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“I’m a big advocate of lifelong learning. Whatever form it may take. Pick the one that best suits you, or best suits your goals, and go for it.” Photo: Carol Morrissette
The summer of 1965 will always be an unforgettable one for Deanna “Dee” Brasseur. Then 12, she remembers spending most of her summer vacation biking to the RCAF base near her family’s home in Centralia, Ontario, where she would crane her neck back and watch jets take off, one after another—sometimes for hours at a stretch. For the self-described “army brat”, whose father was an instructor at the base, those moments were life-altering. “I used to think 'Wow, boys are really lucky, '” says Brasseur, now 54. “'They get to do that; they get to do all the exciting things. '”
Little did she know that nearly 25 years later, in the summer of 1989, she would make history as one of the first two women in the world to earn their wings as a fighter pilot. But her path to that moment would not be easy. Brasseur would have to endure discrimination, harassment and heartache—not to mention one of the most gruelling training programs in the world—before she was qualified to fly the most powerful fighter plane in the Canadian Armed Forces: the CF-18 Hornet.
Luckily Major Brasseur, a member of the Order of Canada who now works at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, says she was well-equipped to deal with adversity. She credits her own dedication and her willingness to embrace any learning opportunity for helping her achieve her dream. “I’m a big advocate of lifelong learning,” she says. “Whatever form it may take. Pick the one that best suits you, or best suits your goals, and go for it.” For Brasseur, this meant everything from on-the-job training to informal learning and mentoring.
Brasseur was just 19 when she left university after a year to join the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, in 1972 the only jobs available to women within the Canadian Forces were nurses, medical assistants, clerks and supply technicians. Her first post as an administration clerk, saw her take a job as a typist in a dental office at CFB Winnipeg. Then, in 1973 the military opened the gender door a bit, offering more positions for women (all in a non-combat capacity). Seizing the opportunity, Brasseur applied for and was accepted into the Officer Candidate Training Program and was assigned to a weapons controller position in North Bay, Ontario.
Prevented from signing up for flight lessons because she was a woman, Brasseur enrolled in high-altitude training—a requirement for Air Force pilots—on the off chance that her superiors would one day change their minds. In the mid-1970s, she heard about another would-be female military pilot, Canadian Nora Bottomley, who had signed up for private flying lessons.
“I thought ‘If Nora can do that, I can do that,’” she recalls. She immediately enrolled in lessons in North Bay while serving an exchange tour with the U.S. Air Force in Duluth, Minnesota. Then in 1979, the military did a surprising about face and introduced a pilot project known as “SWINTER”— or Service Women in Non-Traditional Environments and Roles. With the program opening the door, Brasseur, Bottomley and Leah Mosher were the first Canadian women in line for basic flight training at CFB Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.
The pilot training program, which was attended by 37 male students, is widely regarded as one of the most mentally and physically demanding in the Canadian Forces. Brasseur readily admits that the aerodynamics course alone nearly overwhelmed her, thanks largely to the fact she had never taken a physics course before. Fortunately, one of the younger instructors was particularly good at physics. Despite the hostility she says she faced from many of the male classmates (and other instructors) she finally screwed up her courage and asked him to tutor her. He agreed, and she eventually passed the daunting course. “Aerodymanics was the biggest challenge of my whole training," she says. "What helped was the resolve to ask for help and [my] good mechanical aptitude.”
As hard as the training may have been, Brasseur also had to deal with a hostile environment. Being the first women in the course, she and her female colleagues became targets of the frustration from the men around them. Many of the men made it clear that they disapproved of them and felt threatened by their presence. “People don't talk to you. They don't offer learning advice or help,” Brasseur says now. “You’re the butt of jokes—sexist jokes.”
When things got especially bad, friends and mentors were there to help. An instructor, Captain Dave McCabe, and his wife Marcia, regularly opened their family’s home to the female students whenever one of them was having a tough day, offering advice over a barbecue and a beer. Unfortunately, things got worse before they got better.
Another male instructor pursued Brasseur for months, inviting himself over for coffee, repeatedly asking her out on dates and making inappropriate comments—all now violations of the military’s code of conduct. Aware that the man held the power to quash her dream, Brasseur said she finally gave in to his advances one night. Afterward, Brasseur knew that if she spoke up it would not only destroy her career, but would impede the future military careers of other women as well. She decided not to report the incident. “You felt that the whole world was against you, so who's going to believe it?” She didn’t talk about it again for nearly two decades.
Brasseur graduated from pilot training in 1981, as one of the first three women in the Canadian military to earn her wings. What followed was a series of firsts; Brasseur became Canada’s first female military flight instructor, the first female Flight Commander (in Cold Lake, Alberta) and the only Air Force representative assigned to a 1986 Department of National Defence Task Force on Equal Rights.
In 1988, her childhood dreams started to become reality when she was offered an opportunity to participate in fighter training on the twin-engine CF-18. At first, Brasseur didn’t think she could do it. She worried that if she failed she would be providing ammunition to those who claimed women were ill-suited to be fighter pilots. (The leader of the Christian Heritage Party, Ed Vanwoudenberg, told the Canadian Press in 1989, “One sees the role of woman as giving and nurturing life…it's a woman's entire fulfillment. Physically the G-force is not conducive to a woman who would like to bear a child.”)
In the end, along with fellow officer Captain Jane Foster, Brasseur enrolled in the training, fully aware of the pressures weighing on her.
Based at Cold Lake, the intensive program packed the equivalent of a four-year university program into 12 months, requiring trainees to work and study for up to 18 hours a day in order to understand the state-of-the-art CF-18 Hornet. On June 9, 1989, Foster and Brasseur stood together and celebrated their landmark graduation from the program. For Brasseur, she had not only achieved a dream, she had also surpassed her own expectations.
It wasn’t until later, when she took her first solo cross-country flight, that the reality of what she had achieved sunk in. “At 43,000 feet I am a little bit closer to God,” she says. She eventually logged 2,500 hours in the air, flying on peace-time missions in Canada and Europe and becoming Canada's first female aircraft accident investigator, before retiring in 1994 to become a motivational speaker and personal performance coach. Along the way, Brasseur was pleased to pass on advice and life lessons to others—both men and women—who sought her out as a mentor. Her core advice remains the same: “You focus on your objective. When your resolve starts to break down, you talk to your friends.”
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Brasseur rejoined the Canadian Forces Reserves and now works part-time in the Directorate of Air Strategic Planning where she helps to map out the future of the Air Force. She also shares her life experiences through a company called Unlimited Horizons. Many of her speaking engagements find her talking to high-school students, where she encourages them to follow their passions and take full advantage of every possible opportunity to learn. “That's what lifelong learning allows you to do,” she says. “Fulfil your potential in life.”