Army Medic and Silver Star Recipient Removed from Combat Situations
The Washington Post published an interesting story today about Army medic and Silver Star recipient Monica Brown.
KHOST, Afghanistan -- Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.
Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.
Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.
"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing."
Link
I think it's interesting that circulation is way down at almost every major newspaper in the country, and the newspaper industry is in the midst of an unprecedented decline. But overall readership has to be way up. Before Internet access became common, I only read the Washington Post on infrequent visits to Washington, D.C. Now I read the Post and The New York Times every day.
It's a real shame that the newspaper industry has been unable to adapt successfully to the Internet age.