(wind blows) - I first started with a letter.

(bright music) And that letter basically said, "I'm Amy McGrath, I'm 11 years old, and I want to be a fighter pilot, can you please change the law so that I can do that?"

And my member of congress, he wrote me back a letter that basically said no, our military is doing just fine.

There's other things that you can do as a female in the military, but this is not one of them.

I mean, I still have journal entries, basically writing down, like, "Why is this?

"This is prejudice, this is wrong."

I was learning these new words, I did not understand it.

So I wrote every member of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees a letter, basically asking the same thing.

And I got several letters back, "Not gonna work for change", "Don't believe women should be in combat", so go do something else.

But I got one letter back from a congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, from Colorado, and her letter basically said, "Our military exists to fight and win the nation's wars, and we should have the best people in those positions."

"The military should aspire to fill jobs with the most qualified soldiers available, male or female."

(helicopter rattles) If you're good enough, you should be able to compete to get in that cup.

(fighter jet blares) See, all I wanted was a chance.

I didn't want somebody to say, you're a girl, you should get in that cockpit because you're a girl, I just wanted the opportunity to compete, because I knew I'd get in there if I could compete.

(garage door operates) (bright music) - [Monty] I remember the first time I ever flew on an airplane.

As we flew across the country, I remember looking out the window the whole time, my nose was just pressed against the glass, sort of surveying the land below me.

I remember having this strange sense of duty to dedicate myself in some way to helping.

- [Reporter] Opioid addiction reaching epidemic levels.

- [Reporter] Fast moving fires in parts of California.

- [Reporter] Breaking news, at least nine people killed- (intense music) - As I grew older, I ended up raising a family and becoming a lawyer and ultimately becoming CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill.

It's a vision to change food culture.

One of the things I liked best was interacting with thousands and thousands of people over the years, and really getting to know them.

Loads of different people from very different walks of life.

The more I got to know, the more convinced I was that, man, we're all very much the same in so many ways.

And you wouldn't know that from what we see on TV or hear on the radio, all that stuff suggests that we're very divided, that we're not united at all, that we're all about disagreement.

That we're all about arguing, that we're all about fighting.

(window smashes) (protestors shouting) But I think the truth is just the opposite, there's a great deal more that unites us.

What I wanna do with this docuseries is to tell the stories of people who might never be seen or heard.

And to help bring the wisdom from many people from many different walks of life so that everyone has access to it.

(plane engine roars) In some ways I'm still just that small boy with my nose pressed against the glass, looking down at this beautiful place we all live and wanting to do some good, wanting to demonstrate that there's a lot more that unites us than divides us.

(graphics whooshing) (plane engine roars) For me, aviation has always been a passion.

(bright upbeat music) The thunderous sound of jet engines, watching the runway race by faster and faster, feeling pinned to your seat as the ground falls away, rising skyward and soaring through clouds to a far away place.

It's always been magic to me.

But among airplanes, fighter jets are the ultimate expression of power, grace, force, and speed.

As a kid, I wanted to fly one, but someone on the playground told me I was too tall and somehow his comment dissuaded me.

Ever since then, I've been curious about the men and women who fly these machines.

What is it that drives them?

What does it take to become a fighter pilot?

What kind of men and women have the discipline to compete to fly one of the most sophisticated creations ever designed.

There is a certain mystique, intrigue, that most people have with becoming a fighter pilot and what it's all about.

- Sort of the modern day knights.

- [Monty] Yeah right.

- That's the way I thought about it when I was a kid.

- Yeah, and it stood by things like "Top Gun", which is obviously an exciting movie that made it look like nonstop excitement.

- Yeah.

- What is it about your upbringing that maybe made you, I wanna say weird, but I don't wanna say weird- - Right, different.

- That made you so different to have this motivation to do something that was really so unlikely, I think?

- I was a bit of a tomboy and I had an older brother that's two years older than me, and I played football with him.

- [Monty] You were a total tomboy?

- I was a total tomboy, short hair, you name it.

But I won a lot.

I won a lot of these athletic things and it gave me a ton of confidence.

(plane engine roaring) I was doing a project on World War II for history class in seventh grade.

And I picked World War II aircraft, and so my dad was like, "Oh, there's a documentary on aircraft in military aviation, why don't you watch it?"

But when I watched the documentary, the World War II stuff was like, oh, that's mildly interesting.

But then when they got to the 1970s and '80s, super carriers.

(upbeat music) And F14 Tom Cat, and that time the F18 was fairly new, and they showed footage of this.

(plane engine roaring) I was like, 'Whoa, that is cool, I'm gonna do that."

(upbeat music) (plane engine roars) And so when I was interested in fighter jets and I learned I can't do this because I'm a girl, that was a bit of a challenge, I was like, "No way."

And so for me, I was just going to prove them wrong.

(plane engine roaring) I proved them wrong out on the basketball court, I proved them wrong on the soccer field, I was gonna go prove them wrong in the cockpit, I just had to get a little bit older to do it.

(plane engine roaring) I mean, I had memorized all of the aircraft carriers the United States had.

