Caroline ‘Blaze’ Jensen

Caroline ‘Blaze’ Jensen

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Show notes

In this interview with USAF Academy graduate, F-16 combat veteran pilot, former no. 3 USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team pilot, and boy-mom, Caroline ‘Blaze’ Jensen, we talk about her sweet new picture book, Thundermouse, her career, and how she managed one of the most visible and demanding jobs imaginable as the mother of a toddler. Blaze is the granddaughter of a WWII SPAR (as am I) and a Coast Guard Grandfather, and daughter of a U.S. Marine, but we’ll forgive her for joining the Air Force. She was inspired by Top Gun and guided by the legacy of the WASP and is currently the Board President-Elect of the WASP Museum in Sweetwater, Texas. Her illustrious Air Force career included a stint as a Congressional Liaison, where she met Erin Miller while she was on her crusade to secure WASP rights to interment at Arlington on behalf of her Gammy. Blaze is a motivational speaker for hire and offers mentoring to aspiring and junior military aviators. She will be celebrating the launch of Thundermouse at the WWII Commemorative Air Force Museum Minnesotta Wing this Friday, October 13th, at 6pm. 

Thundermouse launches tomorrow, Tuesday October 10th. If you order from Blaze’s website, she will sign and personalize a book for you. https://www.diamondechelonllc.com/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Liz Booker: Hello and welcome. I’m Liz Booker, Literary Aviatrix, and I’m thrilled to celebrate the launch of a sweet new picture book, Thunder Mouse by former Thunderbird team demonstration pilot, Caroline Jensen.

Caroline ‘Blaze’ Jensen. Welcome.

[00:00:25] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:28] Liz Booker: Oh, man, are you kidding me? I’m so excited to be able to talk with you and so excited about this sweet book. Oh, my gosh. I think I told you when I reached out to you that instantly, tears when I saw the cover of it and the concept of it.

Can you give us an overview of the book?

[00:00:45] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yes. So I, I was not the first woman to be selected to fly for the Thunderbirds, but I was the first mom back in 2011, and at the time my son was three and a half years old. Like, we were still going through potty training. It was a big deal for the team to hire a mom that someone would be away from their kids.

And, you know, my son was very, very excited about it. But he said, mom, I really just want to come with you. And he was excited about all the adventures. And I said, well, you know, there’s only one seat in the airplane, so you can’t come with, and he said, but what if I be turned into a mouse and I can sneak into the cushion, so that’s how the whole concept came about because he wanted to travel with me and I wrote the book in 2013 around then it actually rhymed at first. The Thunderbirds -people don’t know we used to, and maybe they still do –we would write like a diddy, like a funny poem. And so I kind of wrote it in like a poem form and then it just evolved over the years to what is gonna be released next Tuesday, October 10th, is the, the release of the book. So, it’s a great little story about the connection between a parent who’s gone and a child who’s left at home.

[00:01:58] Liz Booker: Yeah. It’s so sweet. It’s so sweet. And maybe you’ll do a little reading for us.

[00:02:03] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Finn was a little boy when the U. S. Air Force Thunderbirds chose his mom to soar in the sky with the team. Can I go with and fly in the shows? Finn asked. Where would you sit? She laughed. I don’t have a back seat. His mom would be gone a lot.

Finn’s heart thumped with joy and broke at the same time.

Finn heard a small voice. “It’ll be okay,” said the mouse. I can help.

“Can you go with my mom, Thunderbird 3?”

“Of course,” said the mouse. “I can watch over her and be her good luck charm.”

“Then I’ll make you a little mouse helmet and a little flight suit,” said Finn. “I’ll give you the call sign Thunder Mouse.”

The little mouse snuck into Three’s bag and prepared for his first flight.

And you can see the rest. I love the illustrations. It really portrays the dynamics, I think, of the Thunderbird show and riding in an airplane. And there’s some neat little Easter eggs hidden in the illustrations that pay tribute to the WASP, paid tribute to where the illustrator went to Paris to actually learn how to do some of the techniques for illustrating a children’s book. My grandmother was a World War II veteran, was actually in the Coast Guard. She was a spar during World War II.

[00:03:18] Liz Booker: So was mine. Are you kidding? Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. I woulda put a picture back here had I known that. That’s crazy.

[00:03:26] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Oh yeah. Yeah, there’s like a little picture on the wall and on the illustrations. That’s my grandma. So that’s cool. Our grandmas might have known each other.

