--- title: "Meet the first woman in the Coast Guard to earn a Bronze Star" date: "2026-11-02" modified: "2026-11-02" authors: - name: "Stephen Ruiz" job_title: "Editor, Writer" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/stephen.md" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/meet-the-first-woman-in-the-coast-guard-to-earn-a-bronze-star/" categories: - "Coast Guard" - "Gulf War" - "History" - "War History" tags: - "Coast Guard" - "Gulf War" - "Veterans Day" - "VHP" --- # Meet the first woman in the Coast Guard to earn a Bronze Star ![Holly Harrison]() *Lt. Holly Harrison, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Aquidneck homeported in Atlantic Beach, N.C., smiles before departing for the crew's first patrol in the Middle East. (U.S. Coast Guard/Public Affairs Specialist 1st Class Tom Sperduto)* *Lt. Cmdr. Holly Harrison—the first woman in the* [*Coast Guard*]() *to earn the Bronze Star—served during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She was in command of the 110-foot cutter Aquidneck during the conflict. She retired from the Coast Guard as a captain last year. On Veterans Day 2005, she spoke with the Library of Congress for its Veterans History Project.* *Leading into Veterans Day 2026, We Are The Mighty is publishing transcripts of some of the project’s interviews. This transcript was edited for clarity and brevity.* “\[My first cutter\] was stationed out of Kodiak, Alaska, and she was and still is what we refer to as the Queen of the Fleet. She's the oldest one still commissioned. The second one was the Coast Guard Cutter Kiska, which is a 110-foot patrol boat stationed out of Hilo, Hawaii. And the third one was another 110 stationed out of Fort Macon, North Carolina, although about halfway through that tour…, the home port was shifted to Bahrain. **Also Read:** [**What this airman did to survive at the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War**]() “I applied for the Coast Guard Academy when I graduated \[from high school\], but they turned me down. I was blind as a bat, and they said, ‘Nope, you don't meet our eyesight requirements.’ But I had heard they were looking at adjusting the eyesight requirements. I figured, ‘OK, next year, I’ll apply. So I went to a small college called Pfeiffer College \[in North Carolina\] at the time. I went there to basically get a year of college in, keep some good grades, and reapply to the Coast Guard Academy. \[I\] made it on my second attempt. “\[The physical demands were\] tough. When I was a fourth-class cadet that summer, I had twisted my ankle on a set of stairs, so I had to watch it for most of my freshman year. And the hard part with that was, it's a very physically demanding environment. You always have people who want you to do more and put out more. If they don't think you're putting out more, they think you're just shirking. “At the same time, I was watching people around me who would have injuries. As soon as it started feeling better, they'd go use that limb or that knee or whatever to their fullest capability, and they'd reinjure it. So I'd sit back, and I'm watching what's going on with my friend; my best friend, in fact, had a lot of knee trouble. So I took it easier and just never abused it. It's never been a problem since, so at least I figured that out, because otherwise I could be dealing with that for a long time. But otherwise, the other aspects of it weren't a problem.” ### Patrolling the Gulf of Alaska ![Coast Guard cutters in Alaska]() *Coast Guard Cutters Stratton and Bailey Barco rendezvous in Beaver Inlet near Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, in the Aleutian Islands, February 28, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard)* “The first ship in Kodiak, Alaska, that ship was kind of a prototype, a one-of-a-kind design of [World War II](), an icebreaker, but also designed to handle heavy weather. So every patrol was in the Gulf of Alaska. Every patrol was spent boarding fishing vessels, and not in the nicest of conditions up there. So that was actually a great ship to learn how to drive a ship. “She had one screw, one rudder, and you couldn't just power your way out of a mistake if you were trying to drive a ship. You couldn't just use a bow thruster to kick the bow over or to adjust at the last minute. So that probably taught me my ship-driving skills. And that's where I just did a ton of boarding, just getting my feet wet as a law enforcement boarding officer, and just a junior officer in general. “The only way the Coast Guard can enforce the laws and regulations at sea is to go to the other vessel, get on board, see what's going on. We'd crawl in a small boat, cruise over to the other vessel, and