I had memorized all the different types of aircraft the Air Force had and the Navy had, and I went to the library and I found everything I could about all of these things and applied for camps and all kinds of different science and tech stuff that I could find.

I felt like it was in my blood.

- But why were you so audacious to think that you could become a fighter pilot when it was not even legal for a woman to be in that seat?

Did you believe it would change or did you think you would have a hand in changing it or what was it?

- Yes, I thought it would have a hand in changing it.

I felt like, well, if it's not changed by the time I get there, I'm gonna be so good, they're gonna change it.

- [Monty] That they'll change their mind?

- They're gonna change that law.

(plane engines roaring) - Did someone teach you that?

Or was that something just genetic?

How do you explain why you had that drive where perhaps other people didn't?

- I just know it was always there.

- [Monty] Always?

Even as a very young girl?

- Yeah.

(light gentle music) My mother had polio when she was young, in the early 1950s.

And her left leg was paralyzed.

So since I knew her, she was never able to run, she couldn't walk without a cane and I never wanted to take my physical ability for granted.

When people say, why are you running a triathlon?

Why are you running an iron man?

'Cause I can.

I never wanted to take it for granted because I grew up with my mom.

She was one of the first women to graduate from the University of Kentucky Medical School in the 1960s.

- [Monty] So she was a trailblazer?

- She was a trailblazer, and she was very successful in a male dominated field.

Whenever I had doubts, self-doubt, I'd call my mom, and she had gone through something similar, she was during medical school one of the only women, there were men there who said, "You're taking a spot from a man."

- [Monty] Wow.

-Who's gonna become a doctor.

- [Monty] Wow.

- And so you don't belong here.

And so I sort of, I knew what she went through and I was able to call her up and she'd be like, "Ah, they're always gonna be like that, just keep pressing on."

Getting into the Naval Academy was a really good route to becoming a fighter pilot.

So that's when I was like, all right, I'm gonna get into Naval Academy.

- [Monty] Annapolis?

- Annapolis.

And I remember bringing the brochure home, I was probably like 12 years old.

And looking on the back of the brochure where it says, how many people apply versus how many people get in.

And I remember handing that to my mom and saying, "You know, Mom, these numbers aren't so good."

- Pretty daunting.

- 10% of the people that apply get in.

And I handed it to my mom and she took it and she looked it over and then she handed it back and said, "You can do that."

(upbeat music) I always tell people, if you wanna go to a normal college and hang out with sororities and fraternities and lots of parties, don't go to the academies.

You have to be competitive, you have to be pretty sharp.

- And durable, willing to put up with a lot of insults and hard work.

- It's not a normal college, that's not what it's about.

That's not what I wanted, I wanted the hardest thing I could possibly get.

I wanted to jump outta airplanes, parachute, go through survival school, everything that the academies would offer that's what I wanted.

- [Monty] Why?

- 'Cause it's cool.

(Monty laughs) I mean, who else gets to do that stuff?

- [Monty] Yeah.

- They had physical training sessions that you volunteer for, you could get up at 5:00 AM and work out with the Navy Seals.

Awesome, who else gets to do that?

That's really cool.

- [Monty] And so how did things change over the four years at Annapolis?

- By the time I was halfway through the academy, I felt like I got this.

I got this.

- [Monty] Was it getting too easy for you?

- [Amy] It was getting too easy.

Yeah.

- [Monty] You wanted more of a challenge?

- [Amy] Yes.

Part of that was why I wanted to become a Marine.

- Faster, faster, faster.

- Aye, aye, sir.

- Scream it.

- Sir.

- Louder.

- Aye, aye sir.

- Louder.

- The Marine Corps is an elite service, it's the smallest of the four services of the four main services.

- But it springs from the Navy?

- It's part of the department of the Navy, but it's its own service.

And we just pride ourselves on being a little bit tougher and harder to get into.

(Marines shouting) While all of the other occupational specialties are sort of recruiting people, the Marine's sort of stood in the corner and waited for you to come to them.

And that appealed to me.

And they sort of looked you up and down and were like, I don't know if you could be one of us, maybe.

- [Marine] Jack, do you understand?

- [Marines] Yes sir.

(upbeat music) - Quantico's not that much fun.

(Marine's shouting) - [Monty] But you get to sleep in each day, don't you?

- No, no, no, no, no, no.

(Monty laughs) You're up, you're doing something different every day.

Obstacle courses, endurance courses, hikes with a pack, shooting rifles, machine guns.

(guns firing) - [Marine] Go.

- Think of a big mud pits where you have to hold your rifle up and wade through the mud and there's obstacle courses and stuff, that's Quantico, that's a lot of what you do.

- [Monty] Was it still 10% women?

- Maybe 20 women?

- [Monty] Total women?

- [Amy] Mm-hmm.

- [Monty] Out of how many?

- [Amy] 120 or something.

- [Monty] Okay.

And then the course is a month?

- [Amy] Mm-hmm.

- [Monty] Does everyone get through it of the 120 people who were there?

- No, the Marines don't always pick everybody, based on your performance, they may not want you, and that happens a lot.

