Vernice Armour: First Black female combat pilot, author
TELL US about your childhood. What inspires a little black girl to first want to become a police officer and then a combat pilot?
At a young age I saw a police officer riding a horse downtown and when I was in college, I saw a black women in a flight suit. I was at an Army ROTC leadership training. Because I had enlisted in the army and joined the ROTC because I wanted to have a strategic advantage for trying to get into the police academy. During that journey was career day, 1994, hot summer day. Went to the aviation camp and saw a black woman in a flight suit and I was blown away.  It was a good lesson for me because it’s about access and exposure. I didn’t even want to go to the aviation camp. I even made the comment under my breath, ‘black people don’t even fly.’ I did NOT want to go to the aviation camp that bad.
Truly the lesson for me in that one is that you have to open for discovery, you can’t just be turned off because opportunities come from everywhere.

Most little girls don’t want to be police officers. How did your parents receive the your goals?
When I said I wanted to be a police officer that rode a horse downtown, just like any kid that says they want to be fireman or police officer or whatever, they were very encouraging. When I was little they told me I could do anything I set my mind to. When I fell in love with horses, they got me a horse. So they totally supported my dreams and my aspirations.

Most people ask for ponies, and don’t get them.
Maybe I didn’t have average parents, that’s why I’m not doing average things. But I think everyone has the opportunity to switch on what excites them.
But when I was going into the military [the Army in 1993], I didn’t even tell my parents I was going into the military, I just did it. When I wanted to go in the Marine Corp, I talked to my parents about it because I was going in active duty.  And my stepdad did not, did NOT want me to go into the Marine Corp. And he served three tours in Vietnam and he was a Marine. ‘Baby, I see how they treat women and I don’t want my baby being treated like that. “ And I said, ‘Dad, if I don’t do it, who will?’

Did you face any type of discrimination while you were in the military?
What I say and this is the truth, is that I know I dealt with situations that I know people did not like me. If I came to work on Monday and found out there was a party on Friday that didn’t feel good. Or if I’m walking down the hall and someone didn’t talk to me, that didn’t feel good either. Everyone has had friction in different relationships or arguments, even with the person they’re involved with. When people ask me this I honestly say, everybody has arguments and friction in different places.
Somebody could not have liked me because I had short hair, because I could bench press more than he could, because I had a motorcycle, because I smiled in the morning or because I was black or because I was a woman.  And honestly, I didn’t know. And I didn’t try to figure it out. I didn’t care. Because then I would have been taking my power, my focus off of what I was there to do, which was be the best pilot I could, instead of trying to figure out why somebody didn’t say hello to me in the morning.  That’s where I came up with, ‘acknowledge the obstacles, don’t give them power.’ It’s like that? Fine. What do I need to do to still accomplish the mission.

I’ve heard you say a couple of times that you stand on people’s shoulders. For people who might not be familiar with that expression, tell us what that means and who’s shoulders are you standing on.
So standing on someone’s shoulders is coming up in the world, building on a legacy. Someone had to lay the foundation for me to be able to do what I’m doing. So, Dr. King, Harriet Tubman, before him, have all paved the way, all the women Marines, who enlisted or were commissioned in the Marine Corp before I came along. All the African Americans, General Petersen, who was the very first African American aviator in the Marine Corp. So that’s what I’m talking about when I say standing on those shoulders, those who laid the road for me to be able to walk down, or blaze that trail. And at certain point, when the road came to an end, I had to continue blazing a trail for others to follow behind me.

