Molly O'Toole - Huffington Post
molly.otoole@huffingtonpost.com

On an isolated hilltop outpost overlooking a town in Eastern Afghanistan in spring 2007, a cell phone rang.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced a new plan for addressing sexaul assault in the military.
[The New Yorker]

 

If the phone -- a detonation device -- had been properly wired, Rebekah Havrilla and her team leader would have been blown up along with a hill packed full of five landmines and an improvised explosive device.

"It just turned into one big, long 'holy crap, we almost died,'" said Havrilla, one of the few women in the U.S. Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal units.

(Editor's Note: This article contains graphic language that some readers may find offensive.)