somehow get on board. Depending on the nature of what the vessel was doing, we'd have to inspect it, their paperwork, and their safety equipment. If it was fisheries, we had to see what they were catching, what nets they were using, and whether they were catching anything they weren't supposed to be catching. Just find out what's going on to see if any laws or regulations were violated. “The Kiska was a 110-foot B class—what they call a WPB patrol boat: very similar to my third ship, except that was the A-class version. I put in to be the commander. It was time for me to leave the commandant staff. You throw your name in a hat, you wait for the panel to meet, and in December, they come out with a list of those people who make the screening. They always screen more than they need, so just because you make the screening doesn't mean you're going to get a ship. “I'm sitting there, and other people are hearing rumors from the detailers, and everyone's talking at headquarters. Rumors just fly, and I hadn't heard anything. So I'm just sitting there, and I'm thinking, ‘Great, he's going to offer me like one or two of the ships that nobody wants, and I'm trying to think of ways that I could sell it to him that he should still give me one of these ships.’ He called me up one day and said, ‘Yeah, you've got… a good one.’ I was kind of like, ‘Say that again?’ To this day, I don't know how I got picked for that, but it worked out. “I wasn’t really \[nervous\]. Obviously, you don't want to screw up. You're apprehensive, because you want to do a good job, but I'd been at sea before, so it was just the next step.” ### “We’ve Got a New Patrol for You” ![Persian Gulf War]() *Lt. Holly Harrison, commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Aquidneck, sights in on a target with an M-4 rifle during small arms refresher training on board the cutter, June 23, 2003. (U.S. Coast Guard/Public Affairs Specialist First Class John Gaffney)* “It was weird how I found out I was going overseas. This was about a year after [9/11](). With 9/11, we'd been up and down the East Coast escorting any and everything in and out of port, and protecting facilities. So we had been told we were going to have to escort a cruise ship. This was a big deal. We were up in Philadelphia in the Delaware River, and cruise ships just don't normally leave from Philadelphia. Philadelphia was pretty excited about this and said, ‘Hey, we've got a cruise ship taking passengers; maybe this is a future industry.’ “We're getting ready to go do this escort, and I get a call on the radio. I'm just told, ‘Cancel your escort, get back to home port.’ And I'm going, ‘’That never happens.’ Bells and whistles are going off in my head. I got on the radio, and I talked to my chain of command, trying to figure out where this was coming from. They had to be very careful, because they couldn't tell me too much at this point. But basically, they told me, ‘Well, you need to get back to home port, because we've got a new patrol for you. And it's going to be one you need to prepare for.’ And I said, ‘OK, any clues so we can start planning and prepping?’ And he goes, ‘Well, let's just put it this way—you're probably not sailing there.’ “That's when we knew. I immediately knew when he told me that, because we can sail anywhere in the U.S., but I knew that they had looked at taking these 110s overseas for the Persian Gulf War. They come designed with these cradles from the manufacturer that you can actually pick these ships out of the water, put them on a bigger ship the way you do a cargo container to ship them overseas, and I knew that's what they had looked at doing in the [Persian Gulf War](). So when I heard that we wouldn't be sailing there—and of course, we're all watching the news. We knew what was happening. “We threw all the cold-weather stuff off the ship, because we knew we wouldn't need it in the Arabian Gulf. And then we met up with three other cutters in Portsmouth, Virginia. They had also been tagged to go overseas. Coast Guard Cutter Adak, Wrangell, and Baranof. Nobody knew if and when we were going to go to war. We didn't know how quickly this was going to happen. So it was ready, get set, wait. “They had to \[give\] us physicals, get us the anthrax shots, smallpox shots, all kinds of training. We had maintenance teams crawl all over the ships and fix absolutely any and everything that was broken. They wanted these ships in pristine condition when they went over. As we'd find out, we'd have more time, we'd add more training, and get more things done. And so essentially, we ended up spending about four months there in Portsmouth\[, New Hampshire\].” ### “A Very Special Mission” ![Holly Harrison]() *Lt. Holly