Welcome to the 15th exploration of the Planet of the Savage Strident DKos Feminist Supervixens!
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Previous "episodes" in this diary series have been written by hrh, with guest-host diaries from mem from somerville (here and here), Elise, righteousbabe, and irishwitch. Some more guest-hosts are waiting in the wings. Feminists who are interested in being a guest-host can email hrh at: feministsupervixens (AT) yahoo.com
This week's diary presents a few women military heroes and "firsts" whom you may not have heard about. Don't mess with THESE women!
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, winner of the Silver Star in 2005.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester fought her way through an enemy ambush south of Baghdad, killing three insurgents with her M-4 rifle to save fellow soldiers' lives -- and yesterday became the first woman since World War II to win the Silver Star medal for valor in combat.
The 23-year-old retail store manager from Bowling Green, Ky., won the award for skillfully leading her team of military police soldiers in a counterattack after about 50 insurgents ambushed a supply convoy they were guarding near Salman Pak on March 20.
After insurgents hit the convoy with a barrage of fire from machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Hester "maneuvered her team through the kill zone into a flanking position where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 rounds," according to the Army citation accompanying the Silver Star.
"She then cleared two trenches with her squad leader where she engaged and eliminated three AIF [anti-Iraqi forces] with her M4 rifle. Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members," the citation stated.
Hester, a varsity softball and basketball player in high school, joined the Army in 2001 and was assigned to the Kentucky National Guard's 617th Military Police Company, based in Richmond, Ky.
A female driver with the unit, Spec. Ashley J. Pullen of Danville, Ky., also won the Bronze Star for her bravery. Pullen laid down fire to suppress insurgents and then "exposed herself to heavy AIF fires in order to provide medical assistance to her critically injured comrades," saving several lives, her citation said.
There is a gripping account of the incident here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester handed Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein a grenade. He had the better arm. Nein hurled it at the insurgents, who were crouched in the same trench, firing their AK-47 rifles at the Americans in the early afternoon.
Hester and Nein inched forward, the two recalled, Hester firing her black M-4 assault rifle next to Nein's ear.
[...]
"I really don't know who killed who," said Hester, who stands 5-foot-4, speaks with a twang and walks with a swagger. "He could have got three, I could have got one, I don't know. I know for sure I got at least one."
[...]
The battle occurred immediately before the recent controversy in Congress over the suitability of having women in combat. Hester's squad and commanders derided the debate as insignificant and absurd. "It kind of makes me mad," Hester said. "Women can basically do any job that men can."
She outdid her "Greatest Generation" grandfather:
The episode adds to her family's already illustrious military history. Sgt Hester's grandfather, Oran Sollinger, was awarded a Bronze Star for gallantry during the Second World War. "I'm going to tell her that I have to re-enlist now and get a Silver Star, too," the 79-year-old joked. "I am really proud of her."
The previous women who won Silver Stars were nurses who evacuated a military hospital in Anzio during WW2.
Air Force Captain Kim Campbell. In 1993, her A-10 Warthog was shot up over Iraq, but she elected to fly it back to base rather than eject.
Three weeks into the fighting in Iraq, American ground troops were under intense enemy fire near downtown Baghdad when the call went out for air support.
One of the aircraft dispatched that dreary, gray morning was flown by Air Force Captain Kim Reed Campbell, a fighter pilot known by the call name "Killer Chick." Campbell, 28, is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs barely 100 pounds.
The plane rolled left and pointed at the ground, which is not a comforting feeling over Baghdad," Campbell told the Air Force Times. "The jet wasn't responding to any of my control inputs."
The A-10's hydraulic systems were damaged, disabling the flight controls, landing gear and brakes among other critical systems, including part of the plane's stabilizer.
But the manual flight controls continued to work.
For one tense hour, crew members at the air base and other A-10 pilots anxiously awaited Campbell's return. Emerging from the murky morning skies, Campbell landed her battle-scarred A-10 nearly perfectly, the Air Force Times reported.
[...]
Kim Campbell, a San Jose, Calif., native, says she loves flying, especially the A-10.
"There's nothing better than flying the `Hog,' and I really enjoy it," she said. "I plan to stick around for a while."
Capt. Campbell has always been a hardass:
"[S]he announced she was going to the Air Force Academy to become a pilot," her father recalled. "She did not ask. It was a statement."
[...]
Stubbornness once led her to run an entire cross-country race over the rough terrain of Alum Rock Park with one shoe rather than taking the time to replace the one that fell off. She called her dad from the emergency room just to let him know her bloody foot was under repair.
The same quality came into play during her first interaction with the Air Force. ``I got a rejection letter from the academy,'' she recalled.
But the academy was under fire from an applicant who had been both a cheerleader and a star on her school's cross-country and soccer teams -- a homecoming queen and a senior class president. High school friends knew it wouldn't be a fair fight.
[...]
"I just continued to send them letters on how I was improving, whether physically or academically," said Campbell, who also took the SAT six times. "If I had an A on a paper, or if I could do 20 more push-ups, I'd tell them, just because I wanted to improve my standing."
Finally, the Air Force Academy surrendered.
More attempted blockades came at Campbell after graduation from the academy -- a heart condition rendered her unfit for pilot training. But once again she pressed on with determination and secured a medical waiver from the Secretary of the Air Force.
Airman 1st Class Vanessa Dobos, the Air Force's first woman to be an aerial gunner.
Raised in the small town of Valley View, Ohio, her interest in the military was sparked by her father. Described by Dobos as a "history buff," her dad talked a lot about America's past heroes while they often watched classic war movies.
" He instilled in me so much respect for our country's past heroes," she said.
Near the end of her senior year in high school, she found herself talking to a recruiter. She told him she wouldn't consider a job if it wasn't flying-related.
" I had no intention of joining," she said. "I didn't realize how few enlisted aircrew jobs there were."
Nothing appealed to Dobos until another recruiter mentioned a career field that had just opened to new recruits -- 1A7X1, or aerial gunner.
" Just the title caught my eye," she said, and to her parents' surprise, as well as her own, she signed up that day.
Air Force Capt. Nicole Malachowski, a member of the Thunderbirds. She is the first woman demonstration pilot in any US military high performance jet team.
Nicole Malachowski, Captain, USAF, F-15 Strike Eagle driver, callsign "Fifi", 1996 Air Force Academy grad, fourth in her class, officer, combat vet, leader, highest ranked Junior ROTC cadet in the nation, and now, the first woman to be named an USAF Thunderbird pilot, picked to fly Number 3 right wing position in the diamond formation.
Air Force Capt. Christina "Shaq" Szasz has flown her F-16CJ fighter jet in Iraq.
Though her brothers and sisters, cousin and father are all in the military, she said her real inspiration came from her grandfather, a freedom fighter in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. She did a documentary on him while she was in college.
"I loved listening to his stories and just how patriotic he was. He believed very strongly in fighting for freedom, and he always used to instill that into us, as to how it's your job and your duty to do whatever you can to help that cause. Just seeing him and my father serve, it just came naturally," she said.
[...]
Though her grandfather passed away a few years ago, she said he was very proud of her for joining the military.
"When I was doing the documentary on him, he said, 'You don't know how happy it makes me to know that I was able to be a soldier, my son was able to be a soldier and my granddaughter is able to be a soldier.' That was really nice," Szasz said, her face lighting up.
I'll have some more interesting "Sisters in Arms" next week.