When Maynardville, Tennessee began appearing in national news for a truly special and historic military event, the town was buzzing with robust discussion. This monumental event was the first all-female piloted fly-over in honor of the first female naval pilot to fly a combat mission, Captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner. Little did many of us know, we had been living with a legend in our midst.

Mariner grew up in California, where her father served the US Army Air Corps and was killed in a crash when she was three years old. Mariner maintained a keen interest in aviation and by age 19 held a pilot’s license and a degree in aviation technology from Purdue University. Mariner began shattering gender barriers in the U.S. Navy as she graduated among the first flight-training class of all female naval pilots (Mariner was one of six female pilots). After earning her wings, Mariner was the first woman to command a naval aviation squadron (during Operation Desert Storm). During her naval service, Captain Mariner logged 17 landings on naval aircraft carriers and more than 3,500 flight hours in 15 different aircraft. She became known as a pioneer leading the way for women in military and aviation.

Captain Mariner held the Presidential title for Women Military Aviators Organization and she successfully fought in Congress to lift the ban on females serving in combat. She held the concept that all service men and women should be treated the same. Her feelings were we are simply people getting the job done and not men getting it done or women getting it done, just people. She published “A Soldier is a Soldier” in the Joint Force Quarterly Winter 93-94 outlining her thoughts and concepts for equal risk and equal assignments movement. Her final military assignment was as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Professor of Military Studies at the National War College.

After retiring from the Navy, she was a resident scholar at the University of Tennessee Knoxville lecturing in the Department of History. She resided in Norris, Tennessee (Anderson County) with her husband, Retired Navy Commander, Tommy Mariner and daughter Emmalee. According to NY Daily News, Mariner’s husband claimed she never thought of herself as a trailblazer but was proud that she helped create opportunities for women in the armed services.

Captain Mariner fought ovarian cancer until the battle ended on January 24th, 2019. On Saturday, February 2nd, 2019, at approximately 3:15p.m., four female naval pilots performed an air formation called Missing Man Flyover, a maneuver flown by four airplanes with one plane ascending steeply as it flies over the event. This historical tribute was conducted to honor Captain Mariner and her dedication to serving the United States as a female naval aviator during her memorial service at New Loyston Cemetery in Maynardville, Tennessee. Skies were blue, the warm sun shone bright in the sky, and the roar of the jet engines jarred the ground beneath your feet to recognize Captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner's trailblazing mark on the world. It was a spectacular and momentous occasion to remember a legendary life and the pioneer among us.