[00:03:35] Liz Booker: So cool. We’re going to talk more about that later. That’s amazing. Oh my gosh, this book is so fun.

Tell us about the illustrator.

[00:03:44] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: The illustrator is Donna Eichner. She lives in Minnesota, Northfield, Minnesota, and she is a retired elementary school educator and extremely talented artist, works in sculpture and painting and did the illustrations. This is her very first book. So I hope she decides to do more, but we all learned a lot in this process together, but it was very neat because it’s a self published book that we were able to collaborate a lot on the images to make sure that they’re an accurate representation of what it would look like to be flying with the Thunderbirds and what it was like in a home with a mom who’s gone a lot flying in the military and how the kids handle that.

[00:04:26] Liz Booker: Well, Caroline, there’s so much about this book that I love. I love the concept of, of some way of managing and comforting our children when we have to go away. Knowing that, you know, it’s, it’s a bit of a sacrifice, but in some way we’re also doing it for them.

At least that’s how I, with myself when I say goodbye to my kids. Yeah. And so I think I think it’s wonderful for children whose parents work. So moms and dads can read this to their kids. I also think it’s good for girls and for boys. I mean, you have a male character there, but we have you as the role model. This highly accomplished woman doing something so extraordinary you know, and being an example of a working woman for our children, both boys and girls, and for other parents, you’re just, you’re the whole package as far as I’m concerned, you know, the kind of person I, I looked up to, I wish I had more of when I was a junior officer, or even trying to navigate, like, what is a life as a pilot going to be like as a mother, because I was already a mom when I went to flight school.

So you would have been a great role model for me had I known about you. And so I’m so excited to meet you and I want to talk all about that. And how you got to the point that you were a mother and a Thunderbird. So tell us about your journey in aviation.

[00:05:53] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for the compliment and I think that I love the phrase “you have to see it to be it” but also you and I know full well that if we had to see something to be it, we probably wouldn’t have become it. So I really encourage people just to envision what you want for yourself and get people who are as adjacent to what you want to be and have them help you to kind of build the life that you want.

So that’s where I came from, and my story is that I have my grandmother, like I said, she was a spar during World War II in the Coast Guard. My grandfather on my dad’s side was actually in the Coast Guard as well, and he was on the Coast Guard Cutter Duane. I know I should have gone to the Coast Guard, but I decided to go to the Air Force.

[00:06:42] Liz Booker: That’s fine. Yeah.

[00:06:44] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: And my dad was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and flew helicopters, and so I grew up with this intense sense of patriotism. And when I was about six, I saw a movie with an airplane flying around clouds, and I really wanted to do that. And when I was about 12 years old, 1986, 87, Top Gun came out and I was like, I don’t want to be Charlie.

I want to be Maverick in this, you know, whole thing.

[00:07:05] Liz Booker: Wait, say again, how old were you?

[00:07:08] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: It was 1986. I was like 12 years old when I wanted to fly.

[00:07:11] Liz Booker: Oh, okay. We’re the same age. Same age. Okay.

[00:07:12] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Okay. Yeah. And as you know, the combat exclusion wasn’t lifted for women until 1993. And so I… Use the story of the wasp. My dad told me about the WASP and said, you need to do everything that you can do so that when the rules change that you are qualified, prepared, first in line, raising your hand to go fly fighters. I would have been happy flying anything. I can honestly say that now. And I’m sure it’s easy to say from the career that I’ve had. But I, I just love flying and I was always enamored with it. I really loved the idea of serving my country and it was amazing that the rules changed so I could serve my country in the way that I wanted to serve and in a way that I hope would make the WASP proud too.

[00:07:55] Liz Booker: Yeah. So what, so what was your path? Did you go to the Academy? What’d you do?

[00:07:59] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yes. I went to the Air Force Academy. I had one flight in a Cessna 172. Before I went to the Academy and it was the third time I’d ever been on like an airliner. So I had four total times where I was airborne on my flight to the Academy, but I knew I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

 You know, cost is a big barrier to entry to young people, men and women who want to fly and even older people who want to fly. So that I was kind of fell into that. My parents were educators and you know, we had a great lifestyle. There were five kids in my household between my mom and my stepdad.

So. I went to the Academy with this dream and, and everything worked out. I struggled a lot with academics and was lucky at my beginning of my sophomore year that I was selected to become a glider instructor at the Air Force Academy. So that was really my first introduction to flight was flying gliders.

