Kentucky National Guard Military Police Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, the first woman to earn a Silver Star since World War II, isn’t in the grade school history books, like Sgt. Alvin York once was.
That kind of thing isn’t done these days, and we may yet suffer for the intentional slight. Hester’s story of the fight near ASR Bismarck is just as remarkable, but a lot harder to find. The Omaha World Herald seems to have done the best job at the time of the incident in 2005, though you have to read almost to the end before her name appears. This year, Hester is the subject of a new exhibit at the U.S. Army Women’s Museum, where she was quoted thusly:
“There’s a lot of soldiers that are doing this job right now,” she said. “Right this minute, right now, they’re doing now what we were doing then, and they’re not getting the credit they deserve. Look at the big picture. We did great one day, but there are people doing that every day. Don’t lose sight of that.”
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 