A post with an image of a woman wearing hijab and U.S. Air Force uniform is being shared on Facebook with a claim that she is the first female commander of the Twelfth Air Force, which is an air combat wing of the branch. Let’s try to check the authenticity of the image in the post.
Claim: Major General Fatima Hemminger is the first female commander of the Twelfth Air Force, which is an air combat wing of the branch. She is also the first Muslim major general in the U.S. Air Force, as well as the highest ranking ‘hijabi Muslim’ within the Air Force.
Fact: There is no one in the U.S. Air Force with the name ‘Fatima Hemminger’. The photo in the post is a photoshopped image of Major General Linda S. Hemminger. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the photo in the image was run through Google Reverse Image Search, a link to official U.S. Air Force website with an image of a woman officer can be found in the search results. In the official website of U.S. Air Force, it can be found that there is no one with the name ‘Fatima Hemminger’ but there is a women officer with last name ‘Hemminger’. Her full name is Linda S. Hemminger. She is a Major General but she is not part of any combat wing. Throughout her career, she has been mainly involved in nursing and is retired now.
The photo in the post is a photoshopped image. The original photo can be also found in the official U.S. Air Force website. Linda Hemminger’s photo has been edited and her head is replaced with the head of another girl.
To sum it up, there is no one with the name ‘Fatima Hemminger’ in the U.S. Air Force.
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