And I had about 120 hours that were like a 0. 1 or two at a time, because we didn’t do any, you know, thermaling in the regular Soar for All program. We just. Took someone who didn’t really know anything, like literally I had people going, what’s a rudder? Like, you know, what’s a rudder pedal, you know, put your feet on them. That’s your first clue and then take them to solo an airplane by themselves over the front range in Colorado by the Air Force Academy. So that’s how I started. I was in the T3 program and we had like, 3 serious mishaps that were fatal really sad and they literally stopped the program while I was sitting in the airplane and I had not had a private pilot’s license yet.

So I went into a program that they gave me 40 hours and said, do what you can do with these 40 hours. The minimum requirement was a solo and I was able to get my PPL before I went off to pilot training that way. And then I was a 1st assignment instructor pilot flying the T 38 in Del Rio, Texas at Laughlin Air Force Base, which taught me a lot. It’s like, you know, giving you enough rope to hang yourself with and trusting you with the keys to a jet and sending you cross country with the student who’s not much younger than you are taught me a lot about airmanship. That was a great start.

And then I got selected to fly the mighty F- 16. I went to fly in Korea and then Hill Air Force Base and deployed to Iraq in 2007, 2008 with the 4th fighter squadron out of Hill Air Force Base, Utah. And I came home and I was planning to transition to the reserve and I ended up pregnant with my son. And so he was born as I went into the reserves, and then I later became an active guard reserve.

So I finished a complete active duty tour. So when I, after I had my son, I went back to flying the T 38, which was great to kind of rewire your brain as, you know, when you have a baby, things just kind of go and it really brought everything back into focus for me. Which was wonderful. And then while I was, you know, up in the middle of the night, I saw the mail on the counter and there was a Citizen Airman magazine from the reserve and it had a little article in the back about Joker Gustafson, who was the first reservist to be selected to fly for the Thunderbirds.

And I decided to apply and, and it worked out. So I did that job for 3 years. It was supposed to be 2, but sequestration grounded us in 2013. And, and that was like how I went to the Thunderbirds. After that, I went and worked in DC for a year in the Senate as a legislative liaison, and then I went back to flying and the aggressors at Nellis Air Force Base, F 16, retired from there.

And I went to work for Boeing and kind of one of the coolest five hours, I think that I have in my log book are with the Boeing T7A Red Hawk, the new trainer that’s being fielded. So I did that. And then I decided to kind of create the family space and still work so I could be home with my son who’s 15 years old now. He’ll be 15. Next week or week after next.

[00:12:03] Liz Booker: Oh, man, Caroline, that career. I was like, my teenage self is like, getting goosebumps because all the things you said were like, all the things that really excited me starting with, you know, the top gun movie when I was 13 and I was already like, I already knew I wanted to be a pilot. So I just made some poor choices as a teenager that limited my options. And so that’s what led me to the Coast Guard. But you, the career path that you had was the one that I dreamt of. And so it’s so inspiring to hear that, you know, what, anyone who accomplishes a thing that you aspire to. So, so great to talk to you and to hear that story.

And so what are you doing? How did you create that space for yourself now? What are you doing now?

[00:12:48] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, I actually moved back to my hometown. So I’ve been a single mom for nine years now. And my family’s here. So we’ve got grandmas and grandpas around and sister and cousins, and I’m close to a major airport. I can still fly and and work one of the things I’ve been like, that is most dear to my heart, literally without the story of the WASP and that inspiration of them having flown all the pursuit airplanes and having served, you know, in every mission in the Air Force or the Air Corps at the time, except for combat that inspired me and kept me going before the rules changed.

And then after when I had a hard day, you know, I’m like, the WASP would have done, you know, anything to be in this position. I just feel so grateful for their service and their inspiration. And because of that, I’ve been on the board of directors at the National WASP World War II Museum down at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, where they trained.

And I am the president elect for the board there. So that’s all volunteer. There’s a lot of amazing people on the board and working there at the museum to tell that story and preserve the history, promote that legacy and protect the airfield where the WASP trained. So that’s a real labor of love. And I have a lot of space for that.

