Early Life, Education, and Air Force Service
Wilson was born in Keene, New Hampshire, the daughter of Martha Lou, nurse, and George Douglas "Doug" Wilson, a commercial pilot and member of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Wilson grew up around aviation and hoped to become a pilot like her father and grandfather before her. Her paternal grandparents were born in Scotland. Her grandfather, George Gordon "Scotty" Wilson, flew for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War I and emigrated to America in 1922 where he was a barnstormer and airport operator in the 1920s and 1930s. He served as a courier pilot during World War II and started the New Hampshire Civil Air Patrol where he was a Wing Commander. Her father started flying at age 13 and enlisted in the United States Air Force after high school.
The United States Air Force Academy began admitting women during her junior year at Keene High School (Keene, New Hampshire), and Wilson applied and was appointed to the Academy. At the Academy, she was the first woman to command basic training and the first woman Vice Wing Commander. She graduated in 1982 as a Distinguished Graduate (magna cum laude equivalent). Although she had planned to go to flight school, Wilson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford during the sixth year that women were permitted to apply and continued her education at Jesus College, University of Oxford, earning a Master of Philosophy and D.Phil. in International Relations by 1985.
In 1990, Oxford University Press published her book, International Law and the Use of Force by National Liberation Movements, which won the 1988 Paul Reuter Prize of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Paul Reuter Prize is awarded for a major work in the sphere of international humanitarian law. Wilson won the second Reuter prize ever awarded.
An Air Force officer for seven years, Wilson was a negotiator and political adviser to the U.S. Air Force in England, and a defense planning officer for NATO in Belgium, where her work included arms control negotiations.
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Famous quotes containing the words early, air, force and/or service:
“Our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“At the milliners, the ladies we met were so much dressed, that I should rather have imagined they were making visits than purchases. But what diverted me most was, that we were more frequently served by men than by women; and such men! so finical, so affected! they seemed to understand every part of a woman’s dress better than we do ourselves; and they recommended caps and ribbons with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Rich are the sea-gods:Mwho gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
Every wave is wealth to Daedalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mr. Speaker, at a time when the nation is again confronted with necessity for calling its young men into service in the interests of National Security, I cannot see the wisdom of denying our young women the opportunity to serve their country.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)