And then once you graduate from Annapolis, it's not good enough to have just graduated from Annapolis, you have to go back to Quantico for another six months.

- [Monty And that's called TBS or- - [Amy] That's called The Basic School or TBS.

And in this process, you do all kinds of activities where you're out in the field, which basically means you're out in the woods for days on end, and you're doing simulated defensive maneuvers or offensive maneuvers or simulated wars.

But you also have to lead others.

Can you get this platoon?

Can you get this squad to the right hill at the right time to attack the enemy in conditions where you may not have had a whole lot of sleep, you may not have had a whole lot of food.

There's ticks, there's snakes.

Sweat is just rolling down and you're disgusting and you smell, you're sore, but man, you just press through, press through it.

And then you did something that most people on earth would never dream about.

(Marine shouts) - Move it.

- [Marine] Move it.

- So much of leadership in those tough, tough moments is morale, keep your people, keep their spirits up.

If you can keep their spirits up, you can press through a little bit more.

When you're in a squad, what they do is they rotate who the squad leader is.

Typically the squad leader does not carry the heavy machine gun, the squad automatic weapon, because the squad leader's running around trying to lead.

So you give that to somebody who doesn't have those responsibilities.

You give it to the person who was assigned as the foot soldier kind of thing.

And this guy had gotten it and he was complaining, and I - [Monty What was he saying?

- He was just like, "I gotta carry this thing again?"

"I just carried it last time, I just carried it yesterday."

And we're all just like, "Whatever dude."

We're all dealing with this.

And so he just kept going on and on and on.

And I basically got tired of it, and I said, "Come here."

In front of everybody, "Give me your weapon."

And he was like, "Okay."

And I gave him mine, which is a heck of a lot lighter because I was the squad leader.

And then he fought me on it, he said, "No, no, no, that's okay."

And I said, "No, no, no, I'm tired of this, give me your weapon, I'll carry the heavy.

- [Monty] Give me the heavy one.

- Give me the heavy one, yeah.

"I'll carry the heavy one, I'm the squad leader, I'm the one running twice as much as you guys, but I'm gonna carry the heavy one because you need to shut the F up."

- [Monty] Yeah.

- And everybody at that point was like, wow, McGrath, isn't going to take any from anyone.

There was a similar story, where you carry this radio, it's an old Vietnam era radio that they make you carry.

- [Monty] Pointless.

- Pointlessly, yes.

They want you to work as a team so that one person doesn't carry it for 20 miles.

- This is a 25 pound radio?

- Right.

- It's heavy.

- You move it from person to person every few miles.

And so when we got to about miles 18 or so, there's only a couple miles left, we took a break and that radio just sat there, no one was picking it up.

And I was just like, let's just do this thing, let's get this done, we're all just sitting here, we only got two miles left, just get this damn thing done.

So I picked up the radio, put in my pack and just started walking and people are like, "All right, let's go, McGrath's got it."

(bright music) Marine Corps historically has separated men and women, and in my training, I never was separated from men.

I am a huge proponent of not separating training between men and women, I think it should be integrated.

And that's just based on my experience.

- [Monty] And why?

- Because no matter what you do, if you are separated, the men will always think you did something less.

They have to see you carry that radio.

If you don't do it side by side and you're separated into different companies and different platoons and there's the women's platoon, the men will never ever think that you did the same as what they did because they're hurting.

They're like, there's no woman that's gonna do this.

They're just gonna inherently think that you did something less.

- Was part of you picking up that radio for women?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

Because you have a platoon of 25 Marines, two of them are women.

And you want the other 23 Marines who are men to see you pick up that radio because they will go on into their careers and they will always remember, okay, women can do it, that's why it's so important.

And it wasn't just about showing them, it was also showing me that I could do it, that I belong.

Captain Coward was the person I wanted to be, he was my idol, and still is.

He flew attack jets in Vietnam and was a carrier air group commander, a air wing commander, which is just sort of the pinnacle of being a naval aviator.

And at one point I was a freshman at the Naval Academy and I said to him, "What do you think about opening these jobs to women?"

Thinking that he would be my champion, 'cause he recruited me to come to the academy, and he said to me, "I think it's crazy.

I think it's the most lunatic thing I have ever heard putting women on ships and women in aircraft like this."

And I was just stunned because he was my idol, he was like a second dad to me.

And I'm sitting back in this sort of the stunned state, and he puts his drink down and he says, "But you know what, if we're gonna do it, we gotta do it right, and that's why I recruited you."

- Wow.

It seems when you asked the question of what was almost a soft fall, like you expect him to go, I think it's great, isn't it wonderful, and it's about time, but instead it gives you this answer that shocks you.

But yet the answer that shocks you is also what ends up being a huge compliment, which is, that's why he recruited you.

- It was a huge compliment and it was hugely patriotic.

It was him saying, look, I might personally think that this is not the right decision, but my job is to protect this country.

And my job is to make this succeed in the United States Navy.

And I am gonna do everything in my power to make it succeed because if it doesn't, it's gonna hurt our national security.

