Leigh Ann Hester wasn’t the only woman in Raven 42 nor was she the only brave woman. Bronze Star with V

Lexington Herald Leader

Spc. Ashley Pullen wasn’t thinking about the dozens of Iraqi insurgents who had just ambushed the convoy. Or their piles of guns and grenades or the bullets ripping through the air around her.

Her bloody comrade lay on the road south of Baghdad, and she had to help the gravely wounded soldier — fast.

So she hustled as quickly as her short legs would carry her, ignoring the heat, the ferocious battle and her heavy gear.

She ran 100, 200, 300 feet — the length of a football field.

It was March 20, 2005, the day Pullen, a member of the Kentucky National Guard’s 617th Military Police Company, became a hero. It was the day that would earn this daughter of Edmonton, Ky., a Bronze Star for valor.

Now, 21 months later, Pullen is a casualty of war, struggling with invisible battle scars.

Pullen is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, the result of a year in Iraq marked by harrowing brushes with danger and death — tempered with daily prayers for survival.

Pullen, now 22, doesn’t go out much these days and she says her moods swing for no good reason.

“It’s just an emotional roller coaster every day,” she says. “I have no other way to describe it. I can be a perfectly happy, normal person. Then five seconds later, I will be so mad that I can’t see straight.” Pullen says she has a hard time concentrating long enough to read a book. And she hasn’t totally shaken some habits that made perfect sense in a war zone but don’t translate to the quiet roads of south-central Kentucky.

Sometimes when she drives, she says, her husband, Daniel, notices she’s veering too close to the center line — something she did in Iraq to try to avoid roadside bombs. “Baby,” he gently warns her, “hellooo …”

Pullen says she once was always smiling, always happy. Then came the war. And everything changed. [snip]

Answering a radio call — “Everybody’s down! I need help” — Pullen backed up her Humvee part way, then ran about 300 feet to a gravely wounded sergeant, who was screaming and rocking in agony. (Pullen says she didn’t pull her truck next to him, fearing that would create a bigger target for the insurgents.)

Dodging bullets, she dropped to her knees to help her comrade. “It hurts! It hurts!” he yelled. She got him out of his bloody vest, lifted his shirt and saw a single slug had pierced his stomach through his back, leaving a hole the size of a quarter.

Pullen tried to bandage and calm him.

“Think of green grass and trees and home,” she said. “Think about your little boy. Think about anything but here.” Pullen was herself thinking of the first blush of spring at her Kentucky home. “I don’t know if that comforted him, but it worked for me.”

As she was tending to the sergeant, a medic from her company fired a shoulder-held rocket launcher at a sniper’s nest. “Back blast clear!” he shouted, a warning to stay far away. But Pullen was close enough to touch his leg.

She blanketed her body — all 5-foot-2 — over the wounded sergeant to protect him. The blast knocked her on her backside.

When it was over, at least 26 insurgents were dead and six were wounded. Three civilians in the convoy also were killed. The three wounded members of Pullen’s company all survived.

The insurgents’ arsenal, according to a military report, included 35 AK-47s and machine guns, 16 rocket-propelled grenades, 39 hand grenades, 175 full or empty AK-47 magazines, 2,500 loose rounds — and a video camera with footage of the ambush.

Pullen was awarded a Bronze Star with the V device for valor. (Several other soldiers in the unit also were honored, including Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who was given the Silver Star — the first woman to receive that award since World War II — for her bravery. She killed at least three insurgents.)

In a recommendation for Pullen’s medal, her company commander wrote: “Tremendous dedication and focus. Credited with saving the life of a team leader that day. Incredible courage.”

Leigh Anne Hester joined the Army National Guard in April 2001. By 2005 she was managing a shoe store in Nashville, and had been deployed with her unit to Iraq. As a member of the Kentucky Guard’s 617th Military Police, she wouldn’t normally see combat.

That would all change on March 20, 2005. In a matter of thirty minutes, Leigh Ann Hester would join the pantheon of Army heroes that includes Alvin York, Audie Murphy, David Hackworth and many others. Others all men.

Trailing a coalition convoy southeast of Baghdad, her unit responded to an attack on that convoy. The ten Guardsmen found themselves in a fight to the death with dozens of attackers in a well-prepared ambush. The security team for the convoy was down, and it was up to the men and women from Kentucky to take action.

When the dust and smoke had cleared, 27 enemy guerrillas were dead and seven captured. Three members of the Guard unit, Raven 42, were wounded. And Leigh Ann Hester would become the first woman to win a Silver Star in combat since World War Two. The first woman to win a Silver Star for combat.

The unit responded as their training dictated. First they flanked the enemy with their vehicles and heavier weapons. Then, they took the fight to the enemy. The unit’s commander, Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, and Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester worked their way down a small canal the enemy was using as an entrenchment, shooting and tossing grenades. At least six of the enemies were killed in this part of the action alone.

