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<p class=MsoNormal>Courtesy of the Army Times.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>---------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gunner takes bullet to helmet in rescue<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Spc. Patricia Fowler says the
Taliban got a lucky shot off, but she was glad to take the bullet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fowler, a crew chief and door gunner on a Black Hawk medevac
helicopter in southern Afghanistan, earned the Purple Heart following that
incident in May in which she was fractions of an inch from a much more serious
injury, probably death.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I was just doing my job, and they happened to get a
lucky shot off,” she said in a phone interview from Afghanistan with The
Leaf-Chronicle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fowler is part of Task Force Shadow and B Company, 5th
Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st
Airborne Division. In May, she was on a helicopter that was in the role of
“medical chase,” providing air support to another helicopter sent
to pick up wounded Marines.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I feel worse for those guys than I do for us,”
she said of her fellow aviators, who set down in the midst of Taliban gunfire
to rescue the wounded Americans.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fowler’s helicopter was circling the rescue site at
about 300 feet when gunfire started pinging off the helicopter. They began to
climb, and Fowler described a sensation of being hit in the back of the head
and scratches on her neck.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What she would later learn is now a remarkable story of luck
and bravery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A bullet from the gun of an enemy fighter had bounced off
the helicopter, into her helmet and back out, effectively navigating around her
head thanks to a bracket in the helmet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I had no idea at that time I had been shot,”
she said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Her fellow crew members could easily see what was a gaping
hole in her helmet caused by the ricocheting bullet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“[A fellow crew member] poked the other crew chief,
and I was like ‘What’s going on,’ ” she said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She took off her helmet and saw the hole, and “a good
chunk of Styrofoam” missing. Fowler had no idea what had happened, having
never lost communication from the radio device mounted in the helmet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“Amazingly, the helmet still worked,” she said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fowler’s helicopter made it to a base where she could
be seen by doctors. She had severe pain in her shoulder, which turned out to be
shrapnel embedded in her arm from the pinging bullets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I thought, ‘Cool,’ ” she joked.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She admits she had a small breakdown, realizing the narrow
miss she faced.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“If I’d have been sitting a half an inch further
back, it’d have gone through my neck,” she said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And even though Fowler admits she missed certain injury or
death by mere fractions of an inch, she said, “it justifies to me that I
was doing my job.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“We took fire away from them,” she said of her
fellow aviators and Marines, who were in the heat of battle below.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fowler and her commanding officer, Capt. Nick Horn, laughed
while discussing the event and camaraderie in the unit, a sign that morale is
high.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“Sometimes I guess these guys are really amazing, but
I have my few friends that keep me grounded,” she said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She also shrugged off the notion of being a sort of pioneer
for women in the military.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I’m a soldier first,” she said.
“I’m not the first female [to be a door gunner], I’m not the
last. I just work.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>-------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img width=693 height=562 id="Picture_x0020_0"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01CB4B71.E6E8DF80" alt="090310at_fowler1_800.JPG"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Spc. Patricia Fowler, right, receives the Purple Heart on
Aug. 5 at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Fowler, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter
crew chief, was a crew member of a chase helicopter on a medevac mission May 6
when the aircraft came under enemy fire while flying over Helmand province.
Five rounds impacted the aircraft, and one round ricocheted off the window
frame striking her helmet. The bullet rattled around inside Fowler’s
helmet, then exited without wounding her.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>---------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Seeya round town, Moscow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Moscow, Idaho<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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