- [Monty] And how did it feel to have?

- And I loved that about that, man, he was amazing, he was a great American.

For him to say that I felt like, okay, this is the reason why I've had this drive for so long.

This is the reason why I'm a little different.

Okay.

And now I know the reason and I'm gonna do it.

(plane engine whizzing) (bright upbeat music) - [Monty] As I take off from Kentucky, I'm filled with gratitude for the opportunity to get to know and understand Amy and her amazing story.

Her long and uncertain journey and perseverance when it wasn't even yet legal for women to fly a fighter jet in combat.

The women and men of our armed services let nothing stand in their way.

They're born with intense desire, but their skills are forged in dense forests, angry seas, and stormy skies.

And now I set a course for North Carolina's Kinston Regional Jetport, the headquarters of a company called Draken, which helps train our nation's fighter pilots.

Draken has granted me a once in a lifetime opportunity to better understand the life of a fighter pilot by flying in an A4 fighter jet in simulated aerial combat.

I'm super excited and a bit nervous.

I hear that this is not for the faint of heart.

- Draken is a private company and we're basically a civilian Air Force contracted by the Department of Defense to provide training for the military, whether that's Air Force, Marines, Navy, or anyone else.

So Draken fighter pilots are hired to provide adversary training for American fighter pilots.

- You know Rocky, you know when Mick, his trainers holding up those things, and going- - [Johnathan] Yeah, that's exactly- - So Draken is the guy holding up those thing.

- Yeah, the guy holding the pads, getting beat up.

We like it when we lose.

- That means you've trained them well.

- Yeah, that's right.

So I'm the bad guy with Draken, but I'm also still an Air Force reservist, flying- - So you're the good guy with the Air Force?

- So yeah, I'm the bad guy four days a week.

I'm the good guy one day a week.

I shave my beard, that's my secret bad guy identity, get rid of the beard, and I go show up in an Air Force uniform and I train the very students that I fight.

- [Monty] Wow.

- Which is really fun.

- Is there anyone besides you doing that?

- No, I'm the only one, I'm the only one doing that.

So it's a really, really unique- - [Monty] What a cool thing, you're living the dream.

- Oh, there's no, yeah, there's nothing better.

- [Monty] Would it be fair to say you love your job?

- Yeah both, I love both.

I mean, I get to go work with a great group of people, Draken, flying the A4, just really fun jet to fly, but then I still get to go up and fly my dream airplane with my best friends that I've been flying the jet with for years now.

- So tell me about this A4, that I guess I'm gonna fly tomorrow.

- Yeah, you're gonna go fly tomorrow, it's a really, really cool jet, it's old school, so we're going back a couple generations in time.

(plane engine roaring) It's designed as an attacker airplane for the Navy and Marines, something that could fit very well in an aircraft carrier and then did very well in Vietnam, which is primarily where it was used by American forces.

(plane engines roaring) (explosion detonates) Probably one of the more famous pilots to fly with John McCain, who is shot down in an A4 over Hanoi.

We dog fight with it all the time.

And we'll dog fight the F15 with it, we'll dog fight F22s with it, it does very well actually.

(plane engine roaring) - So when Draken's playing the bad guy in the A4, you've got the Air Force pilots playing the good guy in the A15s, but the A4 usually are probably much more experienced pilots, aren't they?

- [Johnathan] That's right, that's exactly right.

- [Monty] You got the A-team there.

- Yeah, that's right.

- [Monty] And then you got the more new guys in the F15s.

- Yeah, it's a little bit easier to beat up on the new guys for sure.

But we give the instructors to run for their money as well.

The A4 just turns really, really nicely.

- So how'd you come to be at Draken?

- By fighting them here, actually.

So we were stationed overseas in England for four years.

We moved here to become an instructor pilot and we refer to it as the FTU, but it's basically our training schoolhouse for F15 air crew.

And so I went through the instructor course became an instructor pilot.

And then as part of that started fighting Draken, and they weren't here when I was here before that assignment.

So I'm like, "What's Draken doing here?

"What are these A4s flying around that I'm going to fight?"

And so I asked to come down and do a tour, 'cause I love airplane and just wanted to see him.

So I went down there and I just was really amazed by the whole operation and how hard the maintenance guys work to keep those airplanes flying, how much fun the pilots were having as they're flying this really cool little jet.

And I just asked the question, I was like, "Who are you guys?"

"How do you get hired here?"

"Where did you come from?"

(light playful music) They have beards, they were in tan flight suits, they were former fighter pilots, it was just so different than what I was used to in the military.

- [Monty] Little more relaxed?

- Way more, not a little, way more relaxed.

(Monty laughs) Way more relaxed.

- It was on Thanksgiving actually, five years ago, somebody called me and said, "Hey, there's this company called Draken, they fly fighters, send in your resume."

So I sent the resume, and five minutes later, I had a phone call.

(Ernesto laughs) - Oh my gosh.

- On Thanksgiving.

- Oh, that's amazing.

- And this guy Stretch was on there and he's like, "Hey, I looked at your resume, and I think you'd be perfect."

