February 5, 2025 • 35 mins
Allison Black surprised her family by deciding to enlist in the U.S. Air Force after high school. She did it to be part of a mission bigger than herself. After basic training, Black spent the next several years as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape - or SERE - instructor, teaching service members what to do if shot down, stuck behind enemy lines, or captured.
After several years of that she became an officer in Air Force special operations and served as a navigator aboard an AC-130H gunship. Shortly after 9/11, she and her crew were deployed to Afghanistan.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Col. Black describes her life in SERE training, making the shift to special operations and the AC-130, what 9/11 was like for her, entering combat in Afghanistan, and how a famed Afghan ally ended up dubbing her "The Angel of Death."
Retiring in 2024, Black also reflects on the lessons she learned in 32 years of service and what she hopes others learned from her.
After several years of that she became an officer in Air Force special operations and served as a navigator aboard an AC-130H gunship. Shortly after 9/11, she and her crew were deployed to Afghanistan.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Col. Black describes her life in SERE training, making the shift to special operations and the AC-130, what 9/11 was like for her, entering combat in Afghanistan, and how a famed Afghan ally ended up dubbing her "The Angel of Death."
Retiring in 2024, Black also reflects on the lessons she learned in 32 years of service and what she hopes others learned from her.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Air Force Colonel Alison Black.
She served as a navigator on an AC one H
gunship in Afghanistan and earned the nickname the Angel of
Death from one of our Afghan allies. She also spent
several years as an instructor in survival, evasion, resistance, and
(00:36):
escape or seer training. Today, we'll hear about her experiences
in both of those realms, why the fight after nine
to eleven was very personal to her, and she'll share
the story of how she became known as the Angel
of Death. Alison Black was born in New York and
grew up on Long Island. There was a history of
(00:56):
military service in her family, but there were still a
bit superse when she wanted to join the Air Force
out of high school.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I grew up in Long Island, New York, and I
wasn't surrounded by the military. West Point was not too
far away. I knew a little bit about it. Upon
graduating high school, I was looking to serve. I didn't
know how that was going to manifest. I looked at
all the branches of service and the Air Force drew
my attention. I wanted to be a part of something
(01:25):
bigger than myself. I was looking for that sense of mission,
sense of purpose, and I enlisted right out of high
school March the following year, in March ninety two.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And while Black was committed to her service, she admits
it was a culture shock in more ways than one
when she enlisted in the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So coming into the Air Force, I didn't know many
folks that were the military, right. So when I joined
the Air Force and went to basic training, I knew
I wanted to I was physically fit, but I didn't
know how to march, how to salute. I was shocked
that they were yelling at me. I was, you know,
an eighteen year old young girl in search of that mission,
(02:04):
but also being taught very directly how to carry myself
as an airman. It was intimidating. There were many times,
and I think that this carried throughout my career where
you doubt, you doubt your path, you doubt your capability.
Am I smart enough, strong enough, fast enough, Am I
(02:26):
worthy of these rules? And that was no different in
basic training. But then it became a challenge. I know
how to fail. When I fail, I try to fail forward.
Failure sucks, it's humbling, but I don't know how to
say I quit. And the training and the people investing
in me, from the start of basic training to the
time I hung up my cleats this year, that is
(02:50):
what carries has carried me through. People believed in me
when I didn't believe in myself.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Everyone in the Air Force goes through basic training and
then it's time to decide what specialty comes next. Black
says she was intrigued by seer training from the very
first time she heard about it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So it was during basic training that you were brought
into a room to talk about special specialized career fields.
One was pair rescue, Combat control, SEER, EOD, Explosive Origins Disposal.
So they would come in and talk about these career
fields and what it would take to do them. And
(03:30):
that's where I learned about SEER. So I stayed behind
and approached the SEER specialist and asked about it. I
was terrified. I knew nothing about returning with honor. I
knew nothing about survival or evasion, resistance and escape. I
grew up on Long Island, New York, suburbia. I knew
nothing about being in the woods, surviving and cutting down
(03:52):
trees and trapping animals, and it was it was the
challenge that really drew me to that.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
SEER training teaches members of the military what to do
and how to act in the most dire of situations captivity, interrogation,
being shot down, and many other high stressed dilemmas.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
SEER is our skill sets that the specialists teach that
you hope our aviators and our special operators never have
to use. The motto is to return with honor. We
hope to teach our men and women give them skills
that remove the fear of the unknown, so if they're
(04:35):
ever behind enemy lines or detained somewhere, they can pull
those skills out of their pockets, keep their head held eye,
keep faith with their country, with their God, with their teammates,
and return with honor.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
As Black says, these are skills that are hopefully never needed,
but sometimes they are, and she cited the example of
Air Force fighter pilots Scott O'Grady, who shot down over
Bosnia Herzegovina in nineteen ninety five and managed to evade
Serbian forces until the US Marines were able to extract him.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So when I think about the nineties and being responsible
for training our Air Force aviators to return with honor,
that was pretty powerful. Watching terrorism in small doses, I
would say, appear in different places, probably a little naive
(05:32):
and how it would impact our nation and our men
and women in uniform. Because I was in an air
education and training environment, so I didn't expect really to
be deployed. I knew I was part of a schoolhouse,
a training cycle, but knew how important it would be
(05:52):
to give those folks to skills. Scott O'Grady was a
pilot that ejected out of his aircraft, his F sixteen
in the mid nineties, and he came back and shared
his stories of how his skills had helped him cope
with the situation at hand and come back and return
with honor. So that was pretty powerful.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
As the new century and new millennium approached, Black sensed
it was time for a change. She decided to go
through the process of becoming an officer, and she had
a whole new specialty in mind.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So nineteen ninety eight I went, I had applied and
was accepted to go to officer training. So I left
Syer and went to Officer Training School at Maxilla Air
Force Base and had a slot to go to undergraduate
navigator training. So when I commissioned and came to flying
to aviation, I knew I wanted to come to Air
(06:46):
Force Special Ops because of the mission. I would have
taken any airplane. My eye was on the AC one
thirty gunship, but I didn't want to get my hopes up.
So because I knew nothing about flying, just like I
knew nothing thing about Seer when I found my way there,
I knew nothing about aviation. I knew the grit and
(07:07):
determination that it took, but I didn't know the skills,
and that's another nod to the training. So I went
to Undergraduator navigator training at Pensacola Naval Air Station and
kind of fought and clawed my way back into back
or into Air Force Special Operations, into the gunship and
during that time, so I arrived at Hulbertfield in Assoc
(07:30):
in two thousand and it was training that was our focus.
