Heroic Medic Earns Silver Star

This won't get much play in the dinosaur media, but I'd like to give a high five to Army Specialist Monica Lin Brown from Texas,who has just been awarded the Silver Star for her heroic actions in Afghanistan.

Last April,she was part of a convoy of Humvees in Paktia province which was hit by an ambush. A roadside bomb disabled one of the Hummers and the terrorists began hitting the rest of the convoy with small arms and mortar fire from less than a hundred yards away.

Five soldiers from her unit were wounded in the initial explosion, but instead of taking cover, Specialist Brown ran through the enemy fire to get her wounded comrades to safety and actually used her own body to shield them.

"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown said Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.

"We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag," Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.

"I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire," Brown said.

Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot.

"So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."

For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away, treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.

"I did not really have time to be scared," Brown said. "Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary."

The citation says that Brown's "bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat."

The story I've linked to above mainly focuses on Brown's gender and actually refers to our enemies as 'insurgents'. Frankly, I think both conceits are insulting.

A warrior is a warrior, and our enemies are not 'insurgents', but our enemies - al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists who are at their best in a horizontal and non-breathing position.

In this case, what we have is an heroic warrior decorated for gallantry under fire against our enemies.

Well done, Specialist Brown.