Silver Star Medic
Second Servicewoman Earns Silver Star for Gallantry In Combat

	Army SPC Monica Brown, a medic, is the second woman since World War II to earn a Silver Star for gallantry in combat. USA Photo by SPC Micah E. Clare.

Army Medic, SPC Monica Lin Brown, had only one thing on her mind when she leapt from her HMMWV, grabbed an aid bag, and ran through enemy fire to help five wounded soldiers who were crawling from the HMMWV that was burning behind her. “I did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of,” the Lake Jackson, TX, native told the Associated Press on March 9, 2008.

SPC Brown’s efforts to first shield the wounded and then move them to a safer location several hundred meters away in order to assess and treat them, earned her the second Silver Star in US military history awarded to a woman for action in direct combat.

She was serving with the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team April 25, 2007, when a roadside bomb ripped into their four-vehicle convoy, as it traveled through Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Insurgents attacked the convoy as wounded soldiers crawled from the damaged HMMWV and others struggled to save them. SPC Brown used her own body to shield the wounded from falling mortars and small arms fire, as well as from ammunition that was going off inside the burning HMMWV, according to the Associated Press.

“Rounds [were] now exploding in the fire from the HMMWV behind us [and] somewhere in the mix, we started taking mortar rounds. It became a huge commotion, but all I could let myself think about were my patients,” she told Army SPC Micah E. Clare for the American Forces Press Service March 24, 2008.

	Army Spc. Monica Brown, an 82nd Airborne medic draws blood from an Afghan boy at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan. USA Photo by SPC Micah E. Clare.

SPC Brown’s Silver Star nomination reads that her “bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered” —under the “commotion” that lasted nearly two hours before safe medical evacuation was possible—“saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat."

“Looking back, it was just a blur of noise and movement,” she told SPC Clare. She added that she has since realized that “everything I had done during the attack was just rote memory … With training like I was given, any medic would have done the same in my position.”

	Army Spc. Monica Brown joined the Army in 2005 with her brother Justin and hopes one day to serve in the Army Nurse Corps. USA Photo by SPC Micah E. Clare.

SPC Brown joined the Army in 2005 with her brother Justin Brown, who is also deployed in the Global War on Terror. She is due to return to the United States in late spring 2008 and plans to go to school so she can join the Army Nurse Corps.

SPC Brown is one of 15 women in US military history known to have received the Silver Star, and she is one of only two women to receive the medal for action in direct combat. The first was former Kentucky National Guard SGT Leigh Ann Hester who received the medal in 2005. To read more about SPC Brown, visit the Department of Defense Web site. To read more about SGT Hester, visit our Women’s History Month feature. Additionally, six Army nurses in World War I and seven Army nurses in World War II have been awarded the Silver Star.

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(April 2008)