The driver for Charlie Team, 2nd Squad, 4th Platoon, 617th Military Police Company - a Kentucky National Guard unit - Specialist Ashley Pullen, in this interview, shares her experiences regarding a complex 20 March 2005 enemy ambush southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, that resulted in her squad - led by Silver Star recipient, Staff Sergeant Timothy F. Nein - killing or capturing 34 insurgents and losing not a single US soldier. Beginning with prior, smaller-scale ambushes her squad encountered and then moving into a description of the 15-mile stretch of Main Supply Route Detroit that constituted its area of responsibility, Pullen gives a detailed, often harrowing, account of her actions and those of her unit when -- tasked with shadowing a convoy of transportation vehicles - they came under attack by insurgents heavily armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Both returning and dodging heavy fire - as well as simultaneously giving on-the-spot medical assistance to seriously wounded fellow soldiers, essentially acting as a medic - she exclaimed that "It's a miracle I didn't get shot that day." "If I was asked to do something I would do it," Pullen said, "and I always thought I was a good soldier. But because of the situation [that day], I took control of my immediate situation and, in a way, did my own thing without being told to. I guess that would be called taking the initiative…. Just because you're not a sergeant or a noncommissioned officer," she observed, "doesn't mean you can't be a leader." Pullen also candidly discusses her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) upon redeploying back to the United States.

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