09/22/2026
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇬🇧 Bravery knows no bounds. This is not a story about a US Navy Medic but a British Navy Medic and it’s a story that needs to be told.
When a soldier lay bleeding to death under Taliban fire, Kate Nesbitt left cover, crossed exposed ground and went straight to him.
On 12 March 2009, during fighting near Nawa in Helmand Province, Lance Corporal John List of 1st Battalion, The Ri**es, was hit by a bullet that tore through his face and neck.
He was bleeding heavily. His airway was failing.
Kate was the only medic there.
Hearing the call of “man down”, she moved across open ground while enemy fire struck around her and reached him.
For around 45 minutes, she stayed at his side.
She controlled the catastrophic bleeding, established an airway so he could breathe, gave intravenous fluids and continued treating him while rounds struck the ground nearby.
Other soldiers protected her, passed equipment and helped with the evacuation. Apache helicopters provided covering fire as the wounded man was eventually carried to the medical helicopter.
John List survived.
And Kate’s work did not end there.
Later that same day she treated another British casualty and Afghan soldiers wounded at the patrol base. Three days later, she was again among the first to respond after an IED struck the vehicle behind hers.
Her actions during that tour earned her the Military Cross — making Kate Nesbitt the first woman serving in the Royal Navy to receive it.
She returned home not to a life defined by the medal, but to her medical duties, later rising to Chief Petty Officer.
Her story was eventually immortalised in a painting at HMS Raleigh, placed where generations of new Royal Navy recruits could see what courage and duty under fire can look like.
The medal is part of her story.
But what matters most happened before anyone knew her name.
A wounded soldier needed a medic.
Kate Nesbitt got up and went to him.
Respect to Chief Petty Officer Kate Nesbitt MC — a remarkable example of service, professionalism and courage under fire.
Her story deserves to be known.
