Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.

This week Bruce told us about Army Sgt. Julia Bringloe

sgt-julia-bringloe

A nearby Apache gunship pilot radioed Bringloe’s crew, “Medevac, you guys are crazy.”
Helping her strap the dead translator to the line while she stayed behind, soldiers on the ground had to remind Bringloe to duck. “Somehow I think I’m impervious to bullets or something,” she said.

With the translator’s body safely aboard the Black Hawk above, Bringloe latched herself to the now vacant cable. The insurgents on the ridgeline promptly concentrated their fire on her dangling form. The high velocity rounds streamed past her as she rose, and sounded like “a kind of whistling” she later explained. Troops below radioed to Sabiston above, “They’re shooting at your medic! Get out of here!”

Unable to alter his position or risk dragging Bringloe into another tree, Sabiston had to remain hovering for a full 15 seconds while half-a-dozen insurgents pounded round after round at Bringloe on the rising cable. Breaking out the only weapon available, co-pilot CWO Ken Brodhead chambered a round in a nearby M4 and began firing from his window.

Though she doesn’t know how much it helped, Bringloe said “I thought it was pretty funny though. I love that guy.”
Sgt. Julia Bringloe joins only six other women to have received the Distinguished Flying Cross, including Amelia Earhart. The Flying Cross recognizes “extraordinary achievement for an aerial flight.”

The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The SYSK segment started on WRKO in April 2006 and the archive can be found here and The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here and you can find us on iTunes at Pundit Review Radio.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 6-8pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.