"You need to move out to Nellis and come fly for us."

And I was like, okay, this is- - That was the extent of the interview?

- Yeah.

Then they were like, "Well, we're gonna fly you out here to interview you."

Which was pretty much, they sat me down, they're like, "When can you start?"

(Ernesto and Monty laugh) And I was like, "Whoa, "I don't even know if we're gonna move here."

But we jumped in our RV and we moved.

- [Monty] And what's your title?

What are you called for Draken?

- So I'm the program manager, so I'm in charge of this particular contract at Seymour, make sure that the day to day flight operations, hiring the pilots, making sure they get the proper training.

- [Monty] Is it a pretty nice community.

- The community's great, it's a fusion of Navy, Marine Corp, Air Force pilots.

It's very Air Force centric, but now we also have civilians in the maintenance side in particular.

So it's a hybrid, a lot of the guys I fly with, they went to service academies, so Air Force Academy or Annapolis.

Or went to a normal university, and then you start at 21, 22 years old, now you're in flight school or whatever.

So I wasn't there until I was like 27, 28.

(light music) I grew up in East LA, it was definitely a rough neighborhood, and I dropped outta high school.

Tons of gangs, well, a lot of my friends were in gangs.

I didn't fully run with the gangs, but I had friends that were in it, so my friends saw I could go either way.

I had a friend who kind of saw my life was going in the wrong direction, and he was the positive influence in my life, so always kind of pushed me.

So he put the marines in my head, and he's like, "Hey, could join the Marines, get the GI bill, go to college."

And it made sense to me.

He's like, "If you wanna", 'cause I used to go to the El Toro air shows, he's like, "If you ever wanna be a pilot or ever dream of being a pilot, you'll have to do something, and you have to go to college to become an officer."

But I was like, "Man, that road to get there, I don't know how you know."

But step one was, well, join the Marines at least.

- And when you first joined the Marines, what did you think about the Marines?

Were you excited?

Were you nervous?

- Nervous.

I knew that the marines was supposed to be tough, I didn't know that I had the fortitude to make it through it.

You jump on a bus, you get out there's these yellow footprints, which you'll never forget.

And you're told to get on the yellow footprints, they're covered and lined.

People are yelling immediately of course, it's chaos.

They keep you up all night that night, the first night, just to add to the, 'cause when you're tired, you're not thinking straight.

- They want you nervous.

- They want you nervous.

They have their method and it works well, it's about breaking you down as they say.

I mean, if you think about it, the Marine Corps, really what you learn is teamwork, you get guys from all over the country, I've never met somebody from Alabama, Florida, Texas, so you're get out of your microcosm and you're meeting all these people from around the country and you're put into this terrible situation together and you learn how to work as a team and accomplish the mission as they say, it's a cliche, but it means something.

- [Monty] How long were you in San Diego for?

- About eight months.

And then you're in the regular Marine Corps, stayed in San Diego, got stationed there, joined a unit.

During that time I had moved over to being an air traffic controller, 'cause the only way that I could think to work in aviation was to fashion my life that way.

So I went and took a test, I got to convert to be air traffic controller.

But I was like, oh no, I wanna be the guy in the cockpit.

- Okay, after all this in Annapolis and all this training and hiking 20 miles, now you go to a school for a year and a half to learn to fly at all.

- Right, and you get your wings.

- [Monty] And you get your wings, now I made pilot.

- Right.

- But you're not anything like an F18 pilot yet?

- [Amy] Right, you have never flown an F18- - You don't know.

- You're not a fighter pilot.

- [Monty] Have you ever touched one?

- You're not even in fighter jets.

You'd have to go through a year of being a fleet replacement squadron student.

But I had bad vision, so I started out as a back-seater, there were those people that said, "You're you're never gonna be a pilot."

And I was like, "Okay, well, we'll see."

I figured, I'd gotten this far, so why not hope.

- [Monty] That's awesome.

-That we can do this.

And being a back-seater was no joke.

The back-seater does a lot of the targeting, navigation targeting, stuff like that.

- [Monty] And then you ship from Florida to San Diego?

- [Amy] San Diego.

(bright upbeat music) - [Monty] Exciting?

- Oh yeah, San Diego is like Fightertown, USA, Miramar Marine Corp Air Station, that's where "Top Gun" was filmed, that then became a Marine Corp air station.

And you see these lines of F18, so you're like, "I'm in."

(Monty laughs) Best place to be stationed on earth, really.

But you still have a year of training.

I had just finished- - [Monty] A year of training before you can fly one?

- [Amy] Before you can get into an operational squadron.

There's no difference- - Operational means you're ready to go?

If need be- - Operational means if Uncle Sam goes to war tomorrow, you're going to war.

And I was a back-seater too, so I wasn't the one actually flying at this point.

I was the one doing all the weapons and the radar and all that stuff.

- [Monty] And navigation too?

- Navigation, all that communications, all that stuff.

- And during that one year, when's the first time you actually get to go up in an F18?

- Right away, within a month, It's just like flight school, where you do a couple ground school stuff and then you do simulators.