I also do keynote speaking and I do some corporate counseling and I do free mentorship for anybody who’s thinking about like a military or flying career. So I get contacted a lot out of the blue or friends of friends or people find me through my website and just help them kind of even like almost like counseling. Like I, you know, I have someone who got an assignment and wasn’t quite sure she wanted her assignment or had someone who was having a hard time with the Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals course. And, you know, just like talking to them and giving them perspective on, the experience as a whole, I think has been really rewarding for me to be able to give back.

And like you said, we didn’t have a lot of those people that we could call on and ask for help and, and their, their perspective. So it means a lot to me to be able to do that.

[00:14:52] Liz Booker: Yeah. Oh, I have so many questions. Okay. First of all thank you for the, what you do for the WASP museum. That’s amazing. How can people support the museum?

[00:15:04] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: There’s a great way to support the museum and be aware of all of the happenings that are going on there is to become a member of the museum. So you can go on waspmuseum. org and just sign up for a membership. You can do it all online. There’s a beautiful newsletter that comes out, I think it’s every quarter that has all of the, the latest happenings at the museum and in April for all, anybody who wants to come, but I think especially women in aviation would love to be at Avenger Field in the last weekend in April.

 We usually have a fly in. Last year we had a B29 and a B25 there. I mean, it was like, awe inspiring to see these aircraft flying out of Avenger Field. And we have a big dinner and there’s, you know, we have an auction, but it’s more towards fun and it’s themed for like the 1940s and it just, it, it’s beautiful way to get together and have that kind of sisterhood around being a female pilot.

And you just, I don’t, have you ever been to Avenger?

[00:16:02] Liz Booker: No, it’s all, it’s been on my list for a while now, so I will get there eventually.

[00:16:06] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah. Please come. And you just, you can stand there and you can feel. The history, and you can feel that because the weather is pretty intense. Like, they have really great crosswinds in West Texas. If anybody’s looking to practice their crosswind landings, strong winds, you know, blowing sand, like the dust, the sun is intense and you just can feel what they, they went through. So it’s just really special to be there in, in that space and experience the conditions that they did.

So it’s everybody that I’ve talked to, I’ve not heard one single person say that they had a bad time. We always have a great speaker who speaks at the dinner and then we’ll do like a little kind of fun auction and fundraiser there. We had armadillo races last year.

[00:16:53] Liz Booker: Perfect in Texas. That’s awesome. I spent a little time growing up there. So that’s funny. Okay. Awesome. And then you’ve mentioned that you do some keynote speaking, what’s your kind of what’s your angle? Or what are you? What will you bring to an event?

[00:17:09] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, I like to bring things that I learned about just being great and success as a fighter pilot and as a Thunderbird. And I think people think, you know, Thunderbird, oh, you’re a perfect pilot and everything goes right. And that’s. You know, not the truth, just like in life. And there’s a lot of obstacles that we all have to overcome. And I like to share my personal story with those different obstacles. And, and there are plenty of times in your life where you can give up, but just look at what you’ll miss if you do that. So, so that’s 1 of my main messages.

And then I also like to talk about communication, like, in a leadership forum and how important it is, and I like to kind of talk through the communication that the Thunderbirds use when you say the same thing like thousands of times, right? But the way you say something conveys almost as much as the words that you use. So, especially in a leadership or an instructional situation where you keep saying the same things over and over again, that tone and the pace and those things are really important when you’re leading a team.

And I think one of the most important things is, as a leader, you always have to think about the team that you’re leading becoming leaders themselves and trusting them and helping to build your replacement. And they are much more effective followers if they understand that they will be moving into a leadership position.

So those are some of my main messages, but I can, you know, I tailor it a lot and there’s a lot of great avenues to explore that go back to, you know, the Thunderbird thing and flying in combat and, and working in the military being part of a team as, you know.

[00:18:43] Liz Booker: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about the experience of going off and training for this incredibly demanding role that you had with the baby at home. Like how’d you manage it? What was your support network like? What advice do you have for other women who are in high demand jobs with small children at home? Tell us everything.

[00:19:07] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, I think when I, when I was selected to fly for the Thunderbirds, my son was 3 and a half. I think he literally was still like, I think he was about 3 when I found out he was still in diapers. And I like to tell this story, we were at Disney world, Disney world. Yeah, so we were at Disney world. And I got a phone call from my commander saying, hey, you’re going to be, you got picked up and I was like, oh, my gosh, it’s this very long process to get selected for the Thunderbirds. You basically, it’s almost a week long. Interview where you go to an air show and then you, if you get called back, then you go back like 2 weeks later. And so I got a call from my commander saying, you know, hey, congratulations. And I was so excited. And my son literally had a blow out his diaper, like, the worst thing you can imagine. And it just like, really brought me back to earth, like, right away. Right? You know, like, I have this big job going, but my responsibilities to my child are not going to change whatsoever.