It was training hard, being really good at your job,
and building my credibility. I had been in the military
long enough to know how important your reputation and your
credibility was. So that's what I wanted to do. I
wanted to show up and I wanted to put up.
(07:51):
I wanted to be chosen for the team if it
was to come. And I think the atmosphere then was
to try to get on joint exercises, in any good
training event with our joint teammates. So in AFSC and
Air Force Special Ops, specifically with the gunships, we would
mission plan, we would train, we would execute the mission,
(08:12):
we would debrief hot wash and then do it again.
And that's where those relationships were built. With our Navy
Seal partners, with our Green Berets, our Army Rangers, air
Force Special Tactics, we all trained together in hopes that
when that call came like we were ready, and we
knew we would be ready what that call would be,
We had no idea. The unit at the time was
(08:35):
filled with young young bucks like us, all right, but
then also the old heads, those that had served in Bosnia,
in Panama, and they knew what a deployment was like.
They could describe what going down to Panama or going
to Bosnil was like some of these missions. But I
(08:55):
would offer that they never expected what it would be
like the next couple of decades after nine to eleven.
And when nine to eleven happened, it changed everything.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So why was Allison Black so eager to be part
of an AC one thirty gunship crew?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I knew I wanted to come to the AC one
thirty gunship for the intimate nature of the mission. At
that time, the gunship was known for putting bullets where
bombs couldn't go right. Our bombs and our ammunition, our
weapons have dramatically changed in the last couple of decades,
so that intimate nature from the airplane to the ground
(09:33):
in a troops in contact situation drew me. I wanted
to be a part of protecting the guys on the ground,
and that weapons system was a direct link to protecting
the guys on the ground when they went to go
to their mission.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Specifically, Black wanted to become a navigator on an AC
one thirty, and she succeeded. Black explained the various duties
of a navigator on board the AC one thirty.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
My position on the aircraft is seated on the flight deck.
So the gunships, the versions of the gunship have changed
over time, and in two thousand two, thousand and one,
we had two versions, and the version that I flew
on the H model compared to the U model gunship,
I'm on the flight deck, so a little bit of
a different setup. You have the pilot, the copilot, the engineer,
(10:19):
the navigator, and the fire control officer. And my job
as the navigator is of course to tell the pilots
where to go. But besides route planning and figure out
how we're going to get from our takeoff base to
the target area or to the air refueling track, was
also all the tactical communications. So you have basic crew responsibilities,
(10:44):
take off, in route, on target, and then once you
get on target, you transition to the tactical mindset. So
I am responsible for establishing communications from the air to
the ground, but then also some of the air born
airborne assets that might be assigned to that mission, helicopters,
(11:05):
maybe some fighter aircraft. I could also be responsible for
some of those communications. So once you established contact as
an AD, now you're working in concert with the fire
control officer and the sensor operators. It's if you think
of it as a four man intimate team of finding
the friendlies, finding the enemy, and then positively identifying them
(11:27):
and then beginning the cadence or the steps, the checklist
steps to engage the enemy if required.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That's retired to US Air Force Colonel Allison Black. When
we come back, we'll hear how nine to eleven drastically
changed her plans, what combat was like for her in Afghanistan,
and much more. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
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Speaker 1 (12:51):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired to US Air Force Colonel Allison Black.
Moments ago, Black explained her decision to leave her work
as a seer instructor, become an officer and serve on
board an AC one thirty gun ship. The timing proved
to be significant, as just a year later, the US
(13:13):
suffered our worst terrorist attack on September eleventh, two thousand
and one.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
My husband Ryan served just about twenty four years in
the Air Force, and he had had a separation of
service during that time, and on September eleventh, we had
driven up from Hrowerfield because I was already assigned to ASSOC.
We had driven up to Maxwell Air Force base, and
I was getting ready to swear them back in on
active duty. We were seated in the Military Processing station,
(13:42):
the MEP station. We were seated in just an area
with a bunch of young kids. He'd been in he
had already served almost seven years. He separated from service,
became a reservist for a period of time, and then
was coming back on active duty. And we watched the
second airplane hit the towers live on the TV that
(14:05):
was in the room. And I'm from New York. Uh,
and I we'd heard about the first airplane and I thought, okay,
puddle jumper. Probably what a lot of other people thought,
puddle jumper. Oh, it's got to be crummy weather. Right.
I grew up on Long Island. I was familiar with
the airports. I was familiar with the terrain. I'm like,
there's no way it just accidentally, but maybe right And
(14:27):
then and then when we when the TV came on
and I saw the second airplane hit, it was it
was clear this day your stomach, My stomach drops and
you think about the people. Uh, you wonder who's getting
who is directly impacted in my family or not? And
friends and everything shut down. So they didn't send anybody
(14:48):
anywhere that day. We didn't have cell phones back then.
We had beepers, we had paid yeah beepers, pagers, and
our unit was recalled, so our squad at Hurlbert was
everybody needed to come into work. So I was at
about a three hour drive so Ryan, my husband, Ryan
wasn't going to be reenlisting that day. They were shutting
(15:10):
everything down and I needed to go home. So we
drove back and I went to the unit and my
husband actually went back up the next day. And then
he didn't need to go to basic training again, so
we didn't need to be flown anywhere. So he enlisted
and then he came back to Hurlberfield as a seer specialist,
so he was a seer specialist his entire career. So
(15:30):
that so what was the feeling a feeling? And it
was it was it was quiet because nobody was flying.
It was uh I saw him bin Laden Afghanistan. Where's Afghanistan?
Exactly right? That's crazy. Now we all know exactly where
it is in the world. Where's it was? Beekistan and
(15:51):
these countries surrounding it. We had to look we had
to look it up. How would we get there, What
would our response be? And this sense of how dare they?
How dare they? And it became so important for us
to begin planning. We didn't know what that was going
to look like. We just I was young. I was
(16:12):
young in than I'd been in the unit for a
little over a year. We just knew we were going
to be doing something. We were going to get ourselves
over there. That was the sense in the unit. How
what can we do? Who? Where would we go? Where
would we based out? And then it became a out
of our control. What country was going to allow us
to be based out of their country to then be
(16:34):
a part of the response. So it was lean in,
let's plan What would we need, what equipment would we need?
