The inspiring story of the first female Marine to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18—and the transformative events that led to her bold decision to take on the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate.

Amy McGrath grew up in Edgewood, Kentucky, a childhood shaped by love of country, baseball, and, from the age of twelve, a fascination with fighter jets. Her devastation at learning that a federal law prohibited women from flying in combat fueled her determination to do just that—and then, to help change the laws to improve the lives of all Americans.

McGrath writes of gaining an appointment in high school to the U.S. Naval Academy, making it through Marine Corps training, graduating from Annapolis, Maryland, becoming a Second Lieutenant, and raising her right hand to swear to defend the U.S. Constitution, honor bound.

She vividly recounts her experiences flying in the Marines, and her combat deployments to Iraq (Kuwait) and Afghanistan, her work as an Air Combat Tactics instructor—and what it was like to finally fly that fighter jet: high-speed, intense, and physically demanding.

Here is McGrath, training to do the most intense tactical flying there is (think the Navy''s TOPGUN); meeting the man who would become her husband; being promoted to major and then lieutenant colonel; marrying, having three children, a career and life in Washington and then moving her family back to Kentucky to begin a whole new chapter in politics; her roller-coaster congressional campaign (she lost by three percentage points); and making the tough decision to run again, in an even bigger, higher-stakes national campaign, against the five-term leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell.

A moving, inspiring American story of courage, determination, and large dreams.

Autorentext

AMY McGRATH was raised in Edgewood, Kentucky. She earned a postgraduate degree in global security from Johns Hopkins University. She has been awarded two Meritorious Service Medals, eight Strike Flight Air Medals, Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal, a Presidential Unit Citation, two Afghan and one Iraq Campaign medals.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Even as a young girl, I knew that my mother’s beeper signaled something incredibly important. She wore the beeper when it was her turn to be one of the pediatricians on call for the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. My sister, brother, and I might be watching The Muppet Show while my mom made her wonderful spaghetti sauce, the enticing smell filling the house. She liked to sing as she cooked, adding a cheery background to dinnertime. Suddenly the shrill alarm of the beeper would shatter the pleasant calm.

Mom would turn the beeper off and call the hospital using the wall phone in the kitchen. She’d stretch the spiraled phone cord to move as far from us as possible and hear the person on the other end clearly. Even so, Dad would say, “Turn it down. Mom’s got a beep. She’s on the phone!” We went quiet in an instant. We knew it was serious business.

She would hang up and, many times, head out to the hospital. In my young mind I envisioned her rushing to the bedside of a sick child suffering a dire medical emergency. Dad would take over cooking, and we would go back to watching TV. Still, it would linger, the same thought every time: “Wow, my mom is important. She’s going to go save a life right now.” It was my earliest brush with how service to others translated to action. My mother was a healer, had chosen to be a doctor. People—children—counted on her. She took that obligation to heart.

She was my strongest influence and most powerful role model. Mom, the oldest of eight kids, had been struck with polio when she was ten years old. She survived, but the disease left her with a leg that was largely useless. She drag-limped it as she walked. Regardless, she refused to let it stop her or even slow her down. She exemplified the determination of pure will. At a point in history when few women even went to college, my mom went to medical school and became a pediatrician.

I’m sure there were days when she would have loved to let that call go, to ignore the beeper. Times when she was tired from a long day of seeing patients, checking homework, and reining in three kids. There must have been evenings when all she wanted was to sit down on the sofa, take a breath, and stare out the window. That is surely true, but I never once heard my mom complain. Not about the beeper, her work, or her leg. She had important things to do, and those things required sacrifices. She had made the choice to serve, and as far as she was concerned, there was no other option. You put your head down, and you got on with it.

That dedication was coupled with a keen mind. She has always been one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever known. She taught her children to constantly question the world around them. We were raised to always be respectful but never take anything at face value. She showed me that the only true limitations are the ones we impose on ourselves. Safe to say I would never have so tenaciously pursued my dream of being a fighter pilot had she not been such an example of possibility realized.

Her immense inner strength, quick mind, faith, and love of family were deep values she shared with my father. They were both compassionate, strong people of durable religious belief, faithful but forever intellectually curious.

My mom was short and huggable, with a beautiful smile. Dad was a sturdy man whom people knew they could lean on for support. He, too, had immense inner strength matched by a physical heartiness. He was built thick and strong, with a laborer’s beefy hands. He had brown curly, almost frizzy hair and an unruly beard and mustache that framed a quick and infectious smile. He loved a good practical joke. He once parked our station wagon down the street while we were asleep and replaced it in the garage with a look-alike toy car. He told my five-year-old brother, Matt, that the car had shrunk and tried to contain his laughter as Matt’s eyes grew wide. It was his lighter side, and his eyes often danced behind the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses as he looked for an opportunity to have some fun at our expense.

He loved people and enjoyed life. He was also one of the most gregarious people you might ever meet. Visitors to our home would barely get their coats off before they had a beer in their hand and my father was coaxing a story out of them.

That didn’t mean he lacked a serious side. Like my mom, he was a person of service and faith. He was particularly passionate about knowledge—increasing his own and helping others learn. He taught English for forty years at Roger Bacon High School in Cincinnati. He carefully balanced the striking contradictions in his life, the rigorous pursuit of empirical wisdom and the leap of faith involved in his Catholic beliefs. He had once been a seminarian and an aspiring priest. Though he’d given up that path, it didn’t temper the flame of religious devotion that burned inside him. He embraced it with a New Testament joy and compassion. I never heard him proselytize, and he rarely talked about Catholic doctrine at all. He simply lived his faith. He studied his Bible and went to church—with the family in tow—every Sunday without fail and on holy days throughout the year.

It was no coincidence that the people who most showered me with love were also faithful churchgoers and devout believers. They embraced their religion in a deeply thoughtful way. It grounded me in my own. The role models for faith didn’t stop at my mother and father. My parents were friends with a couple named Ron and Kathy Eckerle. My mom mentioned to Ron that she was looking at day-…