- And by the end of the year, what are you called then?

Like you graduate and what do you get?

- Well, you go from being somebody in the training squadron to somebody in the operational squadron.

(somber music) The dream that I had when I was a kid, fly fighter jets, sometimes when you're a kid, you don't think about what that really means.

You like the coolness factor.

I mean, we hadn't had a war for a long time and along the way you do reconcile with, okay, what is this all about?

- These things carry bombs.

- You have to, you have to.

But those of us prior to 911 never really thought we would be doing it.

(plane engine roaring) (explosion detonates) I had gotten out of the training squadron probably like two months or three months prior to nine 911.

- [Monty] Oh, so you were a newbie?

- Brand new.

And we got the call to come right away.

And I lived close to the base.

(intense music) The more senior guys who had families and were married, they lived further away.

So I got on the base, I drove my little Jeep, and I had my flight suit on and I'm on the base.

And literally like after I got on the base, there was confusion and they shut the gates down.

They shut the base down, they shut the gates to get on and off air station Miramar down.

And I did not know this, but my squadron was part of the defense of this country.

And they had loaded up air to air missiles onto F18s to protect the West Coast.

So my operations officer looked around the ready room, he had to man these jets, there was like four of us there.

He was like, "Where is everybody?"

"Well, sir, they shut the base down."

"What?"

While they're trying to figure out how to open the base back up so they can get the pilots on, the more senior guys, they gotta man these jets right now.

So I remember him looking at me like, "McGrath, get suited up, you're going."

And I was like- - Were you nervous as- - Oh heck yeah.

But I was like, "Oh my God, all right, let's do it."

So I got my G-suit on, got my harness on.

They took us out in a pick up truck to the other side of base where the jets were loaded up, and hopped in the jet, got it all ready to go.

(plane engine roaring) We knew what our mission was, our mission would've been to shoot down an airliner, or escort an airliner who wasn't listening.

- [Monty Yeah.

(plane engine roaring) - It was very serious.

This is a very confusing day.

And I just never forget hours later, they came and they relieved us and I hopped out of the aircraft and somebody else hopped in and took over the duty.

- [Monty] Wow.

- Right after that, we deployed almost immediately, went to the Middle East, we couldn't get into Afghanistan because there were no runways available at that time.

So we ended up negotiating an old bomber base runway called Manas in Kyrgyzstan.

The diplomats got us in there.

We literally landed our jets into Kyrgyzstan and pitched our tents after we landed.

- [Monty] Did you pitch the tents?

- I was helping, everybody was helping, everybody was part of it.

Everybody was a part of moving things and building things and that's what the Marine Corps is.

- [Monty] Where'd you go to combat.

- [Ernesto] Afghanistan.

- And what were you doing there?

- I was forward air controller calling in air strikes and medivacs- - [Monty] So you were on the ground there?

- [Ernesto] Yeah.

- [Monty] And why were you on the ground, not in the air?

- [Ernesto] 'Cause the Marine Corps in this particular organization I was with, they need our coalition forces to have air support.

And so we were the liaison to that, so I helped the British, the Republic of Georgia, Estonians, the Danes and other Marines.

Again, it's about having air support, so whether it was cargo drops, dropping bombs in close proximity to troops, and mostly and a lot of medivacs, unfortunately.

Fortunately and unfortunately, 'cause you're helping guys get off the battlefield.

(helicopter rattles) - [Monty] Did you see a lot of injuries?

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That part was tough, but I felt like my role in that was vital because the sooner you can get somebody off of the battlefield into a hospital, the more likely they were to survive and go home to their families, so that was the biggest, I guess, tragedy and reward, kind of both.

And the good thing is we did help Afghan civilians too, because they were a lot of times right in harm's way, didn't matter if it was an enemy soldier or someone we were fighting against or a civilian, we would- - You'd work to get them off the battlefield.

- Correct.

- What was it like seeing people injured, and people dying for the cause of the United States?

- It's terrible.

I don't think anybody should obviously have to experience that.

- [Monty] Traumatic?

- Very traumatic.

(intense music) - [Amy] We were there for the ground component.

So basically you're overhead if something happens, if there's a fire fight or sometimes they need you.

- So you're up in the air ready to go?

- Yep.

- Waiting for instructions?

- Yep, it's called close air support.

And you were dropping bombs- - [Monty] And you were dropping bombs all day, every day.

- [Amy] All day, yep.

Every mission that we went on, we never came back with bombs on board, meaning we- - [Monty] You dropped everything.

- [Amy] Yep.

When you're over there you try not to think about it too much because you gotta do your job the next day.

But one of the first 2000 pound bombs I dropped, I remember coming back from that mission and the intelligence marines would put together the footage of what the satellite picture looked like of the target before and now what does it look like.

And I remember the intelligence Marine coming up to me saying, "You got this target, you destroyed that target, and here's the footage, here's why."

And he put the two side by side.

And I said, "I didn't do that."

And he's like, "Yeah, ma'am, this is the target, it's gone, the building is gone."

The building the size of a big high school maybe, it was that big.

