Afghanistan hero fought women combat ban

placed in his free hand, determined to fight to the death. Still, Pedro 16 refused to land. As the Taliban converged, two Army Kiowas came to the rescue. Pedro 16 could hang back no longer. In the frantic scramble to get the injured into the second chopper, Hegar and her pilot were ordered onto the skids of a Kiowa. As it rose, Hegar opened fire. Hours later, at her debriefing, she braced herself to face accusations of being reckless for firing at the enemy from a rising chopper.

She recalls the pilot of Pedro 16, who had tried to lie his way out of his failure to act, eyeing the room, waiting for the moment when she’d be called out.

It came when the Army officer piloting the Kiowa demanded to know who’d opened fire from his chopper.

Hegar raised her hand meekly, only as far as her ear.

“F----n’ A, that was awesome,” he shouted. “I didn’t think we were going to make it outta there. You got their heads down so we could lift. Nice job.”

After her heroic action, Hegar was fast-tracked to become an aircraft commander. Instead, she chose to quit full-time deployment. But in 2012, she became the lead plaintiff of four in an American Civil Liberties Union federal suit challenging the military ban on women in combat.

The ban was nominally lifted in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2016 that combat roles in all infantry units and special operations, including the Marines, were opened to women.

That day on the skid when Hegar opened fire on the Taliban, she played her own part in putting women on the front lines of the U.S. Army.