Where's our ammunition storage? Where could we work? And how
do we get in the fight? How do we go
there and make sure that that never happens again.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Black wasn't sure if she would be deployed to the
new war, but she was, and quickly she explains how
she and the right for a crew ended up in
theater just weeks after nine to eleven.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So I was as a lieutenant in the squadron at
the time. I worked in our plan shop. So I
was in the throws of figuring out how we would
get our airplanes across the Atlantic Ocean. Where would we
get gas? Are we going to air or fuel mid
air across the Atlantic? Are we going to land somewhere?
(17:24):
What's the weather? Our diplomatic clearances? So I was neck
deep in all of that and no place I would
rather be. So that was really the spirit of what
was happening. A lot of uncertainty, well if we go,
if we are we coming back? When are we coming back?
But nobody care like we just wanted to be a
part of it. So we got the where we were
(17:47):
going across the pond, and we were going to go
and stage and get as close to the fight as
we could, waiting for the government to sort out what
base we're going to work out of. So uh in
the squadron at the time, they built four crews and
we brought four airplanes across the Atlantic, and I was
(18:10):
part of one of the crews, and I was excited.
I didn't expect to go, only because I was one
of the junior members. I thought a lot of the
old heads wanted to be there, and I didn't appreciate
at the time, the balancing of the cruise. A senior
aircraft commander, junior co pilot like this old and this
(18:31):
new uh as a leader. Now I look back, that's
exactly what you do, but I didn't appreciate it at
the time. So I'm like, I'm gonna get left behind.
I'm going to be home, you know, protect the home land,
not a part of the big mission, because we still
had we still had training to do at home. It
didn't just shut everything down. So to be a part
of one of those crews, uh, I was. I was
(18:53):
excited because I was going to get to put to
work the stuff we've been training for. So we took
four airplanes across the pond, across the Atlantic, and we
went to Suda Bay, Greece, and we sat there waiting
for our government to figure out where we were going
(19:13):
to base out of.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That's retired Air Force Colonel Alison Black. When we come back,
Black enters combat and earns the title the Angel of Death.
I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is retired US Air Force Colonel Alison Black. We now
(19:37):
pick up her story as she and the rest of
her AC one thirty h gunship crew swung into action
in Afghanistan, and she quickly earned the nickname the Angel
of Death.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So we were sitting in Greece and we got the
call that we're going to bring the airplanes to Karshi
Kanabad K two Zuebekistan, which is a country to the
north of Afghanistan. That was the forward operating base as
where we were going. We landed and that next morning
we got our mission. So we were there for a
very short period of time. We got called into the
(20:10):
operations tent and in two thousand and one, the level
of printing out products and information that you could digitally
upload just didn't exist. I pulled out my little green notebook.
We were given a call sign, a frequency, and a
grid so the location of our friendly forces. And the
(20:32):
chaplain came in to the tent and prayed for warmth
because the gunship wasn't sealed and the cold air would
come whipping through that aircraft. And it was November in
Afghanistan over the mountains, and the lawyers came in and
gave us the rules of engagement. Don't shoot women and children,
don't shoot mosques. We'll sort the rest out later. We
(20:54):
knew what we were there to do. We were there
to find our friendly forces and protect them and eliminate
the end to me, and we wrote all that down.
I opened up my charts, I pulled them out of
boxes and taped them together to come up with a
plan from where we were to where we were going.
(21:15):
It came up with a route. It was about a
thirty minute flight from K two to the border of
Afghanistan near mars Ar Sharif Termez was kind of that
area that we were crossing at the time, and we
had a site in our weapons. We had to tweak
the guns. So I looked at the chart and found
some sand dunes that said sand dune. So we went
(21:35):
to that area and scanned it to make sure there
were no people in the area, and we sighted in
our weapons, and then we proceeded to the grid of
our friendly forces. And those friendly forces were Operational Detachment
five nine five our ODA, the Northern Alliance CO located
with General Dostum otherwise known as the horse Holdiers. So
(21:57):
that first combat mission, we arrived in the vicinity of
the city of Condos just to the ease of Mazar
and made contact. That's my job, right point A to
point B. We get there and I established communications with
the team, and I'd mentioned that I forget a lot
of things, but I'll never forget this mission. It was
(22:18):
my first combat mission ever and it was one that
gave me the Moniker, the Angel of Death. So we
made contact with the team and they asked us to
look for any enemy personnel or enemy vehicles. And in
November of two thousand and one, Afghanistan was dark. Nobody
was out at night. The lights in the country were out,
(22:41):
and any movement was pretty easily identifiable. We flew only
at night as well. There was the uncertainty of what
threats do they have, what ground to air threats, So
we were on edge. You're ready and you can fall
back to your training, but we were paying attention to
every little detail. So we found some armor in the
(23:06):
vicinity of condos that we were cleared to engage, and
we did. We engage that there were no people around.
It was they were kind of parked in a parking
lot area if you will, or dirt area. And the
team called on the radio and they said, hey, we
see some lights coming our way. Can you take a look. So,
(23:26):
if you can imagine, on the gunship, we're looking through
a soda straw through our sensors and you can't see everything.
So we run out this road towards their location. Their
location was off to the west of the city, so
they were in a secure spot as far as we
could tell at the time. So we see some lights
and it's a vehicle with their lights on, driving towards
(23:47):
their location, and I give the play by play. My
job as the tactical communicator is to paint the picture
because they can't see so through clear concise communication, I
didn't even tell them what's going on, what's the distance
of the vehicle to their location, what does it look like,
where do we think they're going, what does the road
ahead look like? And during that discussion, that back and forth,
(24:10):
they cleared us to engage that vehicle. Just when we
were going through our final checks inside the aircraft ready
to engage, it pulled into a compound in the middle
of nowhere, so we held off. It was our decision.
On board the aircraft. I went back out on the
radio and I said, Hey, this vehicle just pulled into
this small compound, multiple vehicles, multiple adult males outside in
(24:30):
this courtyard, and he said stand by, and he came
back over the radio and said, there's a confirmed talibon.
You're cleared hot. So I can remember that moment, you know,
As I'm sitting in the aircraft, I looked to my right.
Who it's Lieutenant Colonel Mike Radford. He's the fire control officer.
We're at the station, and I was like, came on, like,
(24:52):
this is it. It's not training anymore, like this is it?
In that quick instant, and it was. We were always
all business, but it was business. So that engagement, we
shot four hundred rounds of forty and one hundred rounds
of one oh five. That airplane was fully loaded before
takeoff because we did not know what we were going
(25:13):
to do, but we were going to be ready. Cans
of ammunition on the floor of the aircraft that the
gunners were loading that night we shot the vehicle. There
was a vehicle parked right in the entrance of that building,
and when we hit that vehicle, it caught on fire
and hundreds of enemy personnel poured out of that building.
