MEHTARLAM, Afghanistan — The older soldiers called themselves the Gray Brigade, but Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard never talked about her age. Soon, no one asked. In training, the Waukesha, Wis., resident ran as hard as men much younger. She became a gunner on a Humvee at this small military base, building a wooden box to stand on so she could see over the turret.
The next day, Howard and Paul made a supply run to a U.S. military base near the Afghan capital. They never made it back, dying in a fiery suicide bombing in Kabul on Sept. 8, 2006.
At 52, Howard, who had gray hair and an infectious smile, became the oldest known American woman to die in combat….She was the new face of the military's civil affairs units, which do reconstruction and relief work.
Howard never had been deployed before, not since joining the Reserves on a whim in 1988. After her medical unit was disbanded in 1996, she was assigned to the Individual Ready Reserves, for soldiers without a unit. She still went to monthly drills but mainly handled paperwork, biding her time, putting in her 20 years before earning retirement benefits.
She was used to challenges. Born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Howard wanted to be a firefighter, but her hometown did not hire women. So in 1978 she joined the department in Bryan, Texas, as its first female firefighter. She later became a fire risk-management specialist with insurance companies, eventually helping set up a consulting company in California.
In late April, the nine members of Howard's civil affairs team arrived at the Mehtarlam base in eastern Laghman province. They formed the core of the provincial reconstruction team. Civil affairs is not a new concept for the U.S. military, but provincial reconstruction teams are. The first team began its work in Afghanistan in 2003, a calculated attempt to try to fight the Taliban by helping Afghans rebuild….There are now 24 provincial reconstruction teams here, and a 25th is being set up in eastern Nuristan province.
It is not easy work. Almost 30 years of war have destroyed any professional class in Afghanistan. There are few engineers, architects, doctors or teachers. Achieving anything here takes many attempts. Hospital Road in Mehtarlam, for example, will soon have to be redone for the third time.
At first, Howard handled paperwork at the base, tracking projects and applying for money. She was good but longed to be off the base, to go on missions, to be out with the Afghan people. She wanted to be a gunner.
"She wanted to do everything," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Felicia Mason, 37, who later became Howard's roommate. "She wanted to be able to excel in everything. Because she didn't want anyone to say she couldn't do it because she was a woman." Howard got her chance. The civil affairs team of nine shrank. One soldier went home after a non-combat injury, another was sent to Nuristan, and the gunner to Jalalabad.
Howard told a cousin back home she was surprised at what she was doing. She told her husband that one day she realized she enjoyed it. In August, she told Christian she was thinking of extending her tour. "Merideth liked to live life as an adventure," her husband said.
According to Pentagon policy, women are excluded from serving in combat units, though in the chaotic realities of Iraq and Afghanistan, their support roles have grown ever closer to the front lines. Howard's death makes her the oldest U.S. servicewoman known to have died in combat, said Judy Bellafaire, chief historian at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation near Arlington National Cemetery. A 52-year-old nurse died in Vietnam, but from a stroke, she said. Even so, there still was some uncertainty. Records for World War II and earlier conflicts often omit ages.
On missions in Afghanistan, Paul was the driver and Howard was the gunner, standing on the box to make up for her height, about 5-foot-4. For Afghans in this conservative tribal area, where most women wear burqas that cover everything, it must have been a bizarre sight: a gray-haired woman in a helmet on top of a Humvee.
The supply run to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, happened every month or two. On this trip, the soldiers picked up mail, ammunition, supplies and three new Humvees, with adjustable platforms for the gunner. For the first time, Howard would not need her wooden box.
On that Friday morning, Sept. 8, the convoy of five Humvees left base. Paul and Howard were alone because they planned to pick up two other people at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. At Camp Phoenix, just outside Kabul, the soldiers dropped off one Humvee with transmission problems and a second Humvee pulling a trailer of ammunition. The other three vehicles made their way down Jalalabad Road, Kabul's suicide bomb alley. The convoy headed for the embassy.
A Lexus SUV pulled up behind the third Humvee. A blue Toyota Corolla followed the Lexus. Witnesses said the Corolla tried to pass the Lexus on the left. But the Lexus blocked the Corolla and started trying to pass the convoy on the left.
The gunner on the third Humvee told soldiers after the attack that he was focused on the Lexus, warning it to stop. But at the same time, the blue Corolla moved up on the right. One soldier in the third Humvee saw the back of the driver's head, his blue shirt. Another soldier noticed the brake lights.
And they all watched as the car swerved into the second Humvee, bounced off, and then swerved in again. And then a loud explosion, and a flash, and everything was on fire. The blast left a 6-foot-wide crater in the road, killing at least eight Afghans.
U.S. Army Sgt 1st Class Merideth L. Howard was killed September 8, 2006 in Kabul, Afghanistan when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near her Humvee. Howard was assigned to the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade in support of the 10th Mountain Division at the time of her death.
Howard graduated from Corpus Christi's King High School in 1973 and earned both a bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from Texas A&M University.
After graduating from Texas A&M, Howard worked as a firefighter in Bryan before beginning a career in fire safety and investigation. Her work moved her to California, where she met her husband, Hugh Hvolboll in 1991.
A member of Army reserves since 1988, Howard was called to active duty in December 2005. She is survived by her husband, Hugh Hvolboll, of Waukesha, Wisconsin.