Download Shoot Like A Girl: One Womans Dramatic Fight In Afghanistan And On The Home Front Illustrated By Mary Jennings Hegar Provided As Audio Books

good thing about memories is the priceless price of shared experiences,
Whether you agree or not, with the voice of the person who writes them, the resounding influence they have to expand your mind and your reality is indisputable.

For me it was a pleasure to immerse myself in the life story of Air National Guard Major Mary Jennings Hegar, She just couldn't stop listening to him,
From her courage to her resilience, to end her fight for gender equality is applicable to all existence no matter what your goals are, This is the memoir of Air Force Major Mary Jennings Hegar, She was a rescue helicopter pilot, She had successfully rescued hundreds of men and women off the battlefield, Hegar had served three tours in Afghanistan, The author briefly covers her time in high school and ROTC in college, Most of the book is about her time in military service,

Hegar tells of being shot down during a rescue mission, She was also shot by the Taliban, She fought through her injuries to save the three Americans that were the target of the rescue mission and her own team, Their ordeal culminated in a daring escape hanging onto the skids of a Kiowa helicopter, Major Hegar was awarded the Purple Heart, She was the sixth women to receive The Distinguished Flying Cross and only the second women ever to receive it with the Valor Device,

As exciting and interesting the combat part of the book was, the real story happened when she returned to the States, Hegar had to fight the military for access to combat related Veterans Services, After she stopped flying, she was refused a job she applied for in the Air National Guard, The reason for refusal was she was a woman otherwise, she was qualified for the job, She had to sue the Secretary of Defense that the Combat Exclusion Policy was unconstitutional after all she had spent three tours in combat in Afghanistan even if the military ignored it.
She won the case. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta removed gender discrimination from the military, Any position depends on meeting the qualifications for the job and, if qualified, cannot be refused based on gender, race or religion,

The book is well written and is easy to read, There is a little violence and some foul language, but a teenager could read the book with no difficulty, The author does go into the sexual discrimination/harassment she had to endure during her flight training and during her service years, I believe I read that a movie is being made from the book,

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible, The book is almost eight and a half hours long, Cynthia Farrell does a good job narrating the book, Farrell is an actress and audiobook narrator,
COMMENTS

Picture
by: Mark Palm
out ofstars

I have read more than my fair share of military biographies, and most of them are soso, with the most notable exceptions being those of Ulysses Grant, Winston Churchill, and T.
E. Lawrence. Mary Jennings Hegars Shoot Like A Girl: One Womans Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and the Home Front may not quite be as good but its damn close, In fact, in some ways it is better, This book may not be a work of literature equal to the ones that I have just mentioned, but Ms, Hegar is fighting two battles here she is documenting her life as a soldier, and a warrior, and also telling the tale of her battle with the entrenched biases against women serving in the military, and particularly against women serving in combat.


Ms. Hegar takes us through her life from before high school up until the end of her career, and she does not stint or gloss over the personal ups and downs she experienced.
After being commissioned into the U, S. Air Force, Ms. Hegar was selected for pilot training by the Air National Guard, finishing at the top of her class, Eventually she served three tours in Afghanistan, flying searchand rescue missions, culminating with an extremely dangerous mission that ended with her winning a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross.


Through all of this Ms, Hegars prose style is transparent in the best way, giving equal insight into her relationships with friends and family, and also into the nuts and bolts reality of being a soldier.
From the humdrum down time to the nervewracking realities of combat Ms, Hegar never overplays her hand, It all feels as solid and real as a brick, Not surprisingly the scenes involving flight are so vivid that I felt that I was right there in the cockpit, The author also shows a real knack for describing complex processes and procedures in a clear way, without oversimplification, What gives this book an extra lift is that the author takes the

same approach in dealing with her personal and emotional life, Whether dealing with sexual harassment or her first turbulent marriage, or times when her drive to be the best actually became an impediment to the success of a particular mission, Ms.
Hegar lets the moment speak for itself, Rare is the writer who can accomplish that without putting their thumb on the scale, Let me make clear that that does not mean that she tells her story without passion or feeling, There are plenty of moments that made want to cry, or stand up and cheer, but Ms, Hegar is first and foremost a soldier, and ir shows in her matterof fact approach to even the most difficult parts of her life,

Shoot Like A Girl is a tight, taut gripping book by and about a kickass woman warrior, ANd one of the most intriguing aspects of the book is when Ms, Hegar shows us that she sees her role not only a duty, but a joy, When things are their most perilous Ms, Hegar seems to bloom, and she shows this time and again, without ever dismissing the fact that her life, and the lives of her comrades are on the line.
Heroic is a word that is often tossed around lightly, but I really think cannot think of a word that fits better here,

As always I have tried not to drop any spoilers, but I will give you one teaser, in the hopes that if my review isnt enough to make you read this book may this will the title is not an insult, but a compliment.
If you want to know how and why, well, read this book, You wont regret it.

Picked this up because of the title apparently it's not an insult, women tend to be better marksmen than men, for several reasons, I was surprised at how wellwritten it was given the lack of a ghostwriter, I was expecting the first half to be about soldiering and the second half to be about policy fighting, so I was pleasantly surprised that the exciting stuff was/of the book and there was only one chapter about suing the government.


The author totally kicks ass, I like how her standard challenge to anybody who denigrates her for being a woman is to challenge them to a pushup contest, She says she has never lost because the super fit men don't feel threatened by her, I admired the way she kept pursuing her dream of becoming a pilot when it kept getting pushed farther and farther away she didn't get selected out of ROTC, then she didn't get selected from Japan because another woman was about to age out, so she finally went Air National Guard.
I also admired the way she talked frankly about mistakes she had made and lessons she had learned, without attaching shame or embarrassment to them, Sheryl Sandberg noticed that is emphasized in the military, If only everybody could act like that, I also admired her for getting through a lot of stuff abusive father, unexpected death of wonderful stepfather, bad knee injury and incomplete recovery causing her to have to take SERE twice, sexual assault by flight surgeon, unit that watched her get sexually harassed and did nothing.


I liked the story with the bunny c'mon, if you're told not to name it, clearly it's not a mascot and the exciting combat stories daring pilots save the day!.
There was also good food for thought in the story of her good friend TJ saying to her "That's why they shouldn't let women in combat" after a wounded female soldier they had picked up got scared.
What, competent women aren't thought of as female And as MJ said, the male pilot of Pedrolost his nerve too,

Anyway, once again, I feel lucky that I haven't been harassed even though I'm in a maledominated field, Was it telling that the unit that accepted her was from California and the unit that just let her get harassed was from New York Or was that a coincidence.