- Oh wow.

- And I remember saying to him, "This must not be the same target."

And he says, "No, ma'am, it is the same target."

"Look, here's the road that comes in here."

"Here's the road that comes in here."

So he's basically talking me through convincing me that it's the same target because the one that we had blown up was basically a hole in the ground now, there was nothing, nothing there.

And I think that it was at that point where I first realized, oh my God, these bombs, they're just so destructive, so destructive, I kind of knew it prior, but to actually see it, something that you had just dropped like three hours prior, that was just eye opening for me.

20, 30, 40, I don't know how many people I killed just with that one bomb.

There are other bombs where you can see them, you can see people crawling.

- You can see it?

- You can see them.

- How?

- 'Cause you see the- - [Monty] From your equipment?

- Yeah, you see the infrared image.

You can see it, you can see the- - [Monty] Aftermath?

- Mm-hmm.

You start to think who was there, who was in that building?

We destroyed barracks in the middle of the night, Iraqi Republican Guard, was it a guy just trying to make a living, it's hard, you just think about the human toll of that, whether they're your enemy or not, they're still human.

And for me, that was just something I tried not to think about too much, but then when you come home you think about it a lot.

We went to Top Gun, which at that point was in Fallon, Nevada, it's the Navy's weapon school.

And my squadron had probably sent maybe six of us up to that course.

And we had just come back a month or so prior from Iraq.

And so the instructors at Top Gun were trying to celebrate us, they were trying to say, good job, that a boy, it's great to heavy in the audience, and this is what good things you guys are doing out there.

And so they started to play the footage of our bombs.

They started playing it, they turned the lights down, they put music behind it, heavy metal music.

And it made me sick.

- Were people cheering and yes?

- Yes, everybody was except for us.

One of my squadron mates, a guy, got up and went out, then the next guy next to him got up and went out of the auditorium, and then we all found ourselves outside.

It was dark, so people couldn't see us, it was like a movie theater, so we all left.

And we get out there, and one of my squadron members said to all of us, he's like, "I just don't wanna see that crap."

He was feeling exactly how I was feeling.

This is not entertainment, man.

You don't put music behind this.

This is our job, we did our job, we'd do it again, but it's not entertainment, (somber music) it may have been cool a year ago, that may have been something rah-rah cool, but we killed people, and this is for real.

And let's not do this, let's not glorify this stuff because there's a lot of that goes on when you come home and you start thinking about what it is you did.

I went to a wedding that was in the family.

I'm surrounded by all of the people that love me, who I love the most in the world, my family and everybody's celebrating, and I- - [Monty] You're not feeling it?

- I mean, I just came from killing people, and here I was coming back and everybody's celebrating and everybody's calling me a hero and everybody's, "Thank you for your service."

And I just couldn't do it, couldn't get through it.

- [Monty] Hard to celebrate.

- Just nope, get me outta here.

- And then what's even worse, and this is where the moral injury comes in, I think, is that I would've done my job again, I would've done it again, so what does that make me?

- [Monty] Yeah.

- Right.

How can you be a good person and have done the things that you've done.

(wind howls) - As the Draken team helps me get suited up for my flight.

I'm incredibly excited, even a bit nervous, but I'm also feeling overwhelmed with respect and admiration for the men and women who do this in war time, (somber music) when the stakes are not just excitement, but life and death.

When the liberty of nations is at risk, when each flight may be their last.

During the thousand hours I've flown my own airplane, I've never once had to take real risk, let alone face an enemy, deploy weapons, or face the high price and deep emotional consequences of war.

Too often, I think we take the service and sacrifice of our armed forces for granted, but after spending many precious hours with these brave aviators, I have a new and much greater appreciation for their immense dedication and sacrifice.

- There we go.

- [Ernesto] Honorary naval aviator, since you've been flying to an A4.

- Ah, that's sweet.

- So we gotta.

(upbeat music) There you go.

- What's it say?

- [Pilot Attendant] Nice.

- [Ernesto] M-O-N-T-Y.

- Oh, really?

(laughs loudly) Cool.

(plane engine roaring) Holy smoke.

- [Ernesto] Right?

- I got a whole new respect for what you guys do.

I had a lot of respect for what you did already.

I got a whole new respect.

Why am I tired?

- That was a straight up workout that you just did, I mean- - You went 500 miles an hour today, we did 5G, so take whatever your body weight is, multiply that by five, your helmet weighs five times as much as it normally would just sitting here on the table.

So all of these things are working together to tire you out both physically and then mentally you're so engaged with what's going on.

- I had no idea it was gonna be tiring.

- It's a sport, it's a physical sport.

- You just took off, you did inner refueling to get to your mission and then you have to make it back to the ship at night.

- The complexity part I can imagine, but doing a bunch of loops and then fighting stuff and all that, and then bringing it back to a carrier, that would be hardcore.

- And good night.

(laughs loudly) - I did everything that I could possibly do as a back-seater already.

And so when there was an opportunity that opened up when the Uncle Sam fixed my eyes to apply to become a front seater, I jumped at that 'cause it was all I ever wanted to do.