Harrison aboard the Coalition warship USS Milius in February 2003. (U.S. Coast Guard)* “They gave us a few days to go spend time with family, then we all met back in Portsmouth, and we flew over to Bahrain. I was going over with a crew; we'd been together for a year. We'd been training for this. We'd been going over scenarios, what-ifs. The big uncertainty at the beginning of the war was chemical biological weapons. Saddam had used them on his own people, so what if he does it to us? Unfortunately a 110 has no capabilities to defend against a chemical biological attack, so we were coming up with all kinds of ways we could do it. What if this happened? What's the best we can do? “We'd run those drills in port with the guys, and before we even had the real gear, we simulated it. We used our rain suits, and rubber gloves, and I mean, we simulated it. We looked like morons, freaks running around the decks in yellow rain gear and big blue latex medical gloves, but it was to simulate the gear we would get in theater. “Everyone had their focus in place. No one in the crew tried to get out of it. No one tried to find a reason not to go. Everyone knew we were going, and they just said, ‘OK, let's do it.’ We knew we were being handed a very special mission, and we took it very seriously. We trained for it. The ships arrived. We basically unpacked them, loaded them with fuel, water, food, went out for sea trials, made sure nothing had broken. As soon as we all passed sea trials, we headed out on patrol.” ### Not Suited for Minesweeping ![Minesweeping in the Persian Gulf]() *An MH-53 helicopter from the USS New Orleans clears a channel through a minefield in the northern Gulf off the shores of Kuwait. (Painting by John Charles Roach)* “When the war actually hit, the big issue was the waterway. Was it mined or not? They had [Navy]() and British minesweepers, but they're not designed to defend themselves. When they're in the middle of their minesweeping, they have all their sensors and stuff out, so we were sent with them in the river to guard them. We were absolutely the worst platform to be in an environment that could possibly have mines. We have a huge magnetic signature, and acoustically, we're very loud. “The big Navy gray just screams warship. Being white and Coast Guard cutters, we have a little bit of a different reputation. And if that reputation being a humanitarian search-and-rescue-type service, a little less threatening militarily, if that happened to get us in there so we can do the same mission without getting shot at, wonderful. So no one ever took pot shots at us that we're aware of. The biggest issue for us, safetywise, was with those mines in the river. “That I know of, no ship got struck by any mines. With us nearby, they didn't have an opportunity to pull out their mines and deploy them. “There were no women we ever encountered on the Iraqi fishing vessels. I'd send my crews over to do these boardings. Well, I'd be the one on the bridge they'd be talking to on the radio. My XO would come back, because he was the one usually I'd send to be my boarding officer, and he'd tell me, he'd sit there and laugh at me, going, ‘Hey Captain, they all want to know if you're the cook, and they want to know why the cook is on the radio. Because they all hear a woman's voice, and say, ‘Hey, why is your cook on the radio?’’ And he'd sit there and tell them, ‘No, that's not the cook; that's the captain.’ ‘No, no, no, the cook, the cook; why is the cook on the radio?’ It blew some of their minds that, no, that's not the cook. I was a novelty. We always went out in groups.” ### The Bronze Star Was a Group Effort ![Bronze Star]() *Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge presents Coast Guard Lt. Holly Harrison with the Bronze Star on August 5, 2003. (U.S. Coast Guard)* “\[The Bronze Star\] was kind of a whole bunch of stuff that we did over there, from start to finish. I've got a whole citation written up on it, but… \[it\] was because of what the ship did and what the crew did. Because I was the commanding officer, I'm the figurehead that represents the crew, so that's why I got it. But really, it's for what the ship, what the crew did over there. “I'm sitting here writing my speech for Veterans Day today. I'm sitting there in the office yesterday, putting my touches on it, and every five minutes, someone's knocking on my door. Meanwhile, I'm like, ‘Yes?’ Because I'm getting teary-eyed, trying to not let them know that. Part of it is tough, because if you really let yourself think about it, you will get teary-eyed. So part of that is trying to think about it, but still keep that armor, I guess, is the safe way to put it. “Because it is hard. We've gotten personnel injured. I had sent my XO and my boarding teams, many times, to go inspect a dhow \[an Iraqi vessel\] that was approaching one of the oil terminals. I had done this hundreds of times, sent my guys to go shoo dhows away from the oil terminal. But this one exploded and killed several people. Could have been us, just luck of the draw that on that day they were there. But if it had been earlier on a different day, we would have been there, doing the exact same thing. “So you kind of wonder—you also don't want to wonder, at the same time, because you'll never get an answer to it. But what amazes me now about the guys who are still over there, I think we had it—in some ways, it was lucky that we got the first wave. It was probably trickier in many aspects, some things we had to do. At one point, they wanted us to go check out some bunkers inland, because they couldn't get to them, because they were mined on the land. We don't exactly train for storming the beaches, and the thick Iraqi mud that was there was very difficult for my guys to traverse. “I'm sitting there going, ‘God, they're gonna get picked off by sniper fire.’ So some of the weird things we did, just going in and getting control of the rivers and just figuring out what's going on. Once you have control, that's done. You aren't going to do those jobs anymore; now you're just going to maintain control. So we had some of the neat stuff going in, whereas the guys there, they're just maintaining control, but they're doing it constantly. Day in, day out, and it's extremely repetitive in nature.” ### “I’m Proud of Everything I’ve Done” ![Holly Harrison]() *Capt. Holly Harrison, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Kimball, speaks during a commissioning ceremony at Base Honolulu, August 24, 2019. (U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew West)* “I mean, ‘How do you maintain your edge, you know?’ You're over there for a year. It's 2 in the morning. You've looked at this thing for the past year. Nothing's happened so far. You're tired, beaten down and worn out. How do you maintain that edge? How do you keep your sanity? I don't know how the guys over there are doing it, quite frankly. They have it much tougher than we had it, being the ones initially going in. “As far as what I'm most proud of, I can't tie it to any one particular event. It's kind of the culmination. Where I was, and where I've managed to get to, and there's a lot of things in between that got me to where I am today. I'm proud of everything I've done. I'm even proud of some of my not-so-sharp moments, because I learned a lot from them and didn't repeat them. And as far as the uniform, I love wearing this uniform. People always ask me, ‘How long are you staying in the Coast Guard? Are you going to make it a career?’ And I always tell them, ‘I'm going to stay in until they throw me out, or I stop having fun.’ “There are days that are not so fun, but overall, it's challenging, and I like the challenge. So I'm going to stick with it until the very end, and they're going to have to drag me away kicking and screaming.” **Don’t Miss the Best of We Are The Mighty** **•** [**How this Marine veteran scrambled to survive after the USS Indianapolis sank**]() **•** [**How this Native American veteran honored her tribe by serving in the Air Force**]() **•** [**A close look at the Coast Guard’s biggest rescue ever besides Hurricane Katrina**]() ## Author Stephen Ruiz is an editor and writer at We Are The Mighty. His writing revolves mostly around military history and sports stories, but it can branch into other areas. Stephen has more than 35 years of journalism experience. His career began with stints at The Ledger newspaper in Lakeland, Florida, and The Kansas City Star in Missouri, but most of his time was spent on the copy desk at the Orlando Sentinel. After accepting a buyout from the Sentinel in 2020, Stephen worked at Military.com for 4½ years as a content editor and writer. He joined the We Are The Mighty staff in December 2025. ### Author social links [Facebook]() [Twitter]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]() ## More - [A close look at the Coast Guard’s biggest rescue ever besides Hurricane Katrina]() - [The complete guide to Coast Guard ranks]() - [The complete hater’s guide to the US Coast Guard]() - [Coast Guard families are underreported victims of the Homeland Security shutdown]() - [When the Coast Guard saved New York from a huge blast during WWII]() - [How the most incredible Coast Guard cold-water rescue ever unfolded]() - [How the Navy and Coast Guard frantically searched for Amelia Earhart]() - [Here’s how Hollywood legend Dale Dye earned the Bronze Star for heroism in Vietnam]()