Woman Gains Silver Star -- And Removal From Combat

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

KHOST, Afghanistan -- Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the soft pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.

Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.

Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.

"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing."

In Afghanistan as well as Iraq, female soldiers are often tasked to work in all-male combat units -- not only for their skills but also for the culturally sensitive role of providing medical treatment for local women, as well as searching them and otherwise interacting with them. Such war-zone pragmatism is at odds with Army rules intended to bar women from units that engage in direct combat or collocate with combat forces.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003415.html?hpid=topnews

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So 5-deferments chickenhawk Cheney got to pin her medal on. Closest Cheney will ever come to a medal!

And will these clowns in the Pentagon who like to think women aren't in combat cause some male soldiers to die b/c they don't have enough male combat medics?

[Demeter]

1. I Don't Know, Rambo. Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

[Lasher]

2. No, I think Lord Vader will get a Medal of Freedom.

Seems like all the biggest assholes in the administration are getting them.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Oh I forgot how all the failures get that shiny piece of tin!

Thanks for reminding me.

[frogcycle]

4. on a semi-related note

I just came across this - it's dated but still highly pertinent.
I have some 248 names of "non-hostile" deaths that are not further clarified as 'accident" or "illness" or something. About half of those say "weapon discharge." This young woman was on that list until a few minutes ago, when I found this confirmation of her suicide.

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/66/23558

I have come across several suicides @Guantanamo and among people charged with guarding prisoners in the OIF theatre. There are many, many more that are "non-hostile incidents." A LOT are women. Some, I expect, are victims of homicide (there are several confirmed such cases). The rest - well, maybe a few accidents...
These may not officially be "combat" deaths, but I don't know how to rationalize that they are anything but.

[Mojorabbit]

5. Why were they not supposed to take her?

My sis, a trauma nurse did a deployment and they would land on the front lines and haul butt out with a stretcher to retrieve people who were wounded. Is it because she was doing non medic duties?

[RamboLiberal]

7. Women technically aren't supposed to be in combat

But that's a lie in the modern day army where there a really no front lines anymore.

It the dumbasses in Congress and the WH who think women are still to delicate for that. But then you got women like Brown and others who have just as much bravery as the guys and want to be with unit even if its in combat.

[Muttocracy]

8. "no front lines anymore" - exactly. nt

[superconnected]

6. Good for her for being alive after running through gun fire to help ppl and for getting the medal.

Sad who had to pin it on her.

[skyounkin]

9. Good for her!!

I would be disgusated to get a medal from chickenshit cheney though. She should get two medals- one for her bravery and another for being in close proximity to cheney.....

[rasputin1952]

10. As a former Medical Platoon Sgt...

I commend PFC Brown for doing her job and receiving the Silver Star.

Regardless of who pinned the medal on her, (and I have NO respect for Cheney), she was awarded this medal because of her bravery under fire. I would have been extremely proud to have had her in my Platoon. She is a credit to the US Army Medical Corps.






:patriot:

On edit: Few people realize that Max Clelend two weeks before the grenade incident that took his limbs, was awarded the Silver Star for getting wounded soldiers out of the line of fire in a firefight and treated them, saving lives. Max was a Signal Corps Captain, and a hero, something that those jerks that fought so hard to defeat him, never acknowledged. Of course, they were all cowards who never wore any of the uniforms of this nation either.

[kestrel91316]

11. Hm. God forbid any WOMEN earn the Silver Star.

We can't have THAT!! Jeezus H. Christ - next thing ya know one of them will be winning a Medal of Honor and we REALLY can't allow THAT!