Thurston graduate honored for heroism during Iraq war.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

When you hear Lori Hill laughing and chatting about a nifty pair of high heels she bought or the fact that she's having a baby - her first - next year, you realize you have to let go of stereotypes.

This is not what you expect to hear from a war hero, someone who was honored in October with the Distinguished Flying Cross. There's nothing gruff, tough or hard-bitten in Hill's voice. Instead, the well-spoken 36-year-old speaks candidly about war but seems more given to laughter and frequent expressions of gratitude that she's home from Iraq safe and sound.

It might have been otherwise. Last March, Hill, an Army chief warrant officer flying helicopters for the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment out of a base northwest of Baghdad, ran into concentrated enemy fire that blasted through her foot and damaged the transmission of her Kiowa Warrior, a reconnaissance combat helicopter.

Hill, who was born and raised in Springfield and is a 1987 Thurston High School graduate, is career Army. She joined when she was 17, then re-upped so she could go to Germany and see the world. She was deployed to the Middle East during the first Persian Gulf War, and was among the soldiers who actually went into Iraq then. A supply sergeant with a signal unit, she and the others put up with primitive conditions: no showers, no portable toilets, no hot meals, just the dreaded MREs, meals ready to eat.

"We had nothing," she said. "We lived in tents outside."

This time around, the conditions are better, with running water, small portable buildings to sleep in and decent food. And Hill had moved up in the military, going through flight school and becoming a skilled pilot, among the top in her squad, the one you want to be with when the going gets rough, co-pilot Lt. Kevin White said.

And that's what happened last March. Hill, White and another Kiowa Warrior were flying convoy security for two Bradley vehicles on patrol in a small village when they learned shots were being fired at a nearby joint command center for U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police.

They headed for the command center and Hill figured they were responding to something minor, a couple of guys firing then running and hiding.

Instead, about 5 or 6 kilometers out they ran into a concentrated attack with rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun rounds, an ambush for expected ground troops directed instead at them, Hill said.

The machine guns on a Kiowa Warrior don't swivel. They face forward and the pilot does the shooting, while the co-pilot makes sure all of the aircraft's systems are working properly. To fire, you have to go in straight, then bank away, Hill explained.

"In order to shoot at somebody, we say you have to look them in the whites of their eyes," she said.

Hill flew low behind the lead helicopter and began laying down suppressing fire and then the two aircraft moved on.

"We broke contact. Our job was to go help the guys pinned down at the (command center)," she said.

They arrived at a chaotic scene with smoke everywhere from previously exploded bombs.

The lead helicopter went in high to maintain visibility, Hill went in low to cover him.

"As soon as he got close, the entire place lit up with machine-gun fire," she said. They both broke away and came in again, shooting as they came.

"We never saw people, just tracer fire. ... We just aimed at the tracers," she said.

On their third pass, her aircraft was hit. As the aircraft broke right, the belly was exposed and gunfire ripped through, hitting Hill in the foot.

"It felt like a baseball being chucked at my ankle. It stung, then kind of went numb," she said.

Hill realized she was fast losing transmission pressure, and she decided to fly back to the base. Without a transmission, they would fall out of the sky, she said. But the hydraulics were gone, and that's like trying to drive your car without its power steering, she said. Both Hill and her co-pilot White had their hands on the controls.

With no hydraulics, the helicopter couldn't hover, a crucial maneuver just before landing. Instead, Hill had to try to fly in and skid the craft to a stop.

The pilot in the lead aircraft wanted her to fly on to Anaconda, a base with a larger landing area but farther away. Hill didn't think she'd make it.

So they came in for a landing instead at the smaller Forward Operating Base Normandy, a spot mostly surrounded by trees.

Then things started going their way.

They came in on a side with no trees. They cleared by an inch the heskos - sand-filled fabric and wire mesh blocks that surround and protect the base. Hill set the helicopter down and it skidded 10 feet to a stop.

She and White high-fived each other.

"We were ecstatic," she said.

She limped away from the aircraft, sat down on the ground, pulled her boot off and rolled down her blood-soaked sock to see a whole blasted in her foot, blood still gushing out, bits of bone fragment visible.

She was evacuated to Germany and then back to Fort Campbell in Kentucky where the healing has been slow but steady. Hill said she's back to running and despite some residual pain can do everything she once did except wear high heels. She confesses a thing for high heels. Maybe next year.

Hill is low-key about the incident, but White said the return flight and landing were remarkable, with Hill focused on what she had to do, despite her injury.

"Lori's a phenomenal pilot. Out of all the pilots in our troop, she's the one I'd want to be with in a situation like that," he said.

Last month, the military showed its gratitude. Vice President Dick Cheney flew out to Fort Campbell, Ky., and awarded Hill the Distinguished Flying Cross for drawing fire away from the lead aircraft, establishing communication with the soldiers on the ground and suppressing fire so they could get away.

"Instead of focusing on her predicament, she established communication with the ground forces and continued to provide them with aerial weapons support until the soldiers reached safety," the citation reads in part.

For her family, the medal doesn't compare to the thrill of having her safe, said Hill's mother, Betty Kiefer.

Kiefer said she was stoic, relying on family, friends and church members while her daughter was at war. Now that she's back, Kiefer can afford the luxury of emotion.

"I can cry now," she said. "I can cry and do whatever I need to. ... I didn't worry while she was there. I thought about her a lot, but I knew Lori could take care of herself. I knew that was her journey."

The March flight was Hill's last for the military. With 19 years in the service, she will retire next year. Married to a fellow soldier and newly pregnant, Hill is officially grounded.

"It's a little joke with everybody that on my last flight I went out with a bang," she said.

Hill is one of 17 soldiers to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The medal is given to those in the armed forces who distinguish themselves in combat by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight."