Jessica Burch planted herself front and center. As the only woman in her Army commissioning class at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the aspiring aviator had often felt like “the odd ball out.” Immersed in a sea of testosterone and ambition among her ROTC peers, she usually chose to melt into the background. But not today.
“I always laid super low,” Burch remembers. “But I was so proud of myself for my commissioning, I purposely plotted to put myself right in the center of our photo. I thought, ‘This is for all the ladies out there always on the sidelines.’”
Given her accomplishments, playing small doesn’t seem like a likely posture for Burch. Still in her 20s, she is a meteorologist with CBS News Bay Area, serving as the face and voice of the morning weather in one of the nation’s largest media markets. And between meeting the demands of a thriving civilian career, she fulfills her duties as a first lieutenant and Black Hawk medevac pilot in the California Army National Guard – no small feat given the seemingly constant wildfires and rescue missions that require her unit’s support.
“There’s nothing easy about it at all,” Burch confesses, reflecting how just that week she’d wrapped up a noon show at the station before rushing home to secure care for Chopper, her beloved black lab. Minutes later, she was making the two-hour drive to Sacramento to conduct hoist missions with her medevac team. “There is nothing easy about what I do but there is beauty in what I do. I really think it’s awesome that the military gives you these great opportunities to serve others. I’m so grateful.”
Service has been the common thread that runs through Burch’s work. Alongside aviation, meteorology was Burch’s academic passion. But it wasn’t until an internship at an Orlando news station – during hurricane season, no less – did she realize broadcast meteorology could be a unique platform for helping others.
“I had never once publicly spoken,” laughs Burch, who originally wanted to work for the National Weather Service while she fulfilled her Guard commitment. But in Orlando, she witnessed “the impact local journalists have on a community, especially during an emergency. It became something where I realized I could serve my community while providing guidance and comfort.”
And it was that pull to serve that drew Burch to Black Hawks and her medevac unit, even if at first glance, it seems like an unlikely fit.
“I hate blood. I hate guts,” she said. “(But) the medevac mission fits who I am as a person. … I just wanted to help the people who need it most.”
But the path hasn’t always been easy. The Army has a way of challenging women in ways most men can’t understand, their gender often serving as the first obstacle they must overcome in new settings.
“I was definitely bullied at moments,” remembers Burch, who as one of only two women in her flight class was told point blank by an instructor that he didn’t believe women had a place in Army aviation. Such brazen misogyny, however, has only fueled Burch’s determination to serve others like her.
“At a young age, that’s what I wish I would have had,” said Burch, who is active with The 99s, an international organization of women pilots. “With the little bit of exposure I have, whether it’s talking about it on the news, or sharing a story on Instagram, I just want women to know that there’s people like me willing to share my story in the hopes they can take from it and go create their own path in life.”
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