So it was pretty, you know, pretty awe inspiring, but I had a lot of help from my now ex husband was a pilot for a major airline and he was able to take some time off. I saw, you know, family members more than I probably would have if I’d been on regular active duty because they were able to come and stay with him during training and, and during working. So, you know, it takes a village to do a lot of child rearing and that was definitely helpful there.

I had a friend who had deployed, she’d had twins and had to deploy and she came back and she’s just like, man, you know, I, I missed giving my child a bath and reading them my daughter’s bath and bringing them books. And, and, you know, it’s like sad and it’s heartbreaking, but at the same time, you know, my thought and what I said to her is like, well, I mean, just think of the example that you set. Right? They probably aren’t going to remember who read them a book when they were a year old, but they will remember that you served your country and that you sacrificed for your country and that, you know, they’re going to know it was hard for you to leave them.

And that’s how important our freedoms are. How much our country is really worth it. So I think, I don’t know. I think it’s really beautiful, but it’s definitely challenging. And especially when you’re on the road with like a toddler and you’re at an air show and you know, it’s like cotton candy and corn dogs and popcorn and like garbage everywhere. So they really wanted to, you know, he really wanted that kind of stuff. And, and the air shows always during that time too. So, you know, sometimes I’d wave at him on the taxi out and they’d be gone, then taxi back in. And then, you know, he wanted to sleep in mom’s bed. So I’d, you know, be trying to get a good night’s sleep for an air show and I’d wake up with like a foot in my face and. But it was, you know, it was really wonderful to have him there and experience that and that third year on the team was such a blessing because he was just a little bit older.

And there’s a scene about this in the book. They asked, he was just walking around this like cute little blonde kid with a buzz cut and a flight suit and the Fox News stopped him and said, Hey, little boy, like, what’s your favorite part about the air show? And just, they didn’t know who he was. Like that he was related to anybody and he goes, when my mom flies, which I thought he would probably say, like, you know, the, the guns over there or the, you know, ATVs or the helicopter, but he says, when my mom flies, and yeah, yeah, so it was neat that he had that understanding of what was going on, and of course, there were a lot there. We had quite a few kids at that age, and I think he kind of took it for granted because they all a lot of them hung out together and went to the same school. And they’re like, Oh, everybody’s parent, you know, Thunderbird pilots and whatever.

[00:22:48] Liz Booker: Exactly. Exactly. Not as cool, but close is like the story that I love to tell when I was, you know, just back for from a women in aviation conference. Taken my daughter, she’d hung out with all my girlfriends there with the magazine, like reading an article about somebody probably I knew. And she leans over and she’s like, mommy, can boys be helicopter pilots too? And I’m like, yeah, they can.

[00:23:18] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Love it.

[00:23:20] Liz Booker: Perspective of like, Oh, it’s just normal. Yeah. That’s amazing. Amazing. I’m sure he appreciates it now. Yeah?

[00:23:27] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah, for sure. He it’s funny. He was playing when he was had his fortnight phase. He picked like a skin and that was a skeleton, like a woman wearing like a skeleton costume.

And someone was like, but you’re a boy. Like, why did you pick that one? He’s like, women can do anything, you know, like, I like this one. This is my favorite. And like, you know, he just didn’t understand why someone was giving him a hard time for picking a female skin during the game.

[00:23:54] Liz Booker: We need more of him in the world.

[00:23:56] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, and that’s, you know, I got a lot of like, Oh, it’s so great. You’re such a wonderful influence on young women. I’m like, yes, absolutely. But as a boy, mom, my child will not go out into this world and limit the women around him, you know?

[00:24:10] Liz Booker: Yes. Good job mamma.

[00:24:12] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: And so, yeah, he’ll be a great advocate for women like us who are in male dominated fields and you know, like aviation. So that’s important to me, too, that young boys see that example.

[00:24:23] Liz Booker: Well, congratulations that you had the support network that allowed you to fulfill that, that really amazing opportunity and also provide your son with, you know, the love and support that he needed at the same time.

