For the 1st and 2nd times since WWII, Army women were awarded the Silver Star for valor, direct actions against an enemy force
Female Soldier receives Silver Star in Iraq
By Sgt. Sara Wood, 2007
For the first time since World War II, an Army woman was awarded the Silver Star for valor June 16 in Iraq.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., received the Silver Star, along with two other members of her unit, for their actions during an enemy ambush on their convoy.
Hester’s squad was shadowing a supply convoy March 20 when anti-Iraqi fighters ambushed the convoy. The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route. Hester led her team through the “kill zone” and into a flanking position, where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 grenade-launcher rounds. She and Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, her squad leader, then cleared two trenches, at which time she killed three insurgents with her rifle.
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 female 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.”
2nd Woman Since WWII Gets Silver Star
By Spc. Micah E. Clare
Afghanistan (Army News Service, March 21, 2008) –The second female Soldier since World War II was awarded a Silver Star Thursday for her gallant actions during combat in Afghanistan last year.
Spc. Monica Brown, 19, a Lake Jackson, Texas, native was presented her Silver Star by Vice President Dick Cheney during a ceremony at Bagram Airfield.
It was dusk April 25, 2007, when Brown, a medic from the 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, was on a routine security patrol along the rolling, rocky plains of Paktika’s isolated Jani Khail District when her convoy was attacked by insurgents.
“We’d been out on the mission for a couple of days,” said Brown, who at the time was attached to the brigade’s 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment’s Troop C. “We had just turned into a wadi (empty river bed) when our gunner yelled at us that the vehicle behind us had hit an (improvised-explosive device).”
They all looked out of their windows in time to see one of the struck vehicle’s tires flying through the field next to them. Brown had just opened her door to see what was going on when the attack began.
“I only saw the smoke from the vehicle when suddenly we started taking small-arms fire from all around us,” she said. “Our gunner starting firing back and my platoon sergeant yelled, ‘Doc! Let’s go.'”
Brown and her platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt. Jose Santos, exited their vehicle, and while under fire, ran the few hundred meters to the site of the downed Humvee.
“Everyone was already out of the burning vehicle,” she said. “But even before I got there, I could tell that two of them were injured very seriously.”
In fact, all five of the passengers who had stumbled out were burned and cut.
Two Soldiers, Spc. Stanson Smith and Spc. Larry Spray, suffered life-threatening injuries.
With help from two less-injured vehicle crewmen, Army Sgt. Zachary Tellier and Spc. Jack Bodani, Brown moved the immobile Soldiers to a relatively safe distance from the burning Humvee.
“There was pretty heavy incoming fire at this point,” she said.
“Rounds were literally missing her by inches,” said Bodani, who provided suppressive fire as Brown aided the casualties while injured. “We needed to get away from there.”
Three female Army nurses received Silver Star for WWI actions
By Mr. Ronald W Wolf (Army Medicine)
Attempting to provide proper medical care under the heavy fire became impossible, especially when the attackers stepped up efforts to kill the Soldiers.
“Another vehicle had just maneuvered to our position to shield us from the rounds now exploding in the fire from the Humvee behind us,” Brown said. “Somewhere in the mix, we started taking mortar rounds. It became a huge commotion, but all I could let myself think about were my patients.”
With the other vehicles spread out in a crescent formation, Brown and her casualties were stuck with no-where to go.
Suddenly, Santos arrived with one of the unit’s vehicles backed it up to their position, and Brown began loading the wounded Soldiers inside.
“We took off to a more secure location several hundred meters away where we were able to call in the (medical evacuation mission),” Brown said.
She then directed other combat-life-saver-qualified Soldiers to help by holding intravenous bags and assisting her in prepping the casualties for evacuation.
After what seemed like an eternity, the attackers finally began retreating and Brown was able to perform more thorough aid procedures before the MEDEVAC helicopter finally arrived to transport the casualties to safety, Brown said.
Two hours after the initial attack, everything was over.
In the darkness, Brown recalled standing in a field, knee-deep in grass, her only source of light coming from her red head-light, trying to piece together the events which had just taken place.
“Looking back, it was just a blur of noise and movement,” she said. “What just happened’ Did I do everything right’ It was a hard thing to think about.”
