Deborah Elizabeth Branson (b. 1951) of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, served as a helicopter pilot and a line officer in the United States Navy from 1976-1999. Deborah Branson (b. 1951) of Norman, Oklahoma served as a helicopter pilot in the United States Navy from 1976-1999 and worked as a congressional liaison at the Pentagon during the investigation into Tailhook sexual assault scandal. Deborah Elizabeth Branson was born 7 October 1951 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and grew up in nearby Norman, OK. She spent the early years of her education attending a private laboratory school run by the University of Oklahoma, where her father was head of the School of Geology. Branson began attending a public school in the ninth grade, where she participated in the Civil Air Patrol. She graduated from high school in 1969. Having worked with horses all her life, Branson then began a pre-veterinarian program at the University of Oklahoma. Branson took a break from her education and worked for two years with horses professionally. She returned to school and earned her bachelor's degree in liberal studies, with a concentration in sciences, and then spent a year working on her master's degree in Environmental Science through the College of Civil Engineering. In 1976, Branson decided to join the United States Navy. However, despite her education, she was rejected from joining the Navy's Civil Engineering Corps because she was a woman. Even after being informed that women were also not allowed to fly aircraft at that time, she still chose to accept a commission into the navy where she found out that women were not allowed to go to sea either. She attended Officer Candidate School at Officer Training Command Newport, Rhode Island. Her first duties included clerical assignments and swearing in new enlistments, including her own younger brother. She was assigned to a clerical rating and served as the company commander for the women. In 1978, Branson was accepted for Navy Flight School and began flight training in both Pensacola, Florida and then Milton, Florida despite the stigma surrounding women who trained as pilots and the discrimination they were known to face from the military. She then received orders to Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California, where she soon learned that the admiral in charge of the air wing did not want women in his unit. After receiving an unsatisfactory rating on her first flight training, Branson assigned to a port squadron. She was assigned to Helicopter Support Squadron 1 and her duties included computer maintenance and supporting Naval Tactical Data Systems. In the early 1980s Branson began the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape [SERE] program in Washington State, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force, where she was the senior ranking officer. After this training, Branson returned to San Diego and began piloting helicopters. She was the only women in this position on the West Coast for several years and had the opportunity to fly with former Vietnam pilots. Her other assignments included HSL-31, a helicopter anti-submarine light squadron, at NAS North Island, California where She served as safety officer, and flew up and down the California coast; and the USNS Chauvenet, an oceanographic survey ship, where she was the sole woman onboard, and where her duties included flying ahead of the ship to alert them to oncoming coral heads and transporting ill sailors. In 1986, Branson began attending the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. While there she was promoted to lieutenant commander. From 1987 until 1990, Branson and her husband received a dual assignment to the Philippines. There she was assigned to VC-5 Fleet Composite Squadron 5 where she worked as both an administrative officer and maintenance officer as well as a pilot for an H-3 anti-submarine warfare helicopter. They decided they wanted to adopt a child, applied through the Philippine system, and eventually learned a two and half year-old girl was available for adoption. In 1990, now Commander Branson was assigned to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., one of only two U.S. Navy pilots assigned there. She worked as the congressional liaison to answer questions pertaining to what the U.S. Navy needed and/or wanted, and also had the opportunity to participate on the panel for the "Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Military, which was formed as a response to the sexual assaults that took place at the 1991 Tailhook Association Symposium." She worked mainly as a part of the Enhancing Professional Opportunities group. Together with the Standing Committee on Military and Civilian Women in the Department of the Navy, they pushed for opening more combat support positions for women as well as mandatory sexual harassment prevention training. During her time at the Pentagon, Branson was promoted to Captain. From 1994 until 1998, she worked as an assistant naval secretary on the special assistant for aviation on international coordinate policy. In 1998, she was executive officer for a Reserve Officer Training Course (ROTC) in North Carolina, at the time a navy billet, Branson extended her contract for one year. Upon learning the billet had been changed to a U.S. Marine Corps billet, Branson decided to go back to the U.S. Naval War College. In 1999, after having spent two years there, and twenty-three years in the military as a whole, Branson decided to retire from the U.S. Navy. In 2017, Branson retired from her position as director and associate professor of the environmental and occupational management program at Methodist University in Fayetteville University, having taught there for ten years and six months.