We conserved our ammunition because they would scatter and then
(25:38):
they would group up, and they would scatter and they
would group up. So we once we saw that pattern,
we would wait and knowing that they were enemy personnel
and needed to be removed. During that I was responsible
for that again, that ground to air connection and explaining
what was happening. And it was General Dostum that heard
(25:59):
my voice and he looked at our American teammates and
he said, is that a woman? And they were like, yeah,
you know, as a matter of fact, it is. And
he's like, and easy is it? America is so determined
to bring to kill Taliban, they bring their women on
warplanes like you just couldn't believe it, And now this
(26:19):
story is their story. I wasn't there inside the airplane.
We had no idea this was happening. We were focused
on the mission. We were focused on eliminating as many
enemy as possible because the friendlies were secure at the moment.
And General Dostum got on his walkie talkie and called
the people that we were shooting and he said, you're
(26:41):
so pathetic. American women are killing you. And while I
was talking to the team, he keyed his mic so
the enemy could hear my voice, so so much for
secure communications. But it was like, hey, we're gonna get you,
so surrender to me now. And American women are above you.
So the mission is ongoing. And when I talk about
(27:03):
really conserving our ammunition to get max effect, we used
an ISLID, a high powered laser pointer from the airplane
and you could see under night vision gogless. So from
the ground, if you had mvgs, you would see this
green laser. We were using it internally to sort and
track the enemy. And General Dostam had a para night
(27:26):
vision goggless from our teammates and he saw that, and
he saw this green laser coupled with the explosions from
our weapons, and he said, is that is that a
death ray? He believed that we that laser was blowing
things up, and he looked at our teammates and he said,
is that is that? Is that a death ray? And
of course, you know our American UH teammates are like, yeah,
(27:49):
it asn't a matter of fact, it is. So we
got back on his walkie talkie and that is where
the Angel of Death moniker came. Surrender to me. Now,
the Angel of Death is above you. We were turning
you to flames and again keyed the mic so he
so the enemy could hear my voice. So unbeknownst to
(28:12):
us inside the gunship, we winchestered. We shot all of
our ammunition right, four hundred rounds and forty one hundred
rounds of one O five eliminated hundreds of enemy personnel. That night.
We were just about a bingo fuel, just enough fuel
to get us back up to Uzbekistan to K two,
and we left, and the next morning hundreds of enemy
(28:35):
personnel turned themselves into General Dostum. A couple of weeks later,
the team five nine five came up to K two,
walked into our OPS ten and handed me in AK
forty seven from General Dostum and told us the story
because we didn't know. And that weapon is hung at
the sixteenth Special Operations Squadron. Now they're located at Cannon
(28:58):
Air Force Base in New Mexico, but it's part of
their heritage, part of that mission, that team that we
were able to be, the thing that we were able
to be a part of. We were just doing our jobs.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Black explains why she hated the Angel of Death nickname
at first, but later came to embrace it.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Me telling that story was something that I hated when
that happened. I was so I was proud to be
a part of the mission and the crew and making
a difference, but I was being called out for being different,
and I just wanted to be really good at my job.
I didn't want to be seen as a woman. I
(29:35):
wanted to be seen as a good teammate, as a
good crewman. And it was the unintended impact that has
allowed me to embrace the story, and the unintended impact
is General Dostum took the story of American women on
(29:55):
warplanes and he went to a burka unveiling ceremony village
of Afghan women and children in two thousand and one,
so shortly after that mission, and he talked about America
allow allowing their women to fly on airplanes and warplanes,
and he encouraged them to fight. He's like, if you
continue to fight, you will one day have those freedoms.
(30:16):
And it was our special force of soldiers that shared
that story with me, and then I met women from
Afghanistan over the last few decades at different events that
had heard that story. I met General Dostum's son in
New York at Ground Zero, and when I spoke with him.
He told me that he remembers his dad telling him
(30:38):
those stories. So the freedoms and the opportunity that our
country has, and that my opportunity to be a part
of a crew, to be in a time and place
to make a difference to do my job had so
much positive, unintended impact. I've embraced that over the years,
(30:59):
and that's why I'm now comfortable sharing this story. I'm
proud to be a part of all of the efforts
of others to put me in places to make a
difference for others.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Not long after that momentous mission, Black was headed back
to the United States, but in addition to her official duties,
she had a personal mission back in New York City.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Something that's not well known is that in February of
two thousand and two, we had to bring an airplane
back for maintenance. So I flew the airplane back with
the crew, and I brought some brass back, some one
oh five brass, and I went to visit New York
and I hit up some fire stations that have been
(31:44):
pretty hard hit in Midtown and no pomp and circumstance.
My brother, my family's still up in New York. So
we went into Manhattan and I just showed up with
the brass and I'd put a picture of the crew
on there, just wrote a little something. I was like, Hey,
I just want to let you know we're making them pay,
Like what they did to us will never happen again.
(32:04):
And that was something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Colonel Black Sir. For more than three decades overall, and
more than two decades after her exploits in Afghanistan, she
hopes her leadership was as meaningful to her subordinates as
the guidance she received while rising up the ranks.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
My time enlisted was foundational to who I am and
seeing what right looked like from our NCOs, which our core,
and then my time early in the Gunship and Air
Force Special Operations was foundational to understanding and being a
part of g WATT of a couple of decades of
the Global War on Terror and seeing people lead, seeing
(32:46):
people show me what right looked like and giving me
that raw, unfiltered feedback. I had opportunities to lead at
multiple levels when I trans from the Gunship to the
U twenty eight A Draco, which is an intelligent intelligence
surveillance for reconnaissance aircraft. I was their director of operations
(33:08):
and their commander, the opportunity to command at our Special
Tactics wings as a deputy commander and then command the
first Special Operations Wing at Hobertfield. That was the wing
that I was first assigned to in two thousand. So
full circle moment to have been grown by incredible men
(33:31):
and women, to be given the chance to lead others
and hopefully be the leader that they deserve to be
led by. I'm not perfect. I strive strive to be,
but I'm not afraid to show up every day and
give it my best. And I hope as I reflect
(33:53):
back at my entire career, I hope that I will
be remembered as a humble, credible, an approachable leader. I
hope that I will be remembered as a good teammate,
as somebody that was fair, that wasn't flawless, that had
the guts to try. I'm blessed. I'm blessed and grateful
(34:15):
that I'm alive, because I know there are many teammates
that aren't. I'm grateful that my family is still intact.
