Pinay in USAF: Sky's the limit

WASHINGTON – For Filipina top gun Capt. Monessa Catuncan, flying is more than just a job, it’s an obsession sparked by the 1998 film “Armageddon” starring Bruce Willis.

“I think I want to be an astronaut,” her father Ramon recalled her saying after she saw “Armageddon” while a sophomore at the Mesquite High School.

“I told her it would require a lot of hard work to realize her ambition but she told me that would not deter her,” he said.

After graduating at the top of her high school class in Dallas County, Texas, Monessa enrolled at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and majored in aeronautical engineering.

She was commissioned as a USAF second lieutenant in 2004 and after training as an F-16 jet pilot was sent to Iraq with the 34th Fighter Squadron to support US ground troops in close air support missions.

Early this year she was promoted to captain and assigned at Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia describes the F-16 as the first fighter aircraft deliberately built to sustain 9-G turns. It has enough power to climb and accelerate vertically if needed.

Ramon Catuncan, originally from Pasay City, emigrated to the US in 1973 where he met his wife Teodosia Pineda of Olongapo, a registered nurse. They married in Texas in 1977 and have two daughters, Jennifer, 30, an optometrist, and Monessa, who turns 27 on Dec. 19.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think my youngest would become the first Pinay F-16 fighter pilot,” Catuncan told The STAR.

“Of course she’s an American, having been born here, but as far as we’re concerned she is Pinay – atin yan” (she’s ours),“ her mom chimed in during a three-way telephone interview.

She said her daughter’s favorite foods are adobo, afritada and kare-kare.

Monessa declined to be interviewed for this article, saying she did not want to unnecessarily draw attention to herself while still in the Air Force. But she did tell The STAR she still entertained thoughts of becoming an astronaut.

Catuncan said that while his daughter was still in high school she caught the attention of the Coast Guard, who invited her in 1999 to Connecticut to interest her in becoming a Coast Guard helicopter pilot.

“She went to Connecticut for about two weeks to check out the Coast Guard but in the end she said she was not interested in flying helicopters. She wanted to be a fixed wing pilot,” he said.

The young Catuncan is but one of a number of Filipinos who have made or are making their mark in the US military.

Attesting to the historic military ties between Filipinos and Americans, one fourth of all foreign-born members of the US armed forces are from the Philippines, many senior leaders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are graduates of US service institutions and Filipino-Americans are well represented in the upper echelons of the US military.

Lt. Gen. Edwardo Soriano before his retirement in 2004 was the highest ranking Filipino-American in the US Army while Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba was probably the most famous, thrust to fame for his investigations into the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

“Monessa, through her perseverance and hard work, has earned not only the (right to) fly the F-16, but also the pride and honor of defending the United States, as well as making the Filipinos proud,” said the Las Vegas based Asian Journal, a Filipino-American community newspaper.