Talk:Vernice Armour

Discussion at Talk:List of African-American firsts
Interested editors, please go the below link where discussion will be centered, to avoid having scattered across two sites.

Here is a cc encapsulating the issue being discussed there.

Contradiction needs resolved re: 1st Af-Am female pilot
There is contradictory reportage from two sources making competing claims. Since this involves not just this article but also the article Vernice Armour, which makes a major point of this claim, I've removed this entry from this article until the competing claims can be sorted out on this talk page and any related pages can be adjusted. I'll put a note at Talk:Vernice Armour as well, suggesting that discussion be centered here.

The Wiki article Vernice Armour cites the Jet magazine article "Vernice Armour, 1st black female combat pilot, serves in Persian Gulf as family copes - National Report", April 14, 2003, by Nicole Walker. It says, "After flight school, Armour took an assignment at Camp Pendleton Naval Air Station near San Diego, CA, and honed her skills piloting the famed Super Cobra. In March 2002, she was recognized as the Department of Defense's lone African-American female combat pilot."

The editor changing the claim to that of Captain Christina Hopper (who has no Wikipedia article) cites the webzine Talking Proud!, which has much less of a publishing history than Jet and may not or may not use professional journalists, but is a niche publication specializing in the subject. The article "'Thumper' Hopper, F-16 fighter jock, Iraqi war vet, instructor pilot", non-bylined, published February 26, 2005, says, "Her squadron deployed in December 2002 to Al Jaber Air Base, Kuwait as part of the 332rd Air Expeditionary Wing supporting Operations Southern watch and Iraqi Freedom, making her the first Air Force African-American female fighter pilot to fight in a war."

I'm wondering whether Armour was the first female Af-Am combat pilot, and Hopper the first female Af-Am combat pilot deployed in a war zone?

Could fellow editors come in and help research/comment on this? --Tenebrae (talk) 15:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Without sources I will tell you how this should play out. I do not have the time to go digging at the moment.  I will guarantee you that there were black female pilots that flew over Iraq before Armour. They were most likely fighter pilots with the Air Force.  All that being said, I will guarantee that she was the first black female attack helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps and the first one flying Cobras in combat.  Hope this gets your nose pointed in the right direction.--Looper5920 (talk) 16:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Air Medal Depiction
The Air Medal, as depicted, is wrong. (1) the Strike/Flight numeral is missing (2) V device should be centered, with star to left, and numerals to right - see Anyone with the ability to produce a copy of it as it should look? Irish Melkite (talk) 03:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)