CPT Sarah M. Deal-Burrow Oral History

title:

CPT Sarah M. Deal-Burrow Oral History

creator:

Deal-Burrow, Sarah M.

subject:

Marine Corps

description:

Captain, Marine Corps

description:

Sarah Deal-Burrow was born on September 12, 1969 in Bowling Green, Ohio. After graduating from high school in 1987 she attended Kent State University, studying aerospace flight technology. In the summer of 1991, she went to Marine Corps Officer Candidate School behind her parents’ back. Although she wanted to fly—having been an aviator in college—she was so impressed by the Marine Corps she joined them despite being barred from Marine aviation. After completing OCS in 1991, she finished her last year of college in May 1992 and went on active duty in August. She went to basic school in Quantico, Virginia, then to air traffic control school at Naval Air Station Memphis in Millington, Tennessee. While at air traffic control school, the announcement was made that women would be allowed to fly combat missions. She went to her liaison at the school and said she wanted to be a combat pilot, and was told to wait until they put out a call for women. Instead, she went to her monitor at Marine Corps Headquarters, who didn’t think she’d be released but gave her all the information on how to apply anyways. While at Kent State she was a flight instructor, and she already had her private, commercial, instrument, and multi-engine licenses, all of which she included in her application. On July 23, 1993, the day she was graduating from air traffic control school, she found out she was accepted. Her orders to Okinawa, Japan were canceled and she went to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida to begin her flight training. After Aviation Pre-Flight Indoctrination there, she went to Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida and joined her first training squadron. Because she was the first woman going through this training, she had people tell her both how much they supported her and how much they thought she didn’t belong there, and got so much advice that she doesn’t remember most of it. Her attitude was that she joined the Marines to be a Marine, and this new flight slot was just a bonus. While at Whiting Field she chose to become a helicopter pilot, because she had always been interested in them but couldn’t afford to civilian training. She finished her advanced training at Whiting and was the first woman Marine to get her wings on April 21, 1995. Her first station was in California with the Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, and many of her friends from training joined her there. While there, they had a big media day in the spring of 1996. She knew she was going to SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) school, and when asked about it she said that she grew up with a big brother and male cousins, so it couldn’t be much worse than that. She later realized that this comment put extra attention on herself and her friends, making them targets for those running the training. She deployed to Okinawa for six months after completing SERE school. Unfortunately, two months into this deployment a helicopter went down due to faulty swash plates, so they were grounded from June until September 1996. Although they got new swash plates in September, she still only flew a handful of times through the end of 1996 because, with limited flight time opportunities, others were higher on the priority list. She was then stationed at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California, where she enjoyed flying the most. They flew in mountains—so they had to deal with the forests and snow—and practiced Akio huddles, where in-training Marines make a pile of all their equipment as a landmark for the pilots to land five to ten feet from, so they can all load onto the helicopters and get out. She then deployed to Okinawa again, from April to November 1998. She spent most of 1999 stationed in California, then got orders to go to SERE school as a survival instructor. She was looking forward to this position because she had been working 11 to 12 hour days, and she wanted to start a family. She got to SERE school in November 1999, and was still stationed there as of the interview, with the free time she hoped for and twin boys born in 2001. Returning to the topic of pilot training, she explains what her day-to-day looked like. She also happened to go through training when Naval Aviation Flight Records, which had been yellow physical paperwork they had to fill out each flight, shifted to a computerized system called NALCOMIS. After the interview, Sarah stayed on active duty in the Marine Corps until 2004, when she moved into the Reserves. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 with Marine Aircraft Group 40, supporting the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. Sarah remained in the Marine Corps Reserve until retiring in 2019 having reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Wilson, Eleanor M.

date:

2002-01-09

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

220; 2002.220

source:

OHP | IMES

language:

English

relation:

384968

coverage:

1990s | 2000s

rights:

Unrestricted