I'm grateful for my country. I'm grateful for the service
what my country and my teammates have poured into me.
That's all I know. It's my entire adult life.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That's retired to US Air Force Colonel Alison Black, who
earned the nickname Angel of Death while part of an
AC one thirty h gunship crew in Afghanistan. In all,
Black served thirty two years in uniform. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(35:05):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update.
Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full
(35:26):
oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe
to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time
for Veterans Chronicles
Welcome to Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Air Force Colonel Alison Black.
She served as a navigator on an AC one H
gunship in Afghanistan and earned the nickname the Angel of
Death from one of our Afghan allies. She also spent
several years as an instructor in survival, evasion, resistance, and
(00:36):
escape or seer training. Today, we'll hear about her experiences
in both of those realms, why the fight after nine
to eleven was very personal to her, and she'll share
the story of how she became known as the Angel
of Death. Alison Black was born in New York and
grew up on Long Island. There was a history of
(00:56):
military service in her family, but there were still a
bit superse when she wanted to join the Air Force
out of high school.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I grew up in Long Island, New York, and I
wasn't surrounded by the military. West Point was not too
far away. I knew a little bit about it. Upon
graduating high school, I was looking to serve. I didn't
know how that was going to manifest. I looked at
all the branches of service and the Air Force drew
my attention. I wanted to be a part of something
(01:25):
bigger than myself. I was looking for that sense of mission,
sense of purpose, and I enlisted right out of high
school March the following year, in March ninety two.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And while Black was committed to her service, she admits
it was a culture shock in more ways than one
when she enlisted in the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So coming into the Air Force, I didn't know many
folks that were the military, right. So when I joined
the Air Force and went to basic training, I knew
I wanted to I was physically fit, but I didn't
know how to march, how to salute. I was shocked
that they were yelling at me. I was, you know,
an eighteen year old young girl in search of that mission,
(02:04):
but also being taught very directly how to carry myself
as an airman. It was intimidating. There were many times,
and I think that this carried throughout my career where
you doubt, you doubt your path, you doubt your capability.
Am I smart enough, strong enough, fast enough, Am I
(02:26):
worthy of these rules? And that was no different in
basic training. But then it became a challenge. I know
how to fail. When I fail, I try to fail forward.
Failure sucks, it's humbling, but I don't know how to
say I quit. And the training and the people investing
in me, from the start of basic training to the
time I hung up my cleats this year, that is
(02:50):
what carries has carried me through. People believed in me
when I didn't believe in myself.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Everyone in the Air Force goes through basic training and
then it's time to decide what specialty comes next. Black
says she was intrigued by seer training from the very
first time she heard about it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So it was during basic training that you were brought
into a room to talk about special specialized career fields.
One was pair rescue, Combat control, SEER, EOD, Explosive Origins Disposal.
So they would come in and talk about these career
fields and what it would take to do them. And
(03:30):
that's where I learned about SEER. So I stayed behind
and approached the SEER specialist and asked about it. I
was terrified. I knew nothing about returning with honor. I
knew nothing about survival or evasion, resistance and escape. I
grew up on Long Island, New York, suburbia. I knew
nothing about being in the woods, surviving and cutting down
(03:52):
trees and trapping animals, and it was it was the
challenge that really drew me to that.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
SEER training teaches members of the military what to do
and how to act in the most dire of situations captivity, interrogation,
being shot down, and many other high stressed dilemmas.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
SEER is our skill sets that the specialists teach that
you hope our aviators and our special operators never have
to use. The motto is to return with honor. We
hope to teach our men and women give them skills
that remove the fear of the unknown, so if they're
(04:35):
ever behind enemy lines or detained somewhere, they can pull
those skills out of their pockets, keep their head held eye,
keep faith with their country, with their God, with their teammates,
and return with honor.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
As Black says, these are skills that are hopefully never needed,
but sometimes they are, and she cited the example of
Air Force fighter pilots Scott O'Grady, who shot down over
Bosnia Herzegovina in nineteen ninety five and managed to evade
Serbian forces until the US Marines were able to extract him.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So when I think about the nineties and being responsible
for training our Air Force aviators to return with honor,
that was pretty powerful. Watching terrorism in small doses, I
would say, appear in different places, probably a little naive
(05:32):
and how it would impact our nation and our men
and women in uniform. Because I was in an air
education and training environment, so I didn't expect really to
be deployed. I knew I was part of a schoolhouse,
a training cycle, but knew how important it would be
(05:52):
to give those folks to skills. Scott O'Grady was a
pilot that ejected out of his aircraft, his F sixteen
in the mid nineties, and he came back and shared
his stories of how his skills had helped him cope
with the situation at hand and come back and return
with honor. So that was pretty powerful.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
As the new century and new millennium approached, Black sensed
it was time for a change. She decided to go
through the process of becoming an officer, and she had
a whole new specialty in mind.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So nineteen ninety eight I went, I had applied and
was accepted to go to officer training. So I left
Syer and went to Officer Training School at Maxilla Air
Force Base and had a slot to go to undergraduate
navigator training. So when I commissioned and came to flying
to aviation, I knew I wanted to come to Air
(06:46):
Force Special Ops because of the mission. I would have
taken any airplane. My eye was on the AC one
thirty gunship, but I didn't want to get my hopes up.
So because I knew nothing about flying, just like I
knew nothing thing about Seer when I found my way there,
I knew nothing about aviation. I knew the grit and
(07:07):
determination that it took, but I didn't know the skills,
and that's another nod to the training. So I went
to Undergraduator navigator training at Pensacola Naval Air Station and
kind of fought and clawed my way back into back
or into Air Force Special Operations, into the gunship and
during that time, so I arrived at Hulbertfield in Assoc
(07:30):
in two thousand and it was training that was our focus.
It was training hard, being really good at your job,
and building my credibility. I had been in the military
long enough to know how important your reputation and your
credibility was. So that's what I wanted to do. I
wanted to show up and I wanted to put up.
(07:51):
I wanted to be chosen for the team if it
was to come. And I think the atmosphere then was
to try to get on joint exercises, in any good
training event with our joint teammates. So in AFSC and
Air Force Special Ops, specifically with the gunships, we would
mission plan, we would train, we would execute the mission,
(08:12):
we would debrief hot wash and then do it again.
