“While women have accomplished a lot, I look forward to the day we don’t have to celebrate firsts,” she says.īauernschmidt says support she’s had from the entire Navy community was crucial in getting her to that bridge on one of the biggest warships in the world. So Bauernschmidt does feel an extra sense of responsibility as the first woman to command an aircraft carrier, but she seems to see it as evolutionary, not revolutionary. US aircraft carrier, site of a 1972 race riot at sea, on way to scrapyard The Kitty Hawk is one of five carrier battle groups in the area patroling the no-fly zones in Iraq and for possible airstrikes on Iraq in the event of war. Jet aircraft line the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk as it plys the waters of the Gulf, Friday March 7, 2003. “Not every job I’ve done in the Navy is a job I wanted, but I learned and took everything out of every job I could,” Bauernschmidt says.Įven though she’s risen to a powerful position, Bauernschmidt acknowledges the many challenges still faced by women in the Navy.Īs of December 31, only 20% of the Navy’s active duty force of 342,000 personnel are women, according to the service’s demographic data. “Sometimes you will learn the most and grow the most in a situation or job you did not want to be in or to do. “I’ve had a phenomenal career where I’ve been given incredible opportunities.”Įven jobs she didn’t really want were opportunities, she says. “Each new job and opportunity strengthened my leadership, and challenged me to be the best version of myself,” Bauernschmidt says. She then attended the Naval War College, earning a Masters degree in strategic studies before serving in the US Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues.ĬNN gets look on board aircraft carrier in Europe amid Russia tensionsĪlmost five years later, after a stint commanding the amphibious transport dock USS San Diego, Bauernschmidt took command of the Abraham Lincoln. She learned to fly helicopters, became a flight instructor, deployed on destroyers and aircraft carriers and eventually commanded a helicopter strike squadron. Bauernschmidt chose aviation and began the path to her current command. That “changed almost everything about women’s service in the Navy,” Bauernschmidt says.Ī few months before graduation, Naval Academy midshipmen are allowed to request their first assignments. It was only in November of 1993 – six months before Bauernschmidt’s graduation from that Naval Academy – that Congress passed legislation allowing women to serve on US Navy combatant ships. When she entered the Naval Academy, it wasn’t an option. I didn’t even understand this was an option when I first started on this adventure,” Bauernschmidt says. USS Constitution has its first female commanding officer in its 224-year historyīut when she arrived at the campus in Annapolis, the thought of being the first woman to command an aircraft carrier wasn’t even something she thought possible.
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