Combat Roles

See images of the women who’ve been moving closer and closer to the front lines for years.

This week’s decision by the U.S. Department of Defense to open up combat positions to women was certainly a historic day for the U.S. Armed Forces, but American women have actually been seeing combat for some time now. In wars without a defined front line, where anywhere can quickly become a combat zone, the difference between “combat” and “non-combat” roles often breaks down. One hundred fifty-two women have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight lost their lives last year. These are their stories.

ARMY SPC. BRITTANY GORDON
Died: Oct. 13 in Kandahar
Age:24

A native of St. Petersburg, Florida — and daughter of the city’s assistant police chief — Gordon was nicknamed “Queen Bee” by her friends and graduated high school in 2006. She had expressed interest in a career in law and spent a year at the University of Florida before signing up for the Army. She worked as an intelligence analyst and spent a year on a base in Seattle before being sent to Afghanistan.

Gordon was killed by a suicide bomber who attacked a U.S. delegation delivering furniture to the remote Maruf district of Kandahar province. A former U.S. military officer and four Afghan intelligence personnel were also killed in the bombing.

Gordon, who turned 24 just days before her death, had been scheduled to return home last December. “If I would describe her, she had no fear. She wanted to make a difference. Because that’s what military people do: make a difference in the lives of others,” her cousin, the Rev. Evelyn Thompson, told the Tampa Bay Times.

MARINE SGT. CAMELLA STEEDLEY
Died: Oct. 3 in Helmand Province
Age: 31

Steedley first joined the Marines in 2001 and was serving on her first deployment to Afghanistan. Steedley was an air operations clerk serving with the 1st Marine Logistics Group. The Marine Corps has said only that she died “supporting combat operations” in Helmand, and the circumstances of her death are currently under investigation.

Steedley, originally from San Diego, lived in San Clemente with her husband of eight years, also a marine, and their four children. She had received numerous commendations including two Marine Corps Good Conduct Medals, three certificates of commendation, and numerous others.

ARMY SGT. DONNA JOHNSON
Died: Oct. 1 in Khost
Age: 29

A member of the North Carolina Army National Guard, Johnson was on her second tour of duty after having deployed to Iraq in 2007. Johnson was killed along with two other members of the guard after a suicide bomber detonated his vest while they were on foot patrol in a market in the eastern city of Khost. She is survived by her wife, Tracy Dice, who also serves in the military.

Johnson, who married Dice in Washington D.C. in 2011, shortly after the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, is the first known married, lesbian service member killed in action, and some supporters were angered when initial press reports failed to mention Dice. Because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Dice is not recognized by the Department of Defense as Johnson’s spouse and is not listed as a next of kin — meaning she was not among those first informed of her wife’s death and learned of it via the Internet — and is not eligible for the grief counseling or honors typically afforded military spouses. It was only thanks to an intervention from Johnson’s mother that Dice was allowed to accompany the casket from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Dice is currently fighting a legal battle with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to be granted survivor’s benefits as Johnson’s widow. The U.S. Supreme Court is due to review the Defense of Marriage Act later this year.

ARMY CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 2 THALIA S. RAMIREZ
Died: Sept. 5 in Logar Province
Age: 28

Though she listed San Antonio as her hometown when she enlisted, Ramirez grew up mostly in Nairobi, the daughter of a Kenyan mother and a Puerto Rican father. She joined the Army in 2003, shortly after moving to the United States, and initially worked as a water purification specialist before becoming a helicopter pilot in 2008. She was killed along with copilot and fellow Texan Jose Montenegro in a helicopter crash in Logar. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. She is survived by a husband, currently living in North Carolina, and her parents in Kenya.

Ramirez had escaped from a firefight in June and been awarded the Army’s Air Medal. She had flown more than 20 missions and 650 hours on her tour of duty, which was scheduled to end in just days. “She selflessly risked everything, on a regular basis, in defense of her brothers and sisters in arms,” her commander, Lt. Col. Landy Dunham, told the San Antonio Express-News.

ARMY STAFF SGT. JESSICA M. WING
Died: Aug. 27 in Kuwait City, Kuwait
Age: 42

A member of the Maine National Guard for eight years, Wing had previously served on active duty in the Army for 11 years, including deployments to Haiti and Bosnia. This was her third deployment to the Middle East as a member of the guard. The cause of her death, which was not related to combat, is currently under investigation.

Wing was a Black Hawk crew chief for the Bangor-based 126th Aviation Medevac unit, known as the “Black Bears,” which works to airlift soldiers out of combat. In addition to serving in the guard, Wing had a second job fixing and maintaining helicopters at the Army Aviation Support Facility. With two decades of experience in repairing military helicopters, colleagues described her as a “subject matter expert” and the unit’s go-to person for maintenance questions.

Shortly before her fourth deployment in 2005, she told the Bangor Daily News, “It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been deployed, once or 100 times, it’s all the same. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

ARMY PFC. PATRICIA L. HORNE
Died: Aug. 24 in Bagram
Age: 20

Horne had hoped to become a doctor after getting out of the Army and just a few weeks before her death, had called her mother to say she was planning to reenlist because “the Army would pay for her schooling.” In the Army, Horne had worked as a human resource specialist, working to maintain soldiers’ records for the elite 101st Airborne Division. The cause of her death has not been released.

In her hometown of Greenwood, Miss., Horne was remembered as ambitious and a perfectionist. “Everything she wanted to do, she wanted to do it perfect,” her high school principal told the AP.

ARMY SPC. KRYSTAL FITTS
Died: July 17 in Kandahar
Age: 26

Fitts, of Houston, Texas, first joined the Army in 2009 as a chemical operations specialist. In Afghanistan, she volunteered to serve on a Female Engagement Team supporting the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. The FETs are special units of female troops assigned to engage with local women who might be wary of male soldiers. Fitts studied Pashto in order to better communicate with locals.

“They have been the literal face of America to a host of Afghan women and children,” Lt. Col. Timothy Gilhool, one her commanding officers, said. “Krystal was unafraid. Her presence made the difference.” She had received numerous commendations, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. She was killed by indirect fire when her base came under attack.

On the day of her death, Fitts posted a photo of a soldier’s helmet with a bullet hole through it on her Facebook page, with the caption, “Remember so many have given of their lives that we have the privilege and the duty to make the most of ours. Let us do our best to live worthy of this freedom they fought and gave their all for us to enjoy.”

ARMY SPC. ERICA P. ALECKSEN
Died: July 8 in Maidan Shahr
Age: 21

Alecksen was killed along with five other members of her military police company when the truck they were riding in ran over an IED in a restive city near Kabul — one of the deadliest days in months for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. A native of the small town of Eatonton, Ga., Alecksen joined the Army in 2010 and was soon transferred to Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas, taking along the husband she had met back home. She then shipped out for a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan.

Alecksen had decided to become a military police officer after asking a retired general for advice after services at her church. He told her that MPs were assigned protect soldiers and their families. Family members credited long shifts spent working in her father’s garage for the toughness and stoicism that served her well in the Army.

“If there was something she didn’t like, you never heard it from her,” her grandfather told the Army Times. “If there was something she did like, she might say something but not dwell on it.”