And that's where those relationships were built. With our Navy
Seal partners, with our Green Berets, our Army Rangers, air
Force Special Tactics, we all trained together in hopes that
when that call came like we were ready, and we
knew we would be ready what that call would be,
We had no idea. The unit at the time was
(08:35):
filled with young young bucks like us, all right, but
then also the old heads, those that had served in Bosnia,
in Panama, and they knew what a deployment was like.
They could describe what going down to Panama or going
to Bosnil was like some of these missions. But I
(08:55):
would offer that they never expected what it would be
like the next couple of decades after nine to eleven.
And when nine to eleven happened, it changed everything.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So why was Allison Black so eager to be part
of an AC one thirty gunship crew?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I knew I wanted to come to the AC one
thirty gunship for the intimate nature of the mission. At
that time, the gunship was known for putting bullets where
bombs couldn't go right. Our bombs and our ammunition, our
weapons have dramatically changed in the last couple of decades,
so that intimate nature from the airplane to the ground
(09:33):
in a troops in contact situation drew me. I wanted
to be a part of protecting the guys on the ground,
and that weapons system was a direct link to protecting
the guys on the ground when they went to go
to their mission.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Specifically, Black wanted to become a navigator on an AC
one thirty, and she succeeded. Black explained the various duties
of a navigator on board the AC one thirty.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
My position on the aircraft is seated on the flight deck.
So the gunships, the versions of the gunship have changed
over time, and in two thousand two, thousand and one,
we had two versions, and the version that I flew
on the H model compared to the U model gunship,
I'm on the flight deck, so a little bit of
a different setup. You have the pilot, the copilot, the engineer,
(10:19):
the navigator, and the fire control officer. And my job
as the navigator is of course to tell the pilots
where to go. But besides route planning and figure out
how we're going to get from our takeoff base to
the target area or to the air refueling track, was
also all the tactical communications. So you have basic crew responsibilities,
(10:44):
take off, in route, on target, and then once you
get on target, you transition to the tactical mindset. So
I am responsible for establishing communications from the air to
the ground, but then also some of the air born
airborne assets that might be assigned to that mission, helicopters,
(11:05):
maybe some fighter aircraft. I could also be responsible for
some of those communications. So once you established contact as
an AD, now you're working in concert with the fire
control officer and the sensor operators. It's if you think
of it as a four man intimate team of finding
the friendlies, finding the enemy, and then positively identifying them
(11:27):
and then beginning the cadence or the steps, the checklist
steps to engage the enemy if required.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That's retired to US Air Force Colonel Allison Black. When
we come back, we'll hear how nine to eleven drastically
changed her plans, what combat was like for her in Afghanistan,
and much more. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
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Speaker 1 (12:51):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired to US Air Force Colonel Allison Black.
Moments ago, Black explained her decision to leave her work
as a seer instructor, become an officer and serve on
board an AC one thirty gun ship. The timing proved
to be significant, as just a year later, the US
(13:13):
suffered our worst terrorist attack on September eleventh, two thousand
and one.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
My husband Ryan served just about twenty four years in
the Air Force, and he had had a separation of
service during that time, and on September eleventh, we had
driven up from Hrowerfield because I was already assigned to ASSOC.
We had driven up to Maxwell Air Force base, and
I was getting ready to swear them back in on
active duty. We were seated in the Military Processing station,
(13:42):
the MEP station. We were seated in just an area
with a bunch of young kids. He'd been in he
had already served almost seven years. He separated from service,
became a reservist for a period of time, and then
was coming back on active duty. And we watched the
second airplane hit the towers live on the TV that
(14:05):
was in the room. And I'm from New York. Uh,
and I we'd heard about the first airplane and I thought, okay,
puddle jumper. Probably what a lot of other people thought,
puddle jumper. Oh, it's got to be crummy weather. Right.
I grew up on Long Island. I was familiar with
the airports. I was familiar with the terrain. I'm like,
there's no way it just accidentally, but maybe right And
(14:27):
then and then when we when the TV came on
and I saw the second airplane hit, it was it
was clear this day your stomach, My stomach drops and
you think about the people. Uh, you wonder who's getting
who is directly impacted in my family or not? And
friends and everything shut down. So they didn't send anybody
(14:48):
anywhere that day. We didn't have cell phones back then.
We had beepers, we had paid yeah beepers, pagers, and
our unit was recalled, so our squad at Hurlbert was
everybody needed to come into work. So I was at
about a three hour drive so Ryan, my husband, Ryan
wasn't going to be reenlisting that day. They were shutting
(15:10):
everything down and I needed to go home. So we
drove back and I went to the unit and my
husband actually went back up the next day. And then
he didn't need to go to basic training again, so
we didn't need to be flown anywhere. So he enlisted
and then he came back to Hurlberfield as a seer specialist,
so he was a seer specialist his entire career. So
(15:30):
that so what was the feeling a feeling? And it
was it was it was quiet because nobody was flying.
It was uh I saw him bin Laden Afghanistan. Where's Afghanistan?
Exactly right? That's crazy. Now we all know exactly where
it is in the world. Where's it was? Beekistan and
(15:51):
these countries surrounding it. We had to look we had
to look it up. How would we get there, What
would our response be? And this sense of how dare they?
How dare they? And it became so important for us
to begin planning. We didn't know what that was going
to look like. We just I was young. I was
(16:12):
young in than I'd been in the unit for a
little over a year. We just knew we were going
to be doing something. We were going to get ourselves
over there. That was the sense in the unit. How
what can we do? Who? Where would we go? Where
would we based out? And then it became a out
of our control. What country was going to allow us
to be based out of their country to then be
(16:34):
a part of the response. So it was lean in,
let's plan What would we need, what equipment would we need?
Where's our ammunition storage? Where could we work? And how
do we get in the fight? How do we go
there and make sure that that never happens again.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Black wasn't sure if she would be deployed to the
new war, but she was, and quickly she explains how
she and the right for a crew ended up in
theater just weeks after nine to eleven.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So I was as a lieutenant in the squadron at
the time. I worked in our plan shop. So I
was in the throws of figuring out how we would
get our airplanes across the Atlantic Ocean. Where would we
get gas? Are we going to air or fuel mid
air across the Atlantic? Are we going to land somewhere?
(17:24):
What's the weather? Our diplomatic clearances? So I was neck
deep in all of that and no place I would
rather be. So that was really the spirit of what
was happening. A lot of uncertainty, well if we go,
if we are we coming back? When are we coming back?
