other guy, he had a he bragged about you at a staff meeting and said how you were a test pilot school graduate and all this kind of stuff. And he said, I went over and told the colonel after the staff meeting that I needed you more than he did. And so, again, you know, I kinda had this instant credibility walking in the door that I didn't even know I had. Right? You know, I'm Yeah.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:19:40

Working with a bunch of fighter pilots, actually. And I'm a little worried about my credibility. Right? Because I'm not a fighter pilot. You know?

Kim [: 00:19:47

That had to feel so good to be traded in a positive way.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:19:52

Yeah. Yeah. It was just yeah. I was like, oh my gosh. You know? Yeah. Just, because I certainly wasn't expecting I mean, I wasn't expect expecting a hostile environment, but I wasn't necessarily expecting that that kind of a reception where the where I'm like, oh, I wish we're so glad you, you know, get to work, you know. There we go.

Dakota [: 00:20:09

So how long did you stay in the airport?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:20:12

Oh, I was in for 30 years almost.

Dakota [: 00:20:14

Oh, wow.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:20:14

I retired as a colonel.

Dakota [: 00:20:16

That's amazing. Congratulations. Thanks. That's no easy thing to do.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:20:20

Just kept having fun. They kept they kept giving me interesting jobs, and so I stayed. So yeah.

Kim [: 00:20:27

So what else did you do? What other interesting jobs?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:20:30

So I spent, you know, most of my early part of my career in flight testing, and that's pretty normal in the air force. You know, you spend the first 10, 12 years of your career, you know, doing kind of your specialty. So and then I went off to air command and staff college, and then from the there to the Pentagon. And then that was when I really, you know, kinda started diversifying a little bit. I went to the Pentagon to be a they hired me as a fighter, you know, combat analyst, air to air combat analyst. I was running a simulation program, and that was my first real experience with doing that kind of thing. You know, I had the computer background, and that was why they hired me was because I I had my computer background, and and I also had the engineering degree, and they wanted that. And, anyway, it just led to this whole other way of, you know, looking at the world and learning about modeling simulation and how we can use it to, you know, help us, you know, make decisions in the Air Force and in the Department of Defense.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:21:22

And then there's the other side of simulation as well, which is, you know, getting into the simulators that you fly and and that kind of thing. But this is more on the, you know, just software side of things, where you're running these models. You don't have have actual pilots in the loop. You're just running these models to, like I said, help you make decisions. And, yeah, like I said, it just kinda opened this whole new world being at the Pentagon, you know, kinda seeing what goes on up there and understanding that. Did that for just a couple years and then had the opportunity to be a squadron commander, which is, you know, kinda like what everybody in the air force wants to be. Right? A squadron.

Kim [: 00:21:55

Explain that role for the civilians that are listening.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:21:58

Yeah. So squadron commander. So the kind of the core of the air force is squadron. So we have, you know, wings, which, you know, oversee a large number of people. Those wings are usually subdivided into groups like an operations group, which oversees the flying, a maintenance group, which oversees the maintenance, you know, depending on upon the wing, you might have a civil engineering group. Yeah. There's all these different groups that, you know, kinda take care of different parts of the mission. And then underneath one of the groups, you'll have your flying squadrons.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:22:27

So we had a test group as opposed to an operations group, within the the test world. So, but the squadron is really where the rubber meets the road. That squadron commander is usually responsible for anywhere from 50 to a couple hundred people, maybe even more. Some squadrons get very big, and you're responsible for everything that goes on in that squadron. So you're responsible for the day to day operations, you're responsible for, you know, hiring the right people in the in when it comes to civilians, you're responsible for, you know, working with the personnelists to get your military people in and out, you're responsible for rating people, awards, decorations, you know, the welfare of your people. If somebody gets into trouble, you know, what do you do if somebody's got a a family issue? You know, helping them out, helping them to get through it. And, it's a really re it's a very demanding but very rewarding job. And and a lot of people consider that it's not the highest job you can have in your career necessarily, but a lot of people consider that the most rewarding job.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:23:25

I certainly did. Because once you start getting above that, you start getting further and further away from the people, you know, that you're in charge of. Whereas as a squadron commander, I mean, I had about, 200 people that worked for me, and I was able to know most of them by name. It's a small enough organization that you can meet all of them. You can get to know quite a few of them quite well, and then others, you at least know them by name and, you know, know a little bit about what they do. So it like I said, it's very rewarding job, and pretty much everybody in the every officer wants to be a squadron.

