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 guerillas 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.

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This entry was posted by Chuck Simmins on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at and is filed under Afghanistan, Heroes, Iraq, Military, Raven 42, WOT Heroes, War on Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.