Airman receives Purple Heart

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LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. --  One Little Rock Air Force Base Airman was honored Oct. 29 at an annual Judge Advocate General's Keystone Leadership Conference in Dallas.

Capt. Wendy Kosek, a Little Rock AFB staff judge advocate, received a Purple Heart from Lt. Gen. Jack Rives, Air Force Judge Advocate General, and Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, the Air Force's deputy judge advocate general in a ceremony attended by her family, friends and many from the Air Force's legal community.

Captain Kosek's journey to that stage began long before the conference in October. A native of Dallas, Captain Kosek began her Air Force Career through the Reserve Officers' Training Corp at the University of Notre Dame. After graduating in 2004, she commissioned as a second lieutenant and accepted an education delay to attend law school, also at the University of Notre Dame.

After graduating law school in 2007, she joined the Little Rock legal office. Her coworkers describe her as very active within the office and around the base. Shortly after she arrived, she was tasked to deploy for the first time. Friends say no one had any doubts that she would do well on her deployment. However, no one had any idea just how she would be called on to prove herself.

In early summer 2009, Captain Kosek attended the Advanced Contingency Skills Training Course at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. She would later credit the training she received at ACST and the skills she and her teammates learned there for saving her life.

In June 2009, she deployed from Little Rock AFB to Baghdad, Iraq, as part of Task Force 134. Barely two months into her six-month deployment, Captain Kosek's convoy was struck by an explosively formed projectile. As smoke filled the vehicle, Captain Kosek's training kicked in, and she did a quick assessment to determine what she would be able to do from a military standpoint. She said her self-assessment determined that she had been injured on her hand, face and leg.

Captain Kosek would later say she "knew that we would need to exit the (vehicle), but the Army major (also injured in the attack) and I were unlikely to be able to do this on our own." Teammates got Captain Kosek and her fellow passenger out of the vehicle. They tended her wounds, kept her conscious and guarded against secondary attacks. Captain Kosek sustained shrapnel cuts on the chin and hands. Shrapnel also entered her calf, broke her tibia and lodged itself behind her knee, millimeters from striking a major artery in her thigh.

She was taken to Camp Victory in Iraq for initial treatment and then transported back to the U.S. Captain Kosek has had five surgeries so far and is recuperating well at Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Co-workers here say her go-getter approach to life was always evident, but is proving to be even-more-so now as she aggressively engages in her rehabilitation. Part of what the doctors have said will help her is her good physical condition. Another part is that positive, "can do" attitude with which Captain Kosek has approached everything in her Air Force career.

The Air Force captain was joined by her father, Joe Kosek, her mother, Sue Kosek, her brother, Army Capt. Joe Kosek, as well as her supervisor, Lt. Col. Norine Fitzsimmons, Little Rock AFB staff judge advocate, friends and co-workers at the ceremony in October.

She credits everyone along the way - from her fellow deployers to the numerous Air Force members who helped her during her journey back to the states. Looking at it from Captain Kosek's perspective, "I am not the hero here....they are."

(Information courtesy of the Little Rock Air Force Base legal office)