A group of Davis-Monthan pilots who made history overseas came home to Tucson without their high-profile leader Wednesday but were flush with praise for the first Air Force woman to lead a fighter squadron into a war zone.
Lt. Col. Martha McSally was absent in body but present in spirit as members of D-M's 354th Fighter Squadron returned from a four-month combat mission at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. She did not return with them as scheduled due to a refueling snag but is due back in a few days.
Serving under McSally in Afghanistan "was awesome," said Capt. Roger Maldonado, 31, an El Paso native who pilots one of the squadron's A-10 attack jets.
"She's a phenomenal leader and a phenomenal pilot," he said of his boss.
"Her leadership and enthusiasm, her support for her people and the mission, were absolutely world-class."
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McSally, 39, was named the squadron's commander in July 2004, not long after dropping a lawsuit against the Defense Department.
The suit claimed Air Force officials blocked her career advancement in retaliation for her 2001 challenge to a military rule that forced American servicewomen to wear Muslim garb while off base in Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon was ordered by Congress to end the practice after McSally brought it to public attention.
McSally is one of the service's first female fighter pilots. She became one in 1994, shortly after the Air Force opened the career field to women.
On Wednesday, six pilots returned and others are due back soon. There was no talk of her gender among those she led on flying missions overseas. Rather, they raved about her leadership qualities.
Maj. Jon Culp, an A-10 pilot who hails from Spokane, Wash., called the deployment with McSally a "fantastic experience."
"We did lots of historic stuff, most of which you'll never read about in a book," he said.
Besides flying combat support missions for U.S. ground troops, the 354th also patrolled the skies above Afghanistan during the country's first parliamentary election in September, he said.
McSally initially was slated to return with the pilots who landed at D-M on Wednesday.
But Culp said a fuel-tanker problem left them short of enough fuel for all the A-10s to make it back across the Atlantic. McSally insisted that she stay behind so the other pilots could continue on their way home to their families, he said.
"She chose to let the rest of us come home," Culp said.
"That alone tells you something about the kind of leader she is."
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