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She grew up a girl next door. Outgoing, athletic, snowboards and cheerleading. She joined the Army to pay for college.

Then someone taught her to jump out of perfectly good airplanes.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.

After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

Marine Captain Gamal F. Awad was doing pretty well for himself on September 10, 2001. He was married to a fellow officer, had two lovely daughters, and a prestigious job working for the Commandant of the Marine Crops in the Special Projects Directorate.

It all changed shortly after he went to work in his office at the Pentagon on September 11.

It’s late Thursday. I’ve been working all week. I’m beat. Here’s a treat for the nature lover in all of us.
Rochester New York is unique in many ways and this is one of its most unique and best kept secrets. The City has a river and a riverine gorge running through it. Below the fold [...]

Here are some pics from my visit to Chimney Bluffs State Park. I would highly recommend a trip to this truly spectacular sight. It’s just east of Sodus Bay, north of 104, and about an hour driving time from Rochester.
These formations are the result of erosion, wind and water, acting on a glacial ridge. These [...]

WoT Heroes

Here is the latest data on medals awarded by the Army for actions in the War on Terror.

O’Connor was instrumental in keeping his team alive during an intense battle with more than 250 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan on June 22, 2006. While making a temporary stop during a patrol, his team and their attached Afghan National Army soldiers were attacked from all sides with small-arms fire, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and mortars.

This is the first account about the American role in the revolt at Qala-i-Jangi prison in Afghanistan, November 2001. Mitchell has appeared on this site before, but never in this detail.

Spc. Ross McGinnis, who was killed Dec. 4, 2006, in Iraq when he smothered a grenade with his body, will receive the Medal of Honor, sources told Army Times.

A Bronze Star with “V” device for valor was awarded to Army Sgt. Ryan P. Inabnet, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 1-91 Cavalry Squadron, at Fire Base Naray, Kunar province, April 24.

“As soon as I kneeled and looked around the corner I took a shot to the chest,” said Dirkintis. “At first I didn’t know I had been shot. My vision had gotten real blurry. It was difficult to breath. My entire body felt really, really numb.”

The force of the bullet had knocked Dirkintis to the ground and punctured a lung.

“I tried to crawl to all fours and to get up, but that’s when I started coughing up blood,” said Dirkintis. “I just couldn’t get up. It hurt really bad.”

Three Marines were hit. Lance Cpl. Christian Vasquez was killed, and Cardenas was hit in the neck. After he hit the deck, he looked up and saw that Roedema was on the ground.

“I saw my sergeant laying down and I said, ‘Not today,’” Cardenas recounted after the ceremony.

Women in the Military

Here are the stories of two military women, working in medicine.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Vanessa Feliscian, embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4), paints the interior walls of San Fransisco De Assisi’s Church in Guatemala

During Mogul’s military career she has played a significant role in detainee operations. While deployed with her previous unit, the 452nd Military Police Brigade Liaison Detachment, under the 43rd Brigade, she helped in closing down the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“I can’t put my name on it, but I’m really proud to be part of the team that closed it down,” said Mogul. “The actions of a few people stained everything and all the good we were doing. I think it was good to close it down; it meant a lot to the Iraqi people.”

The lieutenant colonel entered the Zabuli school for girls and women preschool student room with hopes of positively impacting at least one of the young Afghan girls.

“Those who put on the uniform of our country show tremendous self-sacrifice and service to others,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, the adjutant general for the state of New York. “I can think of no better group of military women more deserving of our military family’s praise than those serving women who balance their careers as Soldiers or Airmen and mothers for their children. They are heroes in their families, in their communities and deserve that recognition across our great state and our nation,” Taluto said.

Marines on a female search team and Iraqi women with the “Sisters of Fallujah” program have been working together at an entry control point here to help make the city of Fallujah a safer place.

The program was formed because females were needed to search other females. In Islamic tradition, a man touching a woman who is not his wife is considered offensive.

When Allison Paganetti joined the Army Reserve Officers Training Program (ROTC) at the University of Rhode Island, her fellow cadets kidded her. Is it true, they asked, that you compete in beauty pageants?

WoT

The Government of Iraq is currently funding a canal-cleaning project in the Jurf as Sakhr and Ruwiyah areas, approximately 55 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Zaytun Hospital reached a medical milestone May 14 by treating its 80,000th Kurdish patient.

Since November 2004, the hospital has achieved this goal by using the practice of “sincere medical treatment with love.”

Step after step, combat boots hit the pavement. It’s been a few hours for the Marine squad walking the Ramadi streets. Fatigued yet steady, the young men push forward on their routine foot patrol despite the mid-day desert heat; each squad member maintaining a constant alertness with eyes scanning the environment in every direction.

The squad leader passes by a familiar face; a local vender who he sees almost every day. Instantly, the look of exhaustion washes away, and a smile is brought to his face. Lifting his hand, he warmly greets the vender with, “Al salaam a’alaykum.”

The Albanian Defence Minister Gazmend Oketa landed in Herat to address the national contingent serving under ISAF Regional Command West (RC-W) on 13 May.

Two years ago, Ramadi’s police force was essentially wiped out by a strong insurgency that devastated almost every police station, leaving only a small number of officers on the job and a city considered by officials to be uncontrollable and nicknamed the “wild west.”

Historically speaking, what do Vikings and Afghanistan have in common?

Not much … but all that changed today, when five weapon-bearing Vikings landed their ‘long ship’ here. They did not bear the 8th century axes and swords that one would imagine. Instead, they clutched pom-poms, microphones and enough spirit to pump up the standing-room-only crowd of service members who came to bare witness.

Here is your must-see for the week. Task Force Marne, centered around the 3rd ID, has released an ebook full of compelling photos demonstrating the transformation of their area of responssibility in Iraq.