But you have to go back to flight school again, it's a year in props, and then a year in jets.

- [Monty] The first time you climbed in the front seat as a qualified pilot of that aircraft, what was that like?

- Amazing, just because it was everything I ever wanted and you're strapping on a 70 million aircraft to your back and you're the one strapping it on your back and going.

And without you, it's not gonna go, and that- - So it was a different feeling?

- It is a little bit different feeling because as a back-seater, you're not the one with the throttle, you're not the one making it go down the runway and taking off with the afterburners.

You're the one running the systems and then that's very important once you get up into the air.

But to be the one that was actually the pilot and making it go was pretty cool.

(light gentle music) (plane engine roaring) - Amy completed flight school and fulfilled her dream.

At last, she was an F18 pilot, the first woman to fly an F18 fighter jet in combat for the Marine Corps.

(explosion detonates) Overall, she flew 89 combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in total flew 2000 flight hours.

(plane engine roaring) But her goals began to changed when she met a pilot named Eric.

After years of a long distance romance, including several deployments where they were countries apart, they were finally married.

They wanted to start a family and had their first child, but how was this gonna fit with the high speed lifestyle of a fighter pilot?

Amy and Eric were going to face some tough decisions.

- The general pulls me into his office, two star general.

And he's like, "Your career progression is that we need you to go back to the cockpit, we need you to go be an XO.

"If you're gonna be promoted to colonel and general, you gotta be a commander somewhere."

The lifestyle of a fighter pilot is amazing, it's a bit surreal, you're gone a lot, but you're doing amazing stuff, but you're gone, you're gone.

And so I had this decision to make, I do love flying, but I remember saying to the general pretty quickly, "Sir, I wanna have another kid."

And he basically said, "You know what you're doing to your career if you choose not to do this, and you choose not to go back operationally, and you choose not to be an XO, your career's gonna be over, basically.

"You will not get promoted."

And I said, "Yeah, I know, but I wanna have another kid."

And he said, "Okay."

(bright music) I knew it was the end of my flying career, but I also knew that I set out to become a fighter pilot, I never set out to become a general, I never set out to become a commanding officer, I set out to be a fighter pilot and fly in combat, and I did that, and I flew in combat, I had done what I set out to do.

And what was most important in my life at that point was that I wanted to focus on my kids.

(upbeat motivational music) - [Monty] What has it meant to you to serve your country?

- It's been enlightening and it brought me closer to anybody I meet.

If you take the leadership and the politics out of it, people are people, if you get into a room with them, you learn their cultural nuances, you have tea with them, or in Northern Korea, that if you pour somebody a drink, you cover your arm like this.

I mean, there's like these cultural nuances and things.

And so it fun to represent your country when you are in these areas, it's why the Olympics is special for that reason.

Even when you met the enemy in the battlefield, if you got to sit down with them, they had kids, same age, or they had these circumstance were like, hey, that's just like East LA, you know?

- [Monty] Yeah, yeah.

- We could connect in these interesting ways, or they were like, "Oh my gosh, so that was just Hollywood, this is not really like this in the United States?"

And it's funny to kind of talk about that, 'cause what do we project?

- What we have in America to me is so important that I am willing to die for our country, and very specifically for our way of life, for the peace that we enjoy, for the freedoms that we enjoy, I'm a husband, I'm a father to two young boys, so I want to be safe in the jet, but at the same time, that quality of life that we enjoy here in America is so important to me that I'm willing to lay down my life for that cause.

And knowing that my boys won't have a dad growing up, that's something I take very, very seriously, and the nation expects that of its fighter pilots and of soldiers in the military.

- Do you think that's common to other people who are fighter pilots?

- No question about it.

- You know what?

People used to ask me about the really controversial topics like burning the flag or Colin Kaepernick kneeling, I used to say, you know what?

I just wanna love that America, man.

That's what that the greatest generation fought for, the right to be able to stand up and have that type of language and do those types of things.

I may disagree with it, but so what?

I'll go to war to fight for his right to do it.

- How proud are you of the fact that you were such a trailblazer for a lot of young women who might go, oh my God, I can do it.

- I'm very proud, but I am also very aware of all the women that came before me who wanted to do the same things that I did but didn't get the opportunity to do it.

And some who did get opportunity, but did it in other aircraft that our country allowed them to fly and they performed very, very well in those roles, which allowed people like me to do other roles.

And I look at them and I thank them for all that they did to open doors for me.

- Sharing time with these wonderful people has helped me better understand the depth of commitment that our servicemen and service women have for this nation and the foundational principles that make our country so unique and special.

I've seen incredible perseverance, dedication, integrity, and commitment.

I'm touched by Ernesto Howard's compassion, even for his enemies.

Humbled by John Dippold calm willingness to die for our way of life.

And inspired by Amy McGrath's commitment to protect the rights of individuals even when their actions and beliefs are contrary to her own.

I have immense gratitude for all those who fight to preserve freedom, liberty, and justice, so that the sacred way of life can endure for the benefit of future generations.

(upbeat music)