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She was on cloud nine.
Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Jennifer Bennie, one of the fearless female veterans featured in the 2025 Pin-Ups For Vets calendar, was flying high on the glam that comes with being a calendar girl.
“I had never been so pampered. I felt so beautiful. I had my makeup professionally done, my hair. I was like, ‘I don’t even know I could look like that,’” Bennie, 47, told The Post ahead of Veteran’s Day.
Bennie, a North Carolina native twice deployed to Iraq, serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in 2000 and 2003, respectively, explained the significance of the car she posed in front of — a 1945 Chrysler Town and Country.
“That was the last time they put wood on a car because they needed the metal for the war effort, so I loved it historically-wise,” she said.
“And I loved paying homage to the pin-ups and how this image really helped with morale during World War II.”
Until the mid-90s, women weren’t even allowed to fly in combat, so Bennie, whose maiden name happens to be Mitchell — like Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” character — said changing the mindsets of her male counterparts was one of the best things about her job.
“I would have so many guys say to me, ‘Miss Mitchell, I didn’t like women in the military, but I like you,’” she said, laughing.
“So I didn’t cut the trail. But I helped pave the road.”
When she entered Naval Aviation School on a full Navy scholarship after graduation from Penn State, she was one of the first women in her fleet squadron and given the call sign “Yoko,” “because I broke up the band of guys.”
Bennie, whose parents were both in the Air Force, graduated first in her class in flight school — surpassing all the men.
“I beat everyone in the pool. You have to swim a mile in full flight gear. And I could always lift a guy on my shoulders,” she said.
Three days before she got her wings in 2001, the Sept. 11 attacks shook the nation — and she was ordered to report to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.
Before she left, Bennie — whose Italian maternal grandfather immigrated to Jackson Heights, Queens and served in World War II, and whose mother was born and raised there as well — made sure to stop at Ground Zero with her cousin.
When they arrived, it was after midnight, and Bennie approached a police officer to ask where she could purchase an NYPD patch.
“I said, ‘I’m a Navy pilot. I’m about to ship out to San Diego. I would really like to fly with a patch … and he ripped it off his coat,” she recalled.
“I never got his name, but I flew with it on every mission.”
As a helicopter pilot on small Navy ships, “where really, you’re the only air asset they have,” Bennie’s role was multifaceted.
“So you’ve got to be really good at landing the helicopter on a small postage stamp in the water,” she said.
“We would do eight-hour flights, usually at night, and you didn’t know what your job was gonna be. It could be surveillance, or it could turn into search and rescue, or it could turn it into medevac, someone could have a medical emergency, or it could turn into a man overboard.”
Bennie, who is now living in Millington, Tennessee — the human resources hub of the Navy — with her husband, Scott, a Navy commander, earned a master’s degree in history under the GI Bill.
The mom of three now runs a YouTube channel called Walk With History, where she takes viewers on tour around historical sites.
Although she will lie low on Veteran’s Day, she honors the sacrifice her fellow servicemen have made throughout the year by visiting veterans’ homes around the country.
“I visit every veteran in the home and some don’t get visitors,” she said. “So when you walk in, they just light up.”
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