I’ve been very fortunate in that way too. With with my husband, I’m twice married too. So I had a practice round. But this, you know, it’s important to have some kind of support network and not, not all of it is always like a direct partner. It’s whatever you have around you, but you really demonstrate, you know, that you can do some really amazing things and also raise children in a very positive way. So, yeah, congratulations for that.

[00:25:06] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Well, thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and then and I will share towards the end of my career. I retired, like, right at 20 years of active duty service from the reserve and I’ve been in for, like, 24 kind of 26 kind of the Academy time. But. You know, I was in Las Vegas and I was flying with the aggressors and the aggressors support all the missions at Vegas. And that was practically a twenty four hour operation and I was the operations officer for that squadron. And I, I think it was the busiest flying squadron in air in the warfare center and probably one of the very busiest in air combat command. And we had missions that some of them we were scheduling that would take off at 10 and land at 4 in the morning. And when you go home as a mom, you can’t go to bed at 4 in the morning and wake up at 3. You still got to get them to school and pack a lunch. I had an au pair that I brought in and even that’s tricky with the rules for au pairs.

And I would buy tickets to fly parents and, you know, grandparents down to hang out. So it, it ended up costing a lot of money a lot of time. And as much as I loved it, you know, my son had moved five times by the time he got to seventh grade. And, and so unfortunately it was time to retire. I just, I, I felt like I did my parents proud? I did the WASP proud. I still had, you know, some runway ahead of me in the Air Force, but I feel like part of the mentorship I’m giving back and replenishing that source of women who are motivated to take on these roles and responsibilities.

[00:26:49] Liz Booker: Yeah, I think, you know, it’s just a hard decision when you get there but you make the right one for you. Yeah, I got to a point myself where the, the place where it hurt financially the most for me was when I was junior enlisted because I was enlisted first and I was a mom and, and my ex husband wanted me to get out of the service and stay home and take care of the baby. And I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to do that. The life that I’m going to live, but maybe somebody else. And so I stayed in, but what it meant was that when he, he was on active duty and he had duty and I was underway or on duty that I was shelling out like half of my paycheck for childcare. And, and, but I like, in my mind. I knew I had opportunities in front of me in the Coast Guard that I wasn’t going to find in the civilian world. And I felt like confident that I could pursue them. And so, like, I could look at his little face and just say, I’m doing this for you, but that as I got older and more senior, I started to question. I was like, is this where am I really still doing this for my family? Or am I doing it for my ego? It’s been a really good run. Like, I’m ready to transition and maybe. Thank you. Not do the next level thing that.

[00:28:09] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah.

[00:28:10] Liz Booker: That I will also share. I didn’t believe I could do like we were talking about earlier. The see it to believe it. Another story I love to tell is that, you know, I’m a, I’m a mom already. I’m a pilot, junior pilot, pregnant. I’m at a women’s leadership symposium and I’m sitting in the audience when one of our, when our most senior female aviation. She ended up being an admiral, but at the time she was an O-6 was speaking and she was great. And I respected her, but I didn’t identify with her because she was, as far as I knew, single solo, you know, married to the Coast Guard and made her way that way. And that wasn’t going to be me. I couldn’t possibly have that life. But when she said my biggest regret is not marrying my flight school sweetheart 20 years ago because she ended up marrying him later, and and not having children. As soon as she said that to me, I was like, okay, you are a real human being. And now maybe that’s a possibility for me. And so like it just opened my aperture. Just to hear somebody say that even and get vulnerable that way made it, made them real to me and made it at least possible, even if I didn’t go that far.

[00:29:31] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah, well, it’s great to see both sides of the coin, right? Because you definitely can do it solo on your own. And, you know, not everybody wants to have children. And, you know, I, I totally respect that too, but it’s, but it’s good to see kind of both sides. And, and, you know, I. I gave up like a big fortune 50 defense contractor industry job to really focus on my home life and then kind of create this business and do things that I love, like.

The WASP Museum and, and this book and my speaking, you know, and I can take jobs as it fits with the schedule. So, so that’s been really great. But it, it was kind of hard for me, you know, cause I always want to be like, you know, I’m the pilot. Like you said, that ego, like, I feel like I need to be like really leaning into this.

And then I just realized like, it was really taking a toll on me and, you know, burnout’s a real thing. And I probably was burned out for many, many years before I was able to admit it to myself. So I think we tend to take care of everyone around us and maybe not ourselves so much that I know for sure it was the right choice, but it took me a long time to reconcile that with myself.