Tell us about your mindset, how did you get through living and working in such a hostile environment?
That’s where the “breakthrough mentality” came in. And I know there are all the little sayings and quotes and lingo “zero to breakthrough.” But that stuff isn’t just marketing for me, it came out of my blood. The breakthrough mentality, simply put the definition is refusing to settle, even in the smallest of moments and demanding a breakthrough experience. There were many times where I wanted to do things in my life and if I didn’t make it the first time, I didn’t just give up because I really wanted it. And my granny always said, ‘anything worth having is worth working for.’ And I knew that to be true. Call me rebel with a cause, rebel without a cause sometimes. Even when my parents didn’t want me to do or people told me not to do it.  Like being a cobra pilot, a lot of people told me, ‘maybe go for something else because cobra pilots are pretty tough on each other. Cobra pilots eat their young. Am I sure I want to be in that type of environment?’ And again I said I want to fly cobras so I’m not going to let people’s personalities dissuade me from what I want to do. So it was really just a healthy dose of refusing to settle and really going for what I truly want in life.
And to be honest, Veronica, I think some of that refusing to settle, came from being a teenager and then in college– I was afraid to grow up and become an adult. It scared me to death. Number 1, taxes. Everybody had horror stories about taxes.  I knew once I became an adult, I’d have to pay taxes. I had no clue what they were or how they worked but I knew it was a horrible thing.  Then there was working…everyday. You don’t get summers off. You have to go to work everyday and most people are miserable on Sunday night and they complain about their jobs throughout the week. I did not look forward to working. And when I got a job in college, I don’t think I kept one job more than three months except for Taco Pronto.  And it scared me to death to know that I was going to have to work and be miserable for the rest of my life.
And then when I became a police officer it was like the heavens opened up. This is amazing! It was fun, it was exciting, it was adventurous. All the folks on the police department were like my big brothers and big sisters. We looked out for each other. We were a family. I couldn’t wait to go to work in the morning or at night. That was a life changing moment for me to know that life didn’t have to be miserable. And because I worked to so hard to get into the police department, I said wow what if I’d settled and just done one of those other jobs. I could have been miserable for the rest of my life. For what I want it’s definitely worth creating that breakthrough.

What are some of the greatest lessons you’ve learned throughout your career? And when did you realize, you could use these lessons to help other people?
The foundational ones we just talked abou
t, acknowledge the obstacles but don’t give them power, refusing to settle even in the smallest of moments. And really you have to a strong mind. Inevitably change is going to happen but it’s what you do about it, it’s how you deal with it. If you do what average people do, you have what average people have. I don’t want to be average do you? That right there is huge because most people will say they don’t want to live average, which is paycheck to paycheck, struggling or if you lost your job, you’re in a bad situation. If we look around America today, people are one paycheck or one job from losing their life, bankruptcy and their home. If you asked the average person, if they wanted to live like that, they would say no but they’re doing the same things everybody else is doing. So how can we break ourselves out from the pack.
And I knew I wanted to be a philanthropist and a police officer. When I was a little kid I said I wanted to be a philanthropist as well. Most people aren’t philanthropists and don’t have a lot of money to do that. So I knew I was going to have to carve out something different to enable me to be able to do that. So when I became a police officer, I didn’t think I was doing anything different. When I became a combat pilot I didn’t really feel like I was doing something different. Plenty people have joined the service. Really the giving back came along that way because I’ve always been a public servant and I’ve always spoken to youth organizations. And when I got back from Iraq, I wasn’t asking people to come speak, they were now asking me to come speak and saying, ‘How did you do this, how did you do that at such a young age. Talk to my organization about the process you used to create breakthroughs.
What I quickly found out is that people wanted to create breakthroughs, but many of them just didn’t know how, they didn’t have a plan to get there. And when I was sharing experiences and answering questions just like this, I kept hearing myself saying the same thing, the same thing, the same thing.  Where I was really able to nail down that process, which later became the book, “Zero to Breakthrough.”
I believe everyone, and this came from my great uncle,  is here—the only reason—the purpose, everybody’s running around saying, why am I here, what’s my purpose in life. Everybody has the same purpose, to help each other and bless each other. How we specifically do that, that is the uniqueness that we bring to the planet, that uniqueness that no one before us or after us will have. Only I can bring what I am specifically bringing. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other speakers that means that I have my own personal slant on it. The stuff that is in my blood, is what I pray to share before I leave this place.

You’ve been a police officer, a combat pilot, you’re a motivational speaker, philanthropist, author, so what’s next for you?
All I need to do is get Jada Pinkett to play me in a full length feature. Life would be complete.

Is there anything else you want to add?
It’s a journey and us growing together. I created a virtual community on Facebook and it’s called ‘The Ready Room.’ Where I do live broadcasting and answer questions. I’m also on Twitter @0tobreakthrough. I want people to know “I’m not one of those people that they just see on t.v. but no where else. “ And if I can be a leader for my community, then I’m here.
You HAVE permission to Engage and you are… CLEARED HOT. In combat you wait for permission to engage. I want people to know you “have”  permission — that permission is inside of you. (Madame Noire)