On Fleet Street, symbolic home to the British tabloid media, they're calling her "The gran who's off to fight the Taliban."
Sonia Briggs, a 50-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Haverfordwest, England, deploys to Afghanistan in mid-August. And Briggs, who has the title of corporal in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, won't be shuffling papers, either.
Briggs is a nurse who will be working in medical helicopters that are used to transport wounded soldiers from the frontlines to hospitals. She will carry a medical bag — and a weapon and ammunition pack.
"I am very pleased I am going out there," Briggs told the London newspaper The Mirror. "This will be my first operational tour abroad and it is what I have wanted for some time. I wanted to do my bit."
Briggs is Head of Nursing Service Development for Pembrokeshire Local Health Board, where she has taken a six-month unpaid leave of absence. She told the BBC that she decided to join the RAF reserves four years ago.
"I was getting divorced and being a single parent, although the older children are independent, I just couldn't see anything else other than housework and I thought, I could do