June 23rd, 2005

The darkest day ever for female Marines, when two were killed—along with a beloved female sailor—and many more injured in an attack on a convoy in Iraq. One of the three deadliest days ever in the history of U.S. military women.

From the second truck in the convoy, Marine Sergeant Kent Padmore heard a screeching of tires and an explosion, then his own vehicle braked to a stop so quickly that all dozen or so men in it went tumbling to the floor. When Padmore sat up, he saw the women’s truck in flames about 250 yards away. A flight medic back in Miami, Padmore, then 38, had been good friends with Saalman, Clark and Humphrey.

Immediately he jumped from his truck and ran toward the burning seven-ton, barely aware of the bullets zinging past him; the insurgents had staged an ambush to coincide with the car bomb.

There’s no way, he thought as he ran. They’re all dead. He stopped—it was useless to continue. But then he pushed forward. Keep going, he told himself. He thought of how Clark couldn’t wait to go backpacking with her son when she got back to the U.S., about tough-as-nails Humphrey, and about Saalman, the music-loving beauty. It can’t be, he said to himself, and kept running as fast as he could.

Just as Padmore reached the scene, he saw Saalman staggering toward him, her charred, flayed hands held up before her, her eyes vacant in a blackened face. She’d lost her rifle during the explosion. “Sally, pull yourself together,” he said. “You are not going to die. I promise: You are not going to die. But we need some leadership.”

He watched her expression change instantly from shock to rage. “Somebody give me a fucking weapon!” she screamed. “I need a fucking weapon!” The adrenaline pumping through her body obviously masked her pain. Padmore handed her his own M16 and headed off to find other wounded marines, with the sound of Saalman firing her gun toward the insurgents ringing in his ears.
( … )

On the evening of June 23, as word of the disaster spread, a freckle-faced young female marine stationed in Ramadi, a city near Fallujah, had approached Colonel Robert Chase, who was helping run crisis control at the command center, to say she urgently needed to talk to him. He told her the timing wasn’t good, but she insisted.

Reluctantly, Chase stepped outside his office to meet with her — and in the hallway, he encountered about 10 more female marines. “Sir, we know we’ve had women killed,” said the marine who’d first approached him. “We have to replace them — we want to go.”

Chase was stunned. “I’ll be candid, it was one of the most emotional and profound moments for me,” he says. “I don’t often work with women as an infantry officer, but at that moment, there were no women there — there were just marines.”

Light some candles!—

The women killed in the attack:
• Regina Clark, of the Navy, a 43-year-old single mother when she died;
• Ramona Valdez, 20, of the Bronx (and the Dominican Republic);
• Holly Charette, 21, of Rhode Island.

Male marines who died in that same attack, and were part of the convoy, trying to keep the women safe:
• Veashna Muy, 20;
• Chad Powell, 22;
• Carlos Pineda, 23.

And say some prayers of gratitude; where do we find such men and women? The survivors from the seven-ton that carried the woman Marines, and the one late sailor—all of whom are now recipients of the Purple Heart. Listed here with their ages in June of 2005:

• Alisha Harding, 23, of Utah, who helped to save the life of
• Anjelica Jimenez, 20, of New Jersey;
• Sally Saalman, 21, of Indiana, who was badly burned, but demanded a rifle and fought back;
• Christina Humphrey, 22, of California, who had previously show valor under fire;
• Erin Libby, 21, of Maine;
• Diana Cardille, 23, of Pennsylvania;
• Laura Bringas, 21, of Arizona;
• Lynn Beasley, 20, of Illinois;
• Teresa Fernandez, 21, of New Jersey;
• Kodie Misiura, 19, of California; and
• Oyoana Allenda, 21, of Illinois.

Courtesy of the invaluable Cassandra, and Maryanne, who links to a PDF of the original article from Glamour magazine.

Retreiver is also amazed and heartened by this story, and uses it to point out that not every women—nor every man—fits the bell curve.

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