Faces of Courage: Leigh Ann Hester

damn these are good

I appreciate the effort, but doesn't MSNBC downplay Sgt. Hester and her squad's accomplishment. As I remember, Sgt Hester and her small team stopped something like 30 insurgents, killing 20 and capturing the rest.

They make it sound like she got the Silver Star for drawing fire from the enemy.

No, she and her team killed the enemy in close quarter combat and crushed their attack on the convoy.

I appreciate the effort, but doesn't MSNBC downplay Sgt. Hester and her squad's accomplishment. As I remember, Sgt Hester and her small team stopped something like 30 insurgents, killing 20 and capturing the rest.

They make it sound like she got the Silver Star for drawing fire from the enemy.

No, she and her team killed the enemy in close quarter combat and crushed their attack on the convoy.

Incredible and gutsy and well deserving of this award. However, I have noted that on whole, the incredible courage of a vast array of our soldiers and marines goes uncommented upon not just on MSNBC but in the MSM.

Were I not a milblog reader, I would know nothing of Sgt Smith and his Posthumous Medal of Honor, others up for the MOH, also Posthumpously; Navy Cross winner Sgt Kassal and others who have won it and/or are nominated. The fact is that when you spread widely the stories of our military's courage, a rather common virtue these days, and describe accurately what they have done, you entertain the possibility of pride and support with the American people and even possibly support of the GWOT and as far as the MSM is concerned, we cannot have that.

The account does not, as has been pointed out, give the actual details which won the Sgt her Silver Star. I will have to give thought to kudos to MSNBC. That channel as a rule is denigrating and down-putting of everything that happens in the war zones. If Sgt Hestor had been a man, it would also have been unreported. It was the unique quality of the event which garnered the coverage, not the incredible heroics she displayed. If I was to hazard a guess, she would have preferred no mention of her gender, which is, after all, fairly obvious.

Well earned Sgt Hestor! I salute you and your troops. God bless you and thank-you for what you did for the convoy and for America.