But nobody care like we just wanted to be a
part of it. So we got the where we were
(17:47):
going across the pond, and we were going to go
and stage and get as close to the fight as
we could, waiting for the government to sort out what
base we're going to work out of. So uh in
the squadron at the time, they built four crews and
we brought four airplanes across the Atlantic, and I was
(18:10):
part of one of the crews, and I was excited.
I didn't expect to go, only because I was one
of the junior members. I thought a lot of the
old heads wanted to be there, and I didn't appreciate
at the time, the balancing of the cruise. A senior
aircraft commander, junior co pilot like this old and this
(18:31):
new uh as a leader. Now I look back, that's
exactly what you do, but I didn't appreciate it at
the time. So I'm like, I'm gonna get left behind.
I'm going to be home, you know, protect the home land,
not a part of the big mission, because we still
had we still had training to do at home. It
didn't just shut everything down. So to be a part
of one of those crews, uh, I was. I was
(18:53):
excited because I was going to get to put to
work the stuff we've been training for. So we took
four airplanes across the pond, across the Atlantic, and we
went to Suda Bay, Greece, and we sat there waiting
for our government to figure out where we were going
(19:13):
to base out of.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That's retired Air Force Colonel Alison Black. When we come back,
Black enters combat and earns the title the Angel of Death.
I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is retired US Air Force Colonel Alison Black. We now
(19:37):
pick up her story as she and the rest of
her AC one thirty h gunship crew swung into action
in Afghanistan, and she quickly earned the nickname the Angel
of Death.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So we were sitting in Greece and we got the
call that we're going to bring the airplanes to Karshi
Kanabad K two Zuebekistan, which is a country to the
north of Afghanistan. That was the forward operating base as
where we were going. We landed and that next morning
we got our mission. So we were there for a
very short period of time. We got called into the
(20:10):
operations tent and in two thousand and one, the level
of printing out products and information that you could digitally
upload just didn't exist. I pulled out my little green notebook.
We were given a call sign, a frequency, and a
grid so the location of our friendly forces. And the
(20:32):
chaplain came in to the tent and prayed for warmth
because the gunship wasn't sealed and the cold air would
come whipping through that aircraft. And it was November in
Afghanistan over the mountains, and the lawyers came in and
gave us the rules of engagement. Don't shoot women and children,
don't shoot mosques. We'll sort the rest out later. We
(20:54):
knew what we were there to do. We were there
to find our friendly forces and protect them and eliminate
the end to me, and we wrote all that down.
I opened up my charts, I pulled them out of
boxes and taped them together to come up with a
plan from where we were to where we were going.
(21:15):
It came up with a route. It was about a
thirty minute flight from K two to the border of
Afghanistan near mars Ar Sharif Termez was kind of that
area that we were crossing at the time, and we
had a site in our weapons. We had to tweak
the guns. So I looked at the chart and found
some sand dunes that said sand dune. So we went
(21:35):
to that area and scanned it to make sure there
were no people in the area, and we sighted in
our weapons, and then we proceeded to the grid of
our friendly forces. And those friendly forces were Operational Detachment
five nine five our ODA, the Northern Alliance CO located
with General Dostum otherwise known as the horse Holdiers. So
(21:57):
that first combat mission, we arrived in the vicinity of
the city of Condos just to the ease of Mazar
and made contact. That's my job, right point A to
point B. We get there and I established communications with
the team, and I'd mentioned that I forget a lot
of things, but I'll never forget this mission. It was
(22:18):
my first combat mission ever and it was one that
gave me the Moniker, the Angel of Death. So we
made contact with the team and they asked us to
look for any enemy personnel or enemy vehicles. And in
November of two thousand and one, Afghanistan was dark. Nobody
was out at night. The lights in the country were out,
(22:41):
and any movement was pretty easily identifiable. We flew only
at night as well. There was the uncertainty of what
threats do they have, what ground to air threats, So
we were on edge. You're ready and you can fall
back to your training, but we were paying attention to
every little detail. So we found some armor in the
(23:06):
vicinity of condos that we were cleared to engage, and
we did. We engage that there were no people around.
It was they were kind of parked in a parking
lot area if you will, or dirt area. And the
team called on the radio and they said, hey, we
see some lights coming our way. Can you take a look. So,
(23:26):
if you can imagine, on the gunship, we're looking through
a soda straw through our sensors and you can't see everything.
So we run out this road towards their location. Their
location was off to the west of the city, so
they were in a secure spot as far as we
could tell at the time. So we see some lights
and it's a vehicle with their lights on, driving towards
(23:47):
their location, and I give the play by play. My
job as the tactical communicator is to paint the picture
because they can't see so through clear concise communication, I
didn't even tell them what's going on, what's the distance
of the vehicle to their location, what does it look like,
where do we think they're going, what does the road
ahead look like? And during that discussion, that back and forth,
(24:10):
they cleared us to engage that vehicle. Just when we
were going through our final checks inside the aircraft ready
to engage, it pulled into a compound in the middle
of nowhere, so we held off. It was our decision.
On board the aircraft. I went back out on the
radio and I said, Hey, this vehicle just pulled into
this small compound, multiple vehicles, multiple adult males outside in
(24:30):
this courtyard, and he said stand by, and he came
back over the radio and said, there's a confirmed talibon.
You're cleared hot. So I can remember that moment, you know,
As I'm sitting in the aircraft, I looked to my right.
Who it's Lieutenant Colonel Mike Radford. He's the fire control officer.
We're at the station, and I was like, came on, like,
(24:52):
this is it. It's not training anymore, like this is it?
In that quick instant, and it was. We were always
all business, but it was business. So that engagement, we
shot four hundred rounds of forty and one hundred rounds
of one oh five. That airplane was fully loaded before
takeoff because we did not know what we were going
(25:13):
to do, but we were going to be ready. Cans
of ammunition on the floor of the aircraft that the
gunners were loading that night we shot the vehicle. There
was a vehicle parked right in the entrance of that building,
and when we hit that vehicle, it caught on fire
and hundreds of enemy personnel poured out of that building.
We conserved our ammunition because they would scatter and then
(25:38):
they would group up, and they would scatter and they
would group up. So we once we saw that pattern,
we would wait and knowing that they were enemy personnel
and needed to be removed. During that I was responsible
for that again, that ground to air connection and explaining
what was happening. And it was General Dostum that heard
(25:59):
my voice and he looked at our American teammates and
he said, is that a woman? And they were like, yeah,
you know, as a matter of fact, it is. And
he's like, and easy is it? America is so determined
to bring to kill Taliban, they bring their women on
warplanes like you just couldn't believe it, And now this
(26:19):
story is their story. I wasn't there inside the airplane.