[00:30:36] Liz Booker: Yeah. No, I respect that. I have enough of it on my own as well. So I think it’s for all of us to deal with. Let’s talk about how you got this book baby out into the world. So you’re literally like going to be in receipt of books tomorrow.

[00:30:52] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yes.

[00:30:53] Liz Booker: Can’t wait. Can you send me a little video or picture of you unboxing and I’ll share that.

[00:30:58] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Absolutely. Almost thought I was going to get to do it with you and the UPS driver pulled up and I was excited. And, but it was the mailers. So everyone who orders it from my Shopify site, I’m signing them and I’m personalizing them.

[00:31:11] Liz Booker: Well, we could totally do like a live or something and we could do it. Like, yeah, that would be fun.

[00:31:17] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah. So it’s said tomorrow before 7 and I was like, man, can I like, have them drop it off at a hub and I’ll go get it tonight. But

[00:31:23] Liz Booker: so great.

[00:31:24] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah.

[00:31:25] Liz Booker: So, so how do we get this idea from idea to on paper and out in the world?

[00:31:31] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: So it was literally, I wrote this kind of story down on the back of one of my lineup cards on the Thunderbirds, and I saved a bunch of my lineup cards. Just they’re kind of cool because they show all the different, you know, there’s like a photo and like the show line and everything and so I had saved it and I was like going through things like later and I found it and it had always been in my head too. So I, you know, kind of like worked on it and it just it sat for a while and I think being a speaker, a lot of people like to take something away from it.

And I think a book is a great way to share your story. And I do, you know, events with girls in aviation day and schools and things like that. And and that relationship with my son meant a lot, but I was really inspired by Erin Miller, who I met in 2016 when she was campaigning on the hill to get the Arlington getting Arlington to reinstate the rights for WASP to be interred there. So I saw her go through that process and she wrote one great book and then she wrote her children’s book too. She’s an attorney and, and she’s also a recent private pilot now. So she knows how to get a checklist and go through processes. And she was great and kind of describing the whole self publishing process to me.

[00:32:50] Liz Booker: Let’s just make sure you give a shout out to her book. So Erin Miller wrote Final Flight Final Fight, which is literally about her pounding the pounding the, the halls of Congress to get the law changed. And it’s an amazing story. And then she has her children, children’s picture book. What Grandma Did.

[00:33:09] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah, I got my favorite books here.

[00:33:13] Liz Booker: And she’s just a lovely person as well. So yeah, congratulations to her on her recent license.

[00:33:18] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yeah, and she did and so that’s where when she was on the hill, you know, working on this project, that’s when I was working for a senator on the center services committee. And that’s how we met and became friends there.

So, obviously, with her grandma being a WASP and my passion for a WASP, like, I was glad that I can give her all the information I knew on the Senate side of things. But then recently, I met a woman named Lisa Bolt Simons and she is the daughter of a Thunderbird who passed away in an aircraft accident in the F4 50 years ago and she is a author of over 70 different books, a very accomplished public or published author. And she is an editor and she has her own business too called the manuscript matchmaker. And so I was like, Hey, I had this idea and she kind of helped edit it for me. And then she’s the one who made the magic happen by introducing me to Donna Eicher, the illustrator and so it was like a really cool project because we would all kind of get together at Donna’s house and go through things and, you know, maybe reword a little bit and, and tweak the images and think like what we wanted on, on each page. And I just, like I said, it’s so beautiful and Donna’s really creative and amazing artist.

So to see kind of the flow as things go through the book, it’s. It was a really fun project to do, but, but they, between Aaron kind of guiding me through the process and Lisa connecting me and Donna with the illustrations. And then there’s another, the book designers Roberta Morris. LeaveItToBerta. com is her site and she put everything together and, you know, put up with us trying to get things perfect our first time through our first book.

[00:35:05] Liz Booker: Yeah. Well, it looks like it’s beautiful. I can’t wait to see it in my hands, in your hands. Congratulations.

[00:35:12] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Thank you.

[00:35:13] Liz Booker: What are you, what are you doing? I know you have a book launch event coming. What’s happening?