Dakota [: 00:23:58

That's amazing. So I was just gonna ask, where did you go after that?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:24:04

So after squadron command so then well, I was so by then, I was a lieutenant colonel. So, you know, so now he's starting to move further up the food chain. And in the military, the farther up the food chain you move, And that's true on both the officer and enlisted side. The more you get into leadership jobs as opposed to you know, I said at some point in there, they stopped allowing me to titch things. You know? You know? You just get to watch other people, you know, actually do the job. You know, you you start getting into a position where you're leading those people. And so I actually spent a year down at Eglin Air Force Base in a kind of different job. I was the chief of what's called the Commander's Action Group.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:24:42

I worked for a 2 star general there, and I had 3 folks that worked for me. And we pretty much did what the commander, you know, with the 2 star needed us to do to support him in the things that he did day to day. It's not an exact job. You know, some people think, you know, it's an exact job where they worry about the, you know, the boss's schedule and everything. We didn't do that. This particular guy, he did a lot of speeches and talking and everything, and so we spent a lot of time, like, preparing presentations for him and, helping him to get the word out. So getting his message out and, you know, communicating both within our organization and outside our organization, whether that was to the public or people of the Pentagon, you know, about mission and what we were doing and what our needs were and, you know, that kind of a thing. So, it's a really interesting job.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:25:24

That was the first time I worked closely with the general officer and, you know, kinda got to learn about how they think, you know, and what they do, you know, you know, who they interact with. And I and I think that job was very valuable and, you know, when I became a colonel myself, you know, is really knowing what colonels and generals do and really understanding that so that I could communicate with them better. So, I do remember at one point, somebody asked me how my new job was going. And I said, about a month ago, I was in charge of 200 people and a $15,000,000 budget. And now, I'm worried about the font size on the general's PowerPoint chart. It's

Dakota [: 00:26:00

It's a drastic difference.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:26:02

So, yeah. So, that's how things go in the military. A lot of times, you know, you're kinda out in the field and you're in charge of all this really cool stuff. And then, you go to the staff job and you're like, you know, you're pushing paper. But those jobs are very valuable too. And I think that's, you know, if there's people in the military, young people out there that are worried about going to a staff job or something, I would say don't worry about it. You will learn and grow in those jobs too just in different ways.

Dakota [: 00:26:26

Yeah. That's a good point. I like that. So what do you do now?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:26:30

So now that I'm retired?

Dakota [: 00:26:32

Yeah.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:26:33

So I'm fully retired now. After I retired from the Air Force, I did work as a Air Force civilian for about a dozen years and I'm fully retired now. And, right now, I'm on the board of several nonprofit organizations, professional organizations mostly, and I do some writing. I started doing some writing back in about the 2012 time frame. Initially, just started doing some freelance writing for magazines, you know, aviation and military related kinda stuff. And then now got 3 books published, and the last one was the Fly Girls Revolt, the women who kicked open the door, the story of the women who kicked open the door to flying combat. And it talks about a lot of those things that we were talking about earlier, that combat exclusion law and the women who fought to change that law, you know, and all of the, you know, the problems that it caused and then getting the law changed and everything that went into making that happen. The law changed in 1991.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:27:28

The policy then followed in 1993. So just because the law changed doesn't mean that services, you know, start doing anything. It it just allowed them to implement policies, and they were still rather not in favor of doing that initially even after the law change.

Kim [: 00:27:44

I love that you have all these three books. They're called The Fly Girls Revolt, which is such a cool name, Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin, and then The Propeller Under the Bed. Yes. I'm not gonna lie. The Propeller Under the Bed reminds me of some of the erotic novels my a 103 year old nana used to read. That was the first thing that came to mind. I'm not taking away from any of it. I just Yeah.

Kim [: 00:28:13

But so what was that one about?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:28:15

So that book was about it's really 2 stories. It weaves together the story of my dad, and that's originally what it started out. It was the story of my dad who designed an airplane when he was in college as part of his senior project to he designed this airplane to set an aviation world distance record for an aircraft that weighs less than 500 kilograms. So, now, it was a very top level design, you know, don't get me wrong. This wasn't something that you could just go out and build the next day, you know, but he made this design and his goal was to, you know, initially, he thought, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, build this airplane and I'm gonna go set this record and it's gonna be this really cool thing. And, anyway, he did finally get around to building and setting building the airplane, setting the record 50 years later when he was 82 years old. So it was kind of this long drawn out, you know, all this other stuff in his life going on and, you know, that kept him from, you know, finishing the design and starting to build the airplane and everything. And at one point in that, he acquired a propeller that he thought he was going to use to build this airplane.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:29:16

And they kept my parents stored it under the bed in their bedroom. And so me and my mother always used to say, if he ever builds that airplane, I'm gonna write a book called The Propeller Under the Bed. So that's where the where the title came from. Unfortunately, my mother passed away before he finished building the airplane.

Kim [: 00:29:34

Oh, so you lived out our dream.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:29:36

Yeah. Yeah. So when I went to write the book, you know, there was never any question about what it was gonna be called to go. And and people in the home building community, I mean, they get it right away. You know, as soon as it because they have the same thing. They're maybe not a propeller under the bed, but a, you know, a propeller, you know, stored in a locker in their garage. Or so, you know, they they have airplane parts all over the house, you know, similar.

