Combat Heroines, Part Two
Soldier Stories
Spc. Maria C. Flores-Sanz earned the Army Commendation Medal with valor device after driving two Soldiers in her vehicle to safety, and then returning to the scene of a July 3 terrorist attack to help evacuate other injured Soldiers.
Flores-Sanz was part of a three-vehicle convoy traveling from Baghdad International Airport to central Baghdad, when the vehicles were attacked simultaneously by a rocket-propelled grenade shot from a rooftop and an improvised explosive device that was remote-detonated on the ground. Amidst the smoke and confusion, Flores-Sanz drove the two passengers of her vehicle to safety and later returned to the attack site to help evacuate the wounded soldiers.
“I’m not a hero, but I did what I had to do,” she said.
“She was on the ball,” said Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Randall, the assistant inspector general with the 1st Armor Division, who was a passenger in her vehicle July 3. “She didn’t panic, she knew exactly what to do.”
Shortly after the event, Flores-Sanz re-enlisted in the Army on Aug. 5. She had deployed with 1st Armored Division to Baghdad in May.
“I was nervous about going, but I was mentally prepared,” she said. “I was ready to do my duty.”
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When quick action is required in an emergency situation, a soldier often doesn’t have time to think. The soldier’s training and instincts take over.
Pfc. Jessica Lynn Nicholson, 21, a 1st Armored Division soldier with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 40th Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade, Division Engineers, found out how true that adage is recently when she was working at a security checkpoint in Baghdad. The reason she, a tracked-vehicle mechanic, was assigned to the checkpoint was to search women.
“But, that day (about 9 a.m. on June 7) there were a lot of people gathering at this checkpoint and it was very busy. So, I was asked to search some men, too,” said Nicholson.
“While other soldiers were searching a car, the driver had stepped out of the car and I was searching the driver. He didn’t have any weapons on his person,” she said.
“The other soldiers checking the vehicle at first thought it was clear. Then one of the soldiers thought that something didn’t seem right. So, he searched the car again,” she added.
During the second search, the soldier spotted a grenade hidden behind the visor on the driver’s side. The soldier shouted, “Grenade!”
“I immediately got man down on the ground, face down, and I remember pressing his face into a sandbag,” Nicholson said.
She continued to hold him down until other soldiers came over and zip-cuffed the man.
The man then claimed he had the grenade because he was going to turn it in to the U.S. soldiers. But they did not believe that story, because he had not mentioned it, or indicated anything like that, until after the soldiers had found the grenade and after he had been subdued and was handcuffed with the plastic zip-strips.
“I really don’t remember exactly how I got him on the ground, but it was practically instantaneous,” she said, blushing. “I don’t remember the details of putting him down. I just remember, suddenly, I had him down on the ground with his face pressed into a sandbag and I kept holding him there.”
She said the man then started crying and someone said he might have been embarrassed because it was a shame for a man in Iraq to get beat up by a woman.
She later recalled that she had done some wrestling at Beatty High School in Beatty, Nev., and that experience, plus her Army training, gave her the right stuff to subdue the Iraqi man. Nicholson, 5’6” and 120 pounds, said she had wrestled against boys in high school, because the boys and girls were not separated for wrestling, so, throwing a man down was nothing new to her.
Asked the size of the Iraqi man, she said, “He was about my height, but heavier. I would say he was a little out of shape.”
Asked if she had grown up as a tomboy, Nicholson said, “No, I was even a cheerleader for a little while. I guess I kind of grew up out in the middle of nowhere,” she said, “and I just always had to do whatever needed to be done.”
She grew up in Silverton, Idaho, and, when she was 15, her family moved to Winnemucca, Nev. She said she has also boxed with some of the men in her company.
Asked if she wore boxing gloves, she replied, “Oh yes, of course, we had boxing gloves. I wouldn’t want to hurt them.”
She is the daughter of Jim and Kris Nicholson of Winnemucca, Nev. She has been in the Army for a year and a half. Nicholson’s weapon is an M-249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), which she carries with her everywhere she goes. She has nicknamed her SAW, “Camille.” “It’s my baby,” she said.
The citation on her Army Commendation Medal certificate says, “This is to certify that the Secretary of the Army has awarded the Army Commendation Medal to Private First Class Jessica L. Nicholson, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 40th Engineer Battalion, for valor and courage in the face of enemy actions while assigned to the 40th Engineer Battalion. Her decisive actions at a security checkpoint prevented the enemy from endangering the lives of her fellow soldiers.”
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