With the ongoing commemoration of the World War I centennial and in honor of May 6 — 12 as National Nurses Week, it is only appropriate to remember the contributions of Army nurses and their lifesaving, sacrificial work during WWI.
Three Army nurses — Jane Rignel, Linnie Leckrone and Irene Robar — were awarded the Silver Star for their roles in saving lives in France.
The Silver Star –established in 1918 as the Citation Star, and then changed to its current name in 1932 — is the third highest military award for heroism in combat. In 1932, the Silver Star had a retroactive provision that allowed service members as far back as the Spanish-American War to exchange the Citation Star for a Silver Star.
Rignel was awarded the Citation Star for her valorous actions on July 15, 1918 with Mobile Hospital No. 2. Leckrone and Robar were also awarded the Citation Star for their courage on July 29, 1918 while attached to Field Hospital No. 127 as members of a specially trained shock team.
Rignel was the Chief Nurse of Mobile Hospital No. 2, attached to the 42nd Division. She had as many as 22 nurses under her supervision. She was awarded the Citation Star for her courage in providing aid to wounded soldiers under heavy enemy fire on July 15, 1918 near Bussey le Chateau, France.
During World War I, mobile hospitals were an early version of the Combat Support Hospital. These units followed the combat units they supported and could set up for patients in only a few hours.
Rignel’s heroism began during an artillery barrage that starting at 11:40 p.m. on July 14. Ambulances began arriving around 2 a.m. on July 15, and by 3:00 a.m. the shock ward was packed. By 6 a.m., 75 patients had arrived, and eight operating teams were saving lives. At 7:30 a.m. on July 15, the order to evacuate patients to an underground dugout came after shells landed on the hospital.
Before the patients could be moved, the triage and surgical areas were seriously damaged by two direct hits. As many as five may have been killed during the direct hits. Through it all, Rignel led her team of nurses with courage and determination.
Leckrone and Robar, both Army Nurse Corps, were at Field Hospital No. 127 (or Field 127), a unit of the 32nd Division. They were also awarded the Citation Star for courage while caring for the wounded during an artillery bombardment on July 29, 1918 in Chateau-Thierry, France.
Leckrone and Robar were the two nurses of Shock Team No. 134, which was attached to Field Hospital No. 127. World War I doctrine had field hospitals closest to the front line. Although nurses were initially not assigned duty in a field hospital, a number of them were temporarily attached as part of specialty teams that supplemented hospital staff as needed.
Leckrone and Robar were part of a shock team. The job of the shock team was the resuscitation of wounded soldiers who had significant blood loss and were unlikely to survive immediate surgery.
Rignel, Leckrone and Robar are not names that come to mind when the list of nurse heroes are written down. Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix are names frequently mentioned.
Yet the story of the Army Nurse Corps is filled with brave women and men who deserve recognition for their courage under fire, willingness to deploy, and compassion and caring for the sick and injured.
The Army Nurse Corps was established in 1901. The importance of nurses as integral and indispensable components of care in Army Medicine can never be questioned. That has been true throughout American history.
In World War II, more than 639 medals were presented to members of the Women’s Army Corps, to include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Soldier’s Medal, Bronze Star, Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. Female Soldiers have distinguished themselves during the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, Military Police, Iraq, 2005, and Spc. Monica Lin Brown, Army Medical Department, Afghanistan 2007, received the Silver Star for acts of valor.
First Lieutenant Mary Roberts and Second Lieutenants Elaine Roe and Rita Virginia Rourke, Lieutenant Ellen Ainsworth were These were the first Silver Stars awarded to women in the Army during WW II.
On 10 February, during one of the worst shellings, Lieutenant Roberts, Chief Nurse of the Operating Room, kept three surgical theaters open for the wounded. When the surgical tent received a direct hit, equipment was damaged and two corpsmen were wounded by shell fragments. Despite the damage and the injuries of the staff, she encouraged her nurses not to curtail surgeries.3 Meanwhile, Lieutenant Ainsworth was working the night shift on the Surgical Ward where she directed that patients be placed on the floor. None of the patients were harmed, but Ainsworth sustained a chest wound that ultimately took her life six days later.4
Read their story at ANCA.org