The Grit Factor

—8—

Above All Be Adaptable

“It’s not your fault, but it is your fight.”

—Brigadier General Rebecca Halstead

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never give in.”

—Winston Churchill

Marine helicopter door gunner Kirstie Ennis was midway through her second deployment to Afghanistan in June of 2012 when her aircraft was shot down. Every thing she thought she knew changed.

Ennis had grown up the daughter of two Marines, and confesses that as a kid, “I was pretty much a hellion.” As soon as Ennis graduated high school, at age seventeen, she asked her parents to sign the waiver allowing her to enlist. They weren’t excited about her choice.

“You can sign it now, or wait eight months until I turn eighteen, but I’m doing this,” she told them. They ...