Ashley White died patrolling alongside Special Forces in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army veteran was a pioneer for women soldiers.

Ashley White received his first combat action badge from the United States Army shortly after the first lieutenant’s arrival in Afghanistan. The silver military award, which recognizes soldiers who were personally engaged by an aggressor during conflict, was considered an achievement in itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White won it for using his own body to protect a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that erupted in the middle of his third mission in Kandahar Province. They all survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.

“My daughter was very, very humble,” Ashley’s mother, Deborah White, said before Memorial Day this year. “She would be shocked by all the praise she has received since her death.”

Ashley White died on October 22, 2011, about three months after her tour in Afghanistan, when a Special Operations task force soldier she was serving with accidentally set off an improvised explosive device that killed her and two others. She was 24 years old. After her death, White was posthumously awarded a long list of some of the military’s highest distinctions, including the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Meritorious Service Medal.

White was one of dozens of women recruited from hundreds of applicants to join Special Operations forces on the front lines of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, at a time when female soldiers were still prohibited from performing combat roles. Born and raised in northeast Ohio, White entered the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program during her second semester at Kent State University, where she studied sports medicine.

“I think she liked the camaraderie and the closeness within the group,” Deborah White said. ROTC is a leadership training program to prepare college students for various roles in the military and requires them to complete a period of military service after earning their degrees. Ashley White started as an officer in the Medical Service Corps and served for several years in the U.S. National Guard in Greensboro, North Carolina.

But in 2011, the military hired women into Cultural Support Teams, the cornerstones of an initiative to communicate with Afghan women, whose customs often prevented them from interacting with American soldiers while the soldiers were men. Women in cultural support teams were explicitly tasked with facilitating interactions with civilian women and children. A flyer advertising the positions called on female soldiers to “become part of history” alongside male-dominated Special Operations. White applied to the program and accepted a spot. She underwent additional training and deployed in August.

White’s service in Afghanistan likely contributed to the military’s decision to officially lift the ban in 2013 — a watershed moment that recognized the work many female soldiers had been doing for decades and opened the door to career opportunities previously reserved for men.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the 2015 book “Ashley’s War” about White and the women who served with her, noted in a conversation with the Council on Foreign Relations following the book’s release that she and her teammates “frankly may well have laid the groundwork for ultimate integration.” With her death, White’s mother said “she broke the glass ceiling.”

Lemmon’s chronicle of the women who quietly directed part of the war effort, without any promise of renown, placed White at the center of it all and brought her story into the mainstream. “Ashley’s War” became a New York Times bestseller.

Those who knew her felt inspired by White’s record of achievement, but told Lemmon — and White’s mother — that it was the way White carried herself in person, with kindness and strength, that made her special.

“Ashley was the heart of this team of all-star soldiers who came together to answer this call to serve and who actually couldn’t raise their hand fast enough to be there,” Lemmon said during that talk in 2015. “I think the What people remember so much about her is that she never talked to you about what she could do…she let her actions speak for themselves. And I think she showed the power of character in action. She was and, in fact, never would be.”

White’s legacy is far-reaching. As Deborah White said, “It’s everywhere.”

She was among a handful of women honored for acts of particular valor in an exhibit at the National Museum of the U.S. Army in Virginia, several housing complexes for women veterans in two states are named after her, and two students graduating from college in Marlboro Township . The school receives scholarships of $1,500 per year through a foundation created by White’s family in her memory.

People across the country, inside and outside the military, hailed White as a hero, an exemplary soldier and a trailblazer who helped pave the way for the next generation of women rising through the ranks with fewer limitations than ever before. before.

Asked where White’s courage came from, especially at such a young age, Deborah White gave her daughter most of the credit.

“I mean, all my kids are driven. Maybe we raised them the right way,” she said. “I don’t know. She surprised me.”