DOD named Ernst combat vet

 To whom it may concern,

I see where the Huffington Post’s “military expert,” Andrew Reinback, has published a “gotcha” hatchet job on Senator Joni Ernst. He accuses her of embellishing her Iraq service when she claims she is a  combat veteran when,  indeed, she never came under fire.

Firstly, both the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense (DOD) have identified Ernst, in her records, as a combat veteran. Where she served, in southern Iraq and Baghdad, were both designated as combat zones which  authorized her to receive “Imminent Danger Pay”.

As a captain, she was in charge of a transportation company of 135 personnel and all attending vehicles. Her responsibility was to get “beans and bullets” off the ships in Kuwait, get them loaded onto her trucks and, then, convoy those trucks to the “front”. She accompanied her convoys, riding in the Command Humvee positioned in the middle of the column. Any situation that required a decision fell on her.

Not a danger? Tell that to the drivers and mechanics of the trucks or the gunship pilots that rode herd overhead. Believe me, your life changes when you are in a combat zone. Your head is on a swivel, your eyes and ears are wide open and your pucker factor (Google it) is “times ten”. This might not be “combat” as Mr. Reinback experienced it, but it’s combat, none-the-less. Certainly, Senator Ernst did not assault any machine gun nests with a .45 in one hand and a bayonet in the other, but she never claimed that. What she did do was voluntarily take responsibility for the lives of others and the successful completion of her mission in a very lethal desert war.

Don Pugsley 

Sergeant Major

US Army

Airborne Special Forces (Retired)

Des Moines