[00:35:18] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yes, I am so excited. I’m a member of the Comparative Air Force and the Minnesota Wing, and they’ve been gracious to open their gorgeous hangar. All the airplanes will be there, including Miss Mitchell, their B 25, will be the backdrop for the launch of my book. I’m so excited. On Friday the 13th of October, 13 has always been a lucky number for me.

For some reason, I kept getting the 13 peg over and over again. And and it’s also the day before my son’s 15th birthday, so it’ll be a little bit of a celebration for him. And, and I think it’s funny, too, that the 14th of October is the anniversary of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. So I’m like, this is my kid, right?

So so we’ll have the book launch there. It’s open to the public. It’s a free ticket. We just, if people can go in the area, you can go on the Eventbrite, and that way, I know how many extra books to bring. I’ll read the book and we’ll do a signing and I have a couple of special friends that are coming an A- 10 pilot and, my friend, Teresa Claiborne, who was the first black woman to get her wings in the Air Force is going to be there. So we just have some really powerful, cool women and, you know, the commemorative Air Force does such an amazing job telling the story of the history. So I think it’s kind of cool to marry that World War II history that was so inspiring and the future of the book.

[00:36:44] Liz Booker: Absolutely amazing. So tell us, remind us where we can find the book. It’s available for pre order right now, and it’s going to be out for release on the 10th, right?

[00:36:53] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Yes, and it’s through amazon. com, you can get on Barnes and Noble bookshop. org and you can also find it on my Shopify site. If you buy it from my site, I will sign it and you can send me a note to personalize it too.

So, yeah, I’m excited. It’s, it’s been a really great learning experience. And yeah, it’s like, like you said, putting my baby out there for everyone to. To enjoy. I think it’ll be a really meaningful story for a lot of people.

[00:37:23] Liz Booker: Absolutely. Do you have anything else you want to talk about? Any advice for young women getting started in their aviation careers or moms working?

Anything? Anything you want to share?

[00:37:38] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Working moms and moms in the aviation field. I it’s I think reaching out to other women has been really key knowing that you’re not alone because it feels so isolated and isolating to be a woman in aviation because there aren’t a lot of organizations that have multiple women.

A lot of squadrons. I. Was in a couple of them. I was the 1st and some of them, there was maybe like 1 other woman there, but it just like a lot of times you’re the only woman in the room. And I know a lot of times, you’re the only woman in the cockpit, but just reach out. There’s, you know, different organizations between W. A. I. and the 99s and FAST and you know, all of them. I’m a member of everything. So it’s good to have that sisterhood and, you know, try to use the word other than ‘fellowship’ with other women aviators, but women who’ve done it before you, you know, had the kids and I, you were ahead of me. I wish that I had known you then to kind of reach out and, you know, silly things like how’s my body going to react to flying or how do I handle nursing flying and, you know, in a single seat airplane, how do you manage having to go to the bathroom, you know, silly little things that just impact and kind of pull your energy away from the mission, whether it’s combat or civilian flying, you know, flying yourself or flying 300 people. Those things are really important and for young girls to just seek out mentors.

There’s a, I like to walk in my neighborhood every day. I walk my dog and I was walking down the street and this little girl stops me and she says, are you a fighter pilot? And I was like yes. And she had been to Oshkosh and she met another fighter pilot. She’s like, I want to be a female fighter pilot. And some of the neighbors knew my history. And so, yeah, she’ll come by and say hi. And I had her over, you know, and she’s nine years old and completely sought me out and my mentorship.

And so, you know, I think for young kids, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask somebody like find them on their Instagram or find them on there’s so much social media, you know, go to a girls in aviation day. And, you know, I think that I’ve not met a single female pilot that doesn’t want to inspire a another female pilot to, to do what they want to do. So that’s my advice for young girls.

[00:40:01] Liz Booker: Fabulous. Well, Caroline, thank you so much. Thank you for your book. Thank you for your, your service and your inspiring story. I can’t wait to see this book just make lots of people happy.

[00:40:14] ‘Blaze’ Jensen: Thank you so much, Liz.

[00:40:15] Liz Booker: Thanks so much for listening. You can also find Thunder Mouse, along with hundreds of other books featuring women in aviation, on the Literary Aviatrix website, and if you’re looking specifically for books for young readers, you can use the filters to narrow down your options, and you can even sort for picture books.

I’d like to thank Michael Wildes of Massif and Krewe for his help in producing this interview, and for his creative and technical support of all things Literary Aviatrix.

Blue skies and happy reading.