Retired Col. Christine Knighton pins aviator wings on 2nd Lt. Kayla Freeman at Freeman’s graduation from the Army Aviation school, June 21, 2018, at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Credit 1st Lt. Jermaine Thurston / U.S. Army
FORT RUCKER, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman has made history as the first black female pilot in the state National Guard’s history.
News outlets report that 2nd Lt. Kayla Freeman graduated from Fort Rucker’s Army Aviation School last month, following her 2016 graduation from Tuskegee University where she was enrolled in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
Freeman’s aviator wings were pinned by retired Col. Christine Knighton, the second black woman in the Department of Defense to earn aviator wings and the first from Georgia. Freeman says Knighton has been an inspiration since college and “it was only right” to have her do the pinning.
Freeman is currently at Fort Hood in Texas, where she is preparing to deploy to the Middle East as a platoon leader in the Alabama National Guard’s 1-169th Aviation Battalion.
