Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester
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.
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Silver Star winner Leigh Ann Hester
