Leann hester nicole hester
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Leigh Ann Hester
Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester served in the Army National Guard and became the first woman to receive the Silver Star for valor since World War II. In Iraq she ran toward the enemy trench line and engaged in a 45-minute firefight.
QUESTION: Why did you join the military?
LEIGH ANN HESTER: I joined the military because it was a childhood dream. I always looked up to seeing anybody in uniform, especially a woman in uniform, because it was rare. Police officer or a female Soldier, I always wanted to be that person.
QUESTION: When did you join and what was the attitude at that time?
LEIGH ANN HESTER: 2001. The attitude towards women when I joined, I believe it was just a few years before they integrated women into basic training with men. For me, I didn't know any different. I heard stories about how other military bases or boot camps where it was all male and I really didn't have any problems. As long as you can show you're tough and pull your own weight, you know, you won't have any problems, male or female.
QUESTION: Did you join before or after 9/1
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Sfc.Hester is one of the few women to be awarded for valor in close-quarters combat.
Leigh Ann Hester was a sergeant with theNational Guard’s Kentucky-based 617th Military Police Company when she was deployed to Iraq, and in 2005, she was scanning and clearing a route for a supply convoy near Baghdad when her squad wasambushed by enemy fire.
She was trained for this, as it was a risk that came with herdaily job in Iraq. Thus, when they became under attack,she knew exactly what to do. She directed her team away from the enemy’s intense fire and into a flanking position that exposed multiple irrigation ditches and an orchard that the enemies were using to stage the attack.
She wasinitially directing fire, then began fighting on foot.Sgt. Hester displayed incredible bravery as she had walked directly into the line of fire to kill at least three enemy combatants at close range, resulting in numerous convoy members lives saved. With thirty-three insurgents killed or wounded and one captured,every member of her unit survived.
Her heroic actions led her to become the first woman si
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Leigh Ann Hester
American soldier who was awarded the Silver Star
Leigh Ann Hester (born January 12, 1982)[2] is a United States Army National Guard soldier. While assigned to the 617th Military PoliceCompany,[3] a Kentucky Army National Guard unit out of Richmond, Kentucky,[3] Hester received the Silver Star for her heroic actions on 20 March 2005 during an enemy ambush on a supply convoy near the town of Salman Pak, Iraq.[4]
Hester is the first female U.S. Army soldier to receive the Silver Star since World War II and the first ever to be cited for valor in close quarters combat.[5]
Career
2000s
Hester enlisted in the U.S. Army in April 2001.
In Iraq,[3] Hester's military police squad, consisting of eight men and two women in three Humvees, were shadowing a 30-truck supply convoy when approximately 50 insurgent fighters ambushed the convoy with AK-47, RPK machine gun fire, and rocket propelled grenades (RPG). The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off t
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