What We Leave Behind w/ Col (Ret) Allison Black
She never asked for the nickname “Angel of Death.” But when General Abdul Rashid Dostum taunted Taliban fighters over the radio on the first night of combat operations after 9/11, warning them that America had sent its women to fly bombers and kill them, Allison Black became part myth, part warning, part green laser dot in the dark.
This week on Next Steps Forward, Dr. Chris Meek sits down with Colonel (Ret) Allison Black, one of the first women to fly combat missions in Afghanistan, a veteran of the AC-130 gunship and the elite U-28 Draco community, and a leader who spent decades helping younger service members find their footing and their purpose.
Col. Black grew up in suburban Long Island with no military background and no master plan. A late-summer TV commercial and a phone book changed everything. What followed was a career defined not by the nickname she never wanted, but by the quiet, deliberate work that the public rarely sees: hours of observation, precise coordination, and the moral weight of decisions made thousands of feet above the ground.
In this conversation, she explores what it means to serve with purpose when public support fades, how 9/11 remained her anchor through 20 years of war, and what she carried home from her first trip back to New York City in February 2002, including a handful of spent brass she brought to the firehouses still grieving their own. They also talk about legacy: not the kind etched in medals, but the kind measured in greasy fingerprints; the small, indelible marks people leave on your life, and the ones you leave on theirs. Humble. Credible. Approachable. It's on the edge of her challenge coin. And it's the throughline of everything she has to say.
About Col (Ret) Allison Black: Allison Black is a retired United States Air Force Colonel with a distinguished 32-year military career. She enlisted in 1992 and served as a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, & escape) specialist for over six years. Allison earned her undergraduate degree from Wayland Baptist University and was commissioned in 1998. She served the next 24 years of her career in USSOCOM & Air Force Special Operations (AFSOC).She has flown a total of over 3,400 hours with 2,000 combat hours in the AC-130H Spectre Gunship & U-28A Draco. In 2001, Allison deployed in support of TF Dagger as the initial response to the attacks on September 11th, earning the moniker “Angel of Death” for the decisive battlefield effects of the AC-130 crew.
Allison has commanded at all levels of leadership and culminated her career as the Commander of the 1st Special Operation Wing, Hurlburt Field, Florida. She’s a native of East Northport, New York and has a Strategic Communications master’s degree from George Mason University and master’s in security studies from National Defense University. Allison lives in Navarre, Florida with her husband Ryan and two sons Connor and Cooper.