Air Force Master Sgt. Toni Odom takes photos of students inside a C-130J Super Hercules during a Fly Girls excursion over Tokyo, on March 8, 2024. (Juan King/Stars and Stripes)

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — International Women’s Day at this airlift hub in western Tokyo dawned cold and wet but the weather did not deter the third annual Fly Girls celebration.

More than 100 girls and boys from Yokota and Yokosuka middle and high schools attended Friday’s event, organized by Capt. Casey Guardia, a Huey pilot with Yokota’s 49th Airlift Squadron. Also present were airmen from Misawa Air Base and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

“Women’s numbers have been rising (in the military) and it’s exciting to show the students that women are here, that we’re making an impact and that we work really well with our male counterparts in aviation,” Guardia told Stars and Stripes at the event.

“And for the little girls out there, you can do whatever you set your mind to … you can still have an impact and you can still make a big difference,” she said.

The students’ day started with a morning ride on a C-130J Super Hercules airlifter.

“Today really opened my (eyes) to a new experience of joining the Air Force,” Kaiya Tryka, 17, an 11th grader at Yokosuka’s Nile C. Kinnick High School, told Stars and Stripes. “This was just really a fun experience, and I really enjoyed it.”

Tryka said she plans to join the Air Force after graduation and wants to fly the F-15 Eagle.

“Being able to experience getting on the plane and seeing a different perspective, and how pilots manage and work things on the plane was really interesting to me,” she said.

Guardia invited the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and Misawa’s 14th Fighter Squadron, and organized aircraft static displays and information tables in the 459th Airlift Squadron hangar. There, attendees met the women who pilot and maintain the aircraft.

“I was just looking at the aircrew equipment, said Senior Airman Kyoka Kusuhashi, a C-130H Hercules maintainer for the Air Self-Defense Force. “I’ve never seen that, so that was very cool. I’ve also never seen the aircraft, as well, and it is a chance for me to meet all our American friends here as well.”

Kusuhashi said only about 10 out of 200 people working at Komaki Air Base are women, a big difference that she sees between the American and Japanese military.

Guardia said her mother, Charlene Guardia, served six years in the Army as an occupational therapist and has been a great role model as her daughter paves her own path in the military.

“I’m really lucky to serve when I am, when women’s numbers are rising,” she said. “About 25% of the of the students were women when I was in pilot training at the Air Force Academy.

Guardia said it’s great to an increasing number of women in the service.

“We’re grateful for all the women that came before us and kind of paved the path, and that we just don’t face the hardships they faced because they’ve really led the way,” she said.

Lt. Col. Kira Coffey, commander of the 36th Airlift Squadron, answers students' questions during a Fly Girls event at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on March 8, 2024. (Juan King/Stars and Stripes)

Yokota High School ninth-grader Mallory Cochran gazes out the window of a C-130J Super Hercules during a Fly Girls excursion over Tokyo, on March 8, 2024. (Juan King/Stars and Stripes)

Capt. Casey Guardia, a Huey pilot for the 49th Airlift Squadron, poses at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on March 8, 2024. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)