LANCASTER, California —  Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour, the first Black woman to fly in combat, draws on her experiences as a U.S. Marine, a police officer, and an entrepreneur to motivate and inspire others to take “gutsy” action to achieve their goals.

Armour spoke to students, staff and community members on March 20 as part of the 4th annual VRC Woman Veterans Lunch presented by Antelope Valley College’s Student Equity and the Veteran’s Resource Center.

Armour’s journey to becoming a combat pilot began by joining the Army Reserves and ROTC in college. She initially hadn’t even considered flying, until attending a career day event where she saw a Black woman in a flight suit.

“It blew me away,” she said. “I saw her — completely changed my life.”

Meeting that pilot made the possibility of becoming one herself tangible.

“Stand up to be counted, because you never know who’s counting on you,” she said.

Armour described a combat situation in Iraq in which she needed to eliminate an enemy position that was firing on a group of U.S. soldiers pinned down in a cemetery and who had run out of ammunition to respond.

With fuel running low, she found the target and waited to hear from the ground controller the call of “Clear Hot!” giving her permission to engage and fire her remaining missile.

That last missile took out the enemy, and Armour learned that all those troops made it back safely.

In life, there is no ground controller providing instructions, Armour said. Instead, you have to make the decision yourself to engage.

“How you engage in life is everything,” she said.

At every stage, Armour — like others — faced obstacles and challenges as she reached for her goals.

“The key is to acknowledge the obstacles; don’t give them power,” she said; instead give power to the solution.

As the only female pilot in a group of 365 Marines and 67 pilots, Armour said she did feel the tension in her position.

She recalled a day when that tension brought her to the point of tears, when she was “ready to take these wings off and throw them away.” She called her mother, who reminded her that she had not worked “this hard for this long to give up now.”

To be successful, you must keep focused on what’s at stake and what is your goal, not the obstacles and challenges on the way,” she said.

“If I focused on them, I would have drowned,” Armour said.

Whether in the military or in life, you must “navigate, flex and adapt, get back on course and finish the mission,” she said.