We had no idea this was happening. We were focused
on the mission. We were focused on eliminating as many
enemy as possible because the friendlies were secure at the moment.
And General Dostum got on his walkie talkie and called
the people that we were shooting and he said, you're
(26:41):
so pathetic. American women are killing you. And while I
was talking to the team, he keyed his mic so
the enemy could hear my voice, so so much for
secure communications. But it was like, hey, we're gonna get you,
so surrender to me now. And American women are above you.
So the mission is ongoing. And when I talk about
(27:03):
really conserving our ammunition to get max effect, we used
an ISLID, a high powered laser pointer from the airplane
and you could see under night vision gogless. So from
the ground, if you had mvgs, you would see this
green laser. We were using it internally to sort and
track the enemy. And General Dostam had a para night
(27:26):
vision goggless from our teammates and he saw that, and
he saw this green laser coupled with the explosions from
our weapons, and he said, is that is that a
death ray? He believed that we that laser was blowing
things up, and he looked at our teammates and he said,
is that is that? Is that a death ray? And
of course, you know our American UH teammates are like, yeah,
(27:49):
it asn't a matter of fact, it is. So we
got back on his walkie talkie and that is where
the Angel of Death moniker came. Surrender to me. Now,
the Angel of Death is above you. We were turning
you to flames and again keyed the mic so he
so the enemy could hear my voice. So unbeknownst to
(28:12):
us inside the gunship, we winchestered. We shot all of
our ammunition right, four hundred rounds and forty one hundred
rounds of one O five eliminated hundreds of enemy personnel. That night.
We were just about a bingo fuel, just enough fuel
to get us back up to Uzbekistan to K two,
and we left, and the next morning hundreds of enemy
(28:35):
personnel turned themselves into General Dostum. A couple of weeks later,
the team five nine five came up to K two,
walked into our OPS ten and handed me in AK
forty seven from General Dostum and told us the story
because we didn't know. And that weapon is hung at
the sixteenth Special Operations Squadron. Now they're located at Cannon
(28:58):
Air Force Base in New Mexico, but it's part of
their heritage, part of that mission, that team that we
were able to be, the thing that we were able
to be a part of. We were just doing our jobs.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Black explains why she hated the Angel of Death nickname
at first, but later came to embrace it.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Me telling that story was something that I hated when
that happened. I was so I was proud to be
a part of the mission and the crew and making
a difference, but I was being called out for being different,
and I just wanted to be really good at my job.
I didn't want to be seen as a woman. I
(29:35):
wanted to be seen as a good teammate, as a
good crewman. And it was the unintended impact that has
allowed me to embrace the story, and the unintended impact
is General Dostum took the story of American women on
(29:55):
warplanes and he went to a burka unveiling ceremony village
of Afghan women and children in two thousand and one,
so shortly after that mission, and he talked about America
allow allowing their women to fly on airplanes and warplanes,
and he encouraged them to fight. He's like, if you
continue to fight, you will one day have those freedoms.
(30:16):
And it was our special force of soldiers that shared
that story with me, and then I met women from
Afghanistan over the last few decades at different events that
had heard that story. I met General Dostum's son in
New York at Ground Zero, and when I spoke with him.
He told me that he remembers his dad telling him
(30:38):
those stories. So the freedoms and the opportunity that our
country has, and that my opportunity to be a part
of a crew, to be in a time and place
to make a difference to do my job had so
much positive, unintended impact. I've embraced that over the years,
(30:59):
and that's why I'm now comfortable sharing this story. I'm
proud to be a part of all of the efforts
of others to put me in places to make a
difference for others.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Not long after that momentous mission, Black was headed back
to the United States, but in addition to her official duties,
she had a personal mission back in New York City.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Something that's not well known is that in February of
two thousand and two, we had to bring an airplane
back for maintenance. So I flew the airplane back with
the crew, and I brought some brass back, some one
oh five brass, and I went to visit New York
and I hit up some fire stations that have been
(31:44):
pretty hard hit in Midtown and no pomp and circumstance.
My brother, my family's still up in New York. So
we went into Manhattan and I just showed up with
the brass and I'd put a picture of the crew
on there, just wrote a little something. I was like, Hey,
I just want to let you know we're making them pay,
Like what they did to us will never happen again.
(32:04):
And that was something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Colonel Black Sir. For more than three decades overall, and
more than two decades after her exploits in Afghanistan, she
hopes her leadership was as meaningful to her subordinates as
the guidance she received while rising up the ranks.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
My time enlisted was foundational to who I am and
seeing what right looked like from our NCOs, which our core,
and then my time early in the Gunship and Air
Force Special Operations was foundational to understanding and being a
part of g WATT of a couple of decades of
the Global War on Terror and seeing people lead, seeing
(32:46):
people show me what right looked like and giving me
that raw, unfiltered feedback. I had opportunities to lead at
multiple levels when I trans from the Gunship to the
U twenty eight A Draco, which is an intelligent intelligence
surveillance for reconnaissance aircraft. I was their director of operations
(33:08):
and their commander, the opportunity to command at our Special
Tactics wings as a deputy commander and then command the
first Special Operations Wing at Hobertfield. That was the wing
that I was first assigned to in two thousand. So
full circle moment to have been grown by incredible men
(33:31):
and women, to be given the chance to lead others
and hopefully be the leader that they deserve to be
led by. I'm not perfect. I strive strive to be,
but I'm not afraid to show up every day and
give it my best. And I hope as I reflect
(33:53):
back at my entire career, I hope that I will
be remembered as a humble, credible, an approachable leader. I
hope that I will be remembered as a good teammate,
as somebody that was fair, that wasn't flawless, that had
the guts to try. I'm blessed. I'm blessed and grateful
(34:15):
that I'm alive, because I know there are many teammates
that aren't. I'm grateful that my family is still intact.
I'm grateful for my country. I'm grateful for the service
what my country and my teammates have poured into me.
That's all I know. It's my entire adult life.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That's retired to US Air Force Colonel Alison Black, who
earned the nickname Angel of Death while part of an
AC one thirty h gunship crew in Afghanistan. In all,
Black served thirty two years in uniform. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(35:05):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update.
Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full
(35:26):
oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe
to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time
for Veterans Chronicles
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