Kim [: 00:29:55

Under the bed is a different type of storage space, but it's storage.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:30:01

And so, yeah. It also weaves in, you know, as I was telling as I was writing my dad's story, I realized that, you know, one of the reasons he got, you know, he was able to build the airplane and finish it and everything was because of this whole home built aircraft move in the United States, which actually started back in the 19 twenties. And so I so I kind of wove in the history of that. And from the time he started to think about building his airplane in the sixties until the present, you know, that whole industry has evolved quite a bit. And and he evolved his design, you know, along with that industry as well. So it kinda weaves the 2 stories together.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:30:35

So

Dakota [: 00:30:36

That's beautiful. So where can people find your book?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:30:39

They're all on Amazon and, Barnes and Noble, you know, just kind of all the the standard places. So yeah.

Dakota [: 00:30:45

Perfect. And then you also have a website. Is that correct?

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:30:48

I do. Yeah. It's just eileenbjorkman.com. It's also got links to a lot of the older articles that I've written. Some of my currently I don't write do as much freelance writing as I used to, but there's a lot of good stories in, you know, in those magazines too. And that that's what I try to do. I try to find stories that haven't been told or maybe haven't been told well or maybe were told at one time but have been forgotten. And I focus on military, you know, veterans, you know, the aviation, those kinds of stories.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:31:16

Yeah.

Kim [: 00:31:16

Well, thank you so much for educating us. We are so excited to delve into those articles, and we're definitely gonna get the books.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:31:23

Thank you.

Dakota [: 00:31:24

Yeah. Absolutely. So how we like to end our podcast is asking what advice you would have for other women who are currently in the military or thinking about joining the military.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:31:36

I would say that today, there's no limits to what you could do in the military. So go for it. Whatever it is that you wanna do, go for it. You'll be able to achieve that. It's gonna be based on your own capabilities. So and, you know, if you shoot for something really high, like the seals are, it's gonna be a lot harder because, you know, not many men succeed at some of those things. And and so it's, you know, it's hard for women. But women have proved they can get through pretty much everything.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:32:02

I mean, we had you know, there were many people that thought women could not become ranger qualified, and and there have been over a 100 women now, you know, since the first two made it through that have qualified as as rangers. So, you know, don't think that you're limited by being a woman. If you can meet the standard and be yourself, you don't have to be one of the guys to be in the military. And I think the military today is much different than when I first came in. You know, I think a lot of women in my generation felt like they had to be one of the guys or felt like they had to kind of compromise, you know, being a woman. I knew there were things that I just simply didn't do or talk about because I thought the guys are gonna make fun of me or they're not gonna think that's a good thing. The military is much more family friendly now. It's still not perfect, but if you have a problem, you talk to your bosses about it.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:32:49

Don't be afraid to bring things up like my generation was. Yeah. We kept our heads down because we felt like that's what we had to do. But I think nowadays, if you've got some kind of an issue, don't be afraid to bring it up. And I think you'll find that your both your peers and your superiors are supportive of that. And if they're not, there are plenty of organizations out there to help you. So things like you've got your sergeant's organizations, you've got if you're an aviator, we've got women military aviators, which I'm the president of, by the way, that, you know, you can always contact us and say, hey, I'm having a problem. Is there somebody that can mentor me and help me out? You know, and seek out mentors.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:33:25

And your mentors don't necessarily have to be women. You know, one of the things I did not have a lot of women role models when I was going, you know, coming up, and I think women role models are important. I mean, I did have some, but there were plenty of men who mentored me as well because there just weren't women around at that time to to do that. So but, you know, there's just so many opportunities, and I think that, like I said, just be yourself, figure out what you wanna do, and and go for it. So

Dakota [: 00:33:49

Well, thank you for sharing your story with us, and I really love your advice. Very good. Bye. Well, thank you for joining us today.

Eileen Bjorkman [: 00:33:57

Yes. Thank you, and thank you for your service as well.

Kim [: 00:34:03

Thank you for tuning in to Dog Tag Diaries. We appreciate your willingness to listen and engage with these stories as we understand the challenge that comes with sharing and hearing them. Your support in witnessing the experience of our military women is invaluable. These stories are meant to inspire and provide meaning, and we hope they can help you find your own voice as well.

Dakota [: 00:34:27

If you or anyone you know are in need of immediate help, call the crisis line by dialing 988, then press 1. There are resources available to help and provide guidance during difficult times. Please visit our website, www.reveilleandretreatproject.org, to learn more about the Reveille and Retreat Project, including upcoming retreats for military women and resources. The link is in the show notes. We'll be here again next Wednesday. Keep finding the hope, the healing, and the power in community.