One of Ours

A profile of one of the Soldiers working over in Iraq. From the Defense Department Defend America website here. bq. During the second search, the soldier spotted a grenade hidden behind the visor on the driver�s side. The soldier shouted, "Grenade!" bq. "I immediately got man down on the ground, face down, and I remember pressing his face into a sandbag", Nicholson said. bq. She continued to hold him down until other soldiers came over and zip-cuffed the man. bq. The man then claimed he had the grenade because he was going to turn it in to the U.S. soldiers. But they did not believe that story, because he had not mentioned it, or indicated anything like that, until after the soldiers had found the grenade and after he had been subdued and was handcuffed with the plastic zip-strips. bq. "I really don�t remember exactly how I got him on the ground, but it was practically instantaneous", she said, blushing. "I don�t remember the details of putting him down. I just remember, suddenly, I had him down on the ground with his face pressed into a sandbag and I kept holding him there." bq. She said the man then started crying and someone said he might have been embarrassed because it was a shame for a man in Iraq to get beat up by a woman. bq. She later recalled that she had done some wrestling at Beatty High School in Beatty, Nev., and that experience, plus her Army training, gave her the right stuff to subdue the Iraqi man. Nicholson, 5�6� and 120 pounds, said she had wrestled against boys in high school, because the boys and girls were not separated for wrestling, so, throwing a man down was nothing new to her. bq. Asked the size of the Iraqi man, she said, "He was about my height, but heavier. I would say he was a little out of shape." bq. Asked if she had grown up as a tomboy, Nicholson said, "No, I was even a cheerleader for a little while. I guess I kind of grew up out in the middle of nowhere", she said, "and I just always had to do whatever needed to be done." It's people like this that are doing the real work - not the nattering nabobs.