Here's a Houston-area girl who's shown herself to be a hero. Hooray for Monica Lin Brown!
Dodging insurgent gunfire and mortars, a 19-year-old Lake Jackson soldier used her body as a shield to save the lives of five injured comrades following a roadside bomb that struck her convoy last spring in Afghanistan.Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown's act of bravery has earned her the Silver Star, making her only the second woman since World War II to receive the medal. The Silver Star is the nation's third-highest military award given for gallantry in combat.
''She just did what she was trained to do," her grandmother, Katy Brown, said from her Lake Jackson home on Sunday.
The Army medic was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia when a bomb struck one of the Humvees on April 25, military officials said.
After the explosion, Brown went through insurgent gunfire and mortars to reach five wounded soldiers. She used her body to shield the injured soldiers as she administered aid and helped drag them to safety, the military said.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Alan at March 9, 2008 10:04 PM