Women in the Military
comforting thunder of the rotor blades. I followed [the pilot’s] gaze to the
blood spreading over my exposed arm and the leg of my flight suit. ‘I’m hit,
but . . . I can still fly,’” she told her crew.
The parajumper insisted on examining her. Shrapnel had sprayed her arm
and thigh. MJ’s arm wound was minor, but her leg wound was bleeding heavily.
The pilot radioed base to say the copilot had been hit and they were returning.
Yet MJ insisted. “Look guys, I swear! I have full range of motion and my leg has
already stopped bleeding. We’ve got three cat-A [badly injured] soldiers down
there. Let’s get back to it.” She convinced her team to stay on task.
One of the two parajumpers on the ground radioed to say the injured
soldiers were ready for pickup. He had no idea Pedro One Five had been hit
by gunfire. MJ’s helicopter radioed Pedro One Six for covering fire so that One
Five could land. The sister ship radioed back that one of its machine guns had
malfunctioned and that it could not help.
While under heavy enemy fire, Pedro One Five landed to pick up
one parajumper and three patients. (The other parajumper’s location was
unknown.) “As the wheels touched down, heavy slugs from [enemy] machine
guns began to hit us hard . . . our eight-ton [7.3 t] aircraft rocked like a little
rowboat on the ocean,” MJ later said. The Taliban fighters were in an excellent
position—entrenched on a high hill firing down on Pedro One Five—to cause
maximum damage.
Then things got
really
bad.
Pedro One Five took off carrying a very heavy load: four crew, three
patients, and two parajumpers. MJ soon realized that gunfire had hit the
helicopter’s fuel lines. In minutes, the helicopter lost all its fuel and landed hard,
while under enemy fire. Covered in blood and fuel, MJ grabbed her rifle and
exited the damaged helicopter, ready to engage the enemy in active combat.
The Kiowas radioed they were returning to base to refuel and get more
ammunition. The pilots said, “If you can move [fast] we’ll swing by you first and
take you out on the skids.” The Kiowas landed. MJ and her gunner strapped
themselves to the skids [part of the landing gear] of one of the Kiowas. Slowly,
severely overweight and with rotors struggling to lift the load, the Kiowa took
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