training aircraft carrier USS Lexington in 1984, after becoming the first female aviator assigned to an aircraft carrier in 1982. In 1987, Mariner became the first woman screened for command of an aviation unit in the U.S. Navy. In 1990, she became the first woman to command an aviation squadron in the Navy and was selected for major aviation shore command. During Operation Desert Storm, she commanded Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron Thirty Four (VAQ-34), flying the EA-7L and A-7E in Fleet training exercises. Mariner was president of the Women Military Aviators, Inc. from 1991 to 1993, helping lead the removal of restrictions on military women flying in combat. In April 1993, when Secretary of Defense Les Aspin removed restrictions on female pilots flying combat missions, Mariner, along with Jane Skiles O'Dea, Commander Lin Hutton, and Naval Reserve Commander Joellen Oslund, was one of the first female aviators selected for promotion to captain in the U.S. Navy. Mariner's final military assignment was as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Professor of Military Studies at the National War College. She retired after twenty-four years of military service, a veteran of seventeen carrier landings with over 3,500 military flight hours in fifteen different Navy aircraft. Mariner's career is detailed in several books, including Crossed Currents: Navy Women from World War I to Tailhook, Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution, Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake of Tailhook, and Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military. Retirement Mariner retired from the Navy with the rank of captain at the end of 1997. She was a resident scholar in the Center for the Study of War and Society and a lecturer in the Department of History from 2002 to 2016 at the University of Tennessee. Personal life Rosemary Mariner lived in Norris, Anderson County, Tennessee with her husband, retired Navy commander Tommy Mariner, and their daughter, Emmalee. Mariner was a Christian, with close friend and fellow pilot Tammie Jo Shults recounting that Mariner "found her foundation in Christ." Death Mariner died on January 24, 2019, in Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 65, following a five-year battle with ovarian cancer. Funeral Mariner's funeral was held on February 2, 2019, during which the United States Navy conducted an all-female pilot flyover for the first time, performing a four F/A-18F aircraft Missing Man Flyover over New Loyston Cemetery in Maynardville, Tennessee. Publications