By all accounts, Leigh Ann Hester is just a normal American girl. Quoted in the Courier-Journal on November 12, 2005, she said:

“When it was all said and done with, I had to sit down for a minute,” Hester said. “I was shaking, shaking really bad. I thought, ‘What just happened here?’ ” “Hopefully I won’t have to do it again. You can train all you want to, but until you’re placed in that situation, you don’t know how you’ll react to it.”

Leigh Ann Hester reacted as she had been trained. She demonstrated the courage and self-sacrifice of a hero. The members of Raven 42 received medals for their actions that day in March, and Sgt. Lester received the Silver Star. She is an American hero.

In warfare there are soldiers and then there are warriors. Brian Chontosh is a warrior. Marine Capt. Brian R. Chontosh is also a hero.

Captain Chontosh received the Navy Cross while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. The Navy Cross is the Marine Corps’s second highest award for heroism, exceeded only by the Medal of Honor.

On March 25, 2003, Chontosh’s platoon was moving north on Iraq Highway 1 when it ran into a fierce ambush by an entrenched enemy. Realizing that he had to clear the kill zone, and blocked by other units, he directed his unit to advance against the enemy.

Once in the trench, Chontosh exited his vehicle and began to clear the enemy from the emplacement. When he ran out of ammo, he twice picked up enemy weapons to continue the assault. Handed an RPG launcher by a fellow Marine, he used it to good effect.

When the fight was over, Chontosh had cleared over 200 meters of trench, killing more than twenty of the enemy.

You may have heard of Captain Chontosh. Fox News had an embedded reporter with his unit for much of its deployment. If the Marines were in combat and were victorious, Captain Chontosh was probably there. Fox clearly showed that he felt his place was at the front, and in the fight. A warrior and a hero.

Paul Smith was tough. As sergeants go, he was one of those the troops didn’t like much. In his unit, you drilled. You did things by the book. You kept your weapon clean and your tools handy.

Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion, attached to the 2-7 Infantry, had been assigned to build a POW camp at Baghdad Airport as our units completed the capture of the capital. There was a Republican Guard complex, with walls and a tower that seemed ideal for the conversion.

The Special Republican Guard was still there, however.

Less than twenty men faced hundreds of Saddam’s elite soldiers.

There were wounded. There was confusion. Smith leapt into the fray, doing his best. The wounded were tended to. The enemy was confronted.

Smith climbed into the gun mount of his tracked vehicle and told an enlisted man to keep the ammo coming. Using the .50 caliber machine gun, Smith began his defense. If his unit could not stand, the headquarters of the task force, the entire rear of the 2/7 was open to be slaughtered.

In the ninety minute fight, Smith emptied over four cases of ammo. Standing in the gun mount, he kept firing, pausing only for reloading.

Near the end of the fight, as the enemy was in retreat, the gun fell silent. When the smoke cleared, Paul Smith was found slumped in the gun mount, killed by a shot to the head. Sgt. Smith was the only American killed that day. In front of his position were the enemy dead, 30-50 enemy soldiers that would not threaten American lives again.

Sgt. Paul Smith, Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April 4, 2005. The citation reads, in part:

Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.

Leigh Ann Hester, Brian Chontosh and Paul Smith. These are the names of three of America’s heroes from the War on Terror. There are hundreds more. The military issues press releases about them. Sometimes their hometown paper picks up the story. But the odds are that you will never have heard of any of them.

There are 108 entries in my blogging category WOT Heroes. While some of the posts update previous stories, most are unique. Have you heard that there are 100 plus heroes in our military? Have you heard of any?

Mark Mitchell was one of the first into Afghanistan. He used a borrowed turban to scale a wall into a prison where two American CIA officers were being held, freed one and recovered the other’s body.

Teresa Broadwell was too short to fire the weapon on her vehicle. But she did, and saved her commanding officer who was down in the street.

Serena Maren Di Virgilio fought to keep a wounded soldier alive as her unit fought through an ambush.

Gary Villalobos almost single-handedly fought off an enemy ambush and recovered the body of Lt. Col. Terrence Crowe.

Dr. Rich Jadick ran a medical aid station in Fallujah under constant attack. He went to where the wounded were.

When I research a blog post about the WoT heroes, I start with the military news. I then search for any mention in the media that may be posted to the Internet. Sometimes, all there is to memorialize a hero is a short paragraph in a military press release. The blood, sweat and tears shed by our soldiers have somehow vanished between the battlefield and the news.

Courier-Journal

In an interview at her parents’ home, Hester, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., said she finds it difficult to be an observer to a war she was living and fighting only a few weeks ago. “I can’t believe I’m watching it on TV now and not experiencing it day to day,” said Hester, who left the Middle East on the day that the 2,000th American soldier was killed in Iraq. “It brings back a lot of memories.”

