“Combat Barbie”

It is always a pleasure for me to post news of military women. Cpl. Krista Bullard earned the friendly nickname of 'Combat Barbie' for her combat reaction on a 50 cal. during an ambush.

Fighting paralegal proves her mettle in Baghdad battle
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, March 27, 2006


CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — You wouldn’t think this blond-haired, blue-eyed paralegal with a warm smile is a force to be reckoned with when she’s behind a .50-caliber machine gun.
But you — and the fighters who ambushed her convoy — would be wrong.

Army Cpl. Krista Bullard proved her combat mettle in late January when her convoy from Camp Arifjan came under attack close to Baghdad International Airport. Bullard, a private first class at the time, was the turret gunner in a Humvee when the enemy unleashed fire on her convoy at night. She returned fire with 61 rounds from her .50-caliber machine gun, causing secondary explosions at the enemy position. It was her first convoy manning a .50-caliber machine gun.

“I can’t say I wasn’t scared, because I was really scared,” said the 20-year-old from Altamont, Ill. “I didn’t want to be shot, but I wasn’t going to duck down and crawl in the vehicle. I was the .50-cal gunner. That was my job.”

Not only did Bullard earn the Combat Action Badge for her reactions in the incident, but the nearly 5-foot-10 woman received the friendly nicknames “Combat Barbie” and “Jag-Bo” from her fellow soldiers in the 37th Transportation Group out of Kaiserslautern, Germany. During this deployment, the 37th Transportation Command is known as the 37th Transportation Group.

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