Those memories include the June and September deaths of two members of her company: Spc. Michael Hayes of Morgantown, Ky., and Staff Sgt. William Allers of Leitchfield, Ky., respectively. The Silver Stars were issued two days after Hayes was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade near Baghdad. Hester compares the timing of the events to the death of her grandfather and the birth of her nephew in a 24-hour period two years ago. “I lost two of my friends over there,” Hester said. “When they talk about deaths, I think about them.”

She also thinks about the March insurgent attack, the first and last time she used her military training to kill an enemy. “When it was all said and done with, I had to sit down for a minute,” Hester said. “I was shaking, shaking really bad. I thought, ‘What just happened here?’ ” “Hopefully I won’t have to do it again. You can train all you want to, but until you’re placed in that situation, you don’t know how you’ll react to it.”

Habits learned on the battlefield are hard to break, Hester said. She cites her tendency to feel like she’s behind the wheel of a Humvee when she’s driving her pickup truck and her habit of still checking for her weapon.

She recalls with precise detail the ambush that made her a military hero.

It was about 9 on a Sunday morning when Hester and her unit were shadowing a supply convoy in its patrol area southeast of Baghdad. She heard the familiar crackle of gunfire. “We had been shot at before,” Hester said. “Any time you go on the road, you hear gunfire.”

But as the shots grew louder and more frequent, Hester realized that it “was much bigger than anything we’d been into” before. The convoy and an armored Humvee guarding it had come under fire from a field next to the road, Hester said.

Hester, a vehicle commander who was trailing the convoy in one of three other Humvees, raced with her unit to fend off a well-coordinated attack in which the insurgents were equipped with dozens of submachine guns, rockets and cars.

No other coalition squads were in the area, so the military police officers were on their own. “I didn’t have time to think about anything,” Hester said. “I turned around and started unstrapping my ammo.” For the next 30 minutes, Hester and her unit battled the insurgents, killing 27 of the attackers, wounding six and capturing one.

First, the squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route, and drawing fire away from the convoy. They then launched a counterattack with guns and grenades.

During the fight, three members of her unit were wounded by enemy fire. Hester realized she was in a fight for her life. “I saw several guys in the field in trench lines,” Hester said. “I started laying down fire and ended up taking two right off the bat.” Insurgents continued firing, and Nein and Hester lobbed grenades at the enemy.

When the battle ended and the bodies were removed, the unit found each of the insurgents had a pair of handcuffs. “We realized they were planning on taking prisoners,” Hester said.

More than seven months later, Hester still shakes slightly when recounting the events. “Even today when we talk about it, I’m like, ‘Wow, what the heck did we do that day?’ ” Hester said.

Raven 42

Amazing News From Combat

On March 25 I posted an article titled Iraq: Amazing News From Combat. In it I told the story of a small group of Kentucky National Guard troops who were ambushed by a vastly superior force in Iraq, and their incredible response to the attack.

Well, the reports have gone up the chain of command, and Raven 42 has been recognized for its heroics. Castle Argghhh has the awards, and they are impressive.

The team leader who helped clear the trench of enemy has been awarded the Silver Star. Unusual? Not really. Oh, wait, yes it is. That team leader is Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, the first woman to win a Silver Star since World War Two.

DefenseLINK

When the fight was over, 27 insurgents were dead, six were wounded, and one was captured.

Hester, 23, who was born in Bowling Green, Ky., and later moved to Nashville, Tenn., said she was surprised when she heard she was being considered for the Silver Star.

“I’m honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal,” she said. Being the first woman soldier since World War II to receive the medal is significant to Hester. But, she said, she doesn’t dwell on the fact. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with being a female,” she said. “It’s about the duties I performed that day as a soldier.”

Hester, who has been in the National Guard since April 2001, said she didn’t have time to be scared when the fight started, and she didn’t realize the impact of what had happened until much later. “Your training kicks in and the soldier kicks in,” she said. “It’s your life or theirs. … You’ve got a job to do — protecting yourself and your fellow comrades.”

Nein, who is on his second deployment to Iraq, praised Hester and his other soldiers for their actions that day. “It’s due to their dedication and their ability to stay there and back me up that we were able to do what we did that day,” he said.

Hester and her fellow soldiers were awarded their medals at Camp Liberty, Iraq, by Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, Multinational Corps Iraq commanding general. In his speech, Vines commended the soldiers for their bravery and their contribution to the international war on terror. “My heroes don’t play in the (National Basketball Association) and don’t play in the U.S. Open (golf tournament) at Pinehurst,” Vines said. “They’re standing in front of me today. These are American heroes.”

Three soldiers of the 617th were wounded in the ambush. Hester said she and the other squad members are thinking about them, and she is very thankful to have made it through unscathed. The firefight, along with the entire deployment, has had a lasting effect on her, Hester said. “I think about it every day, and probably will for the rest of my life,” she said.

First, the original story, then the details. You will be amazed. These folks done good.

UPDATE: Silver Star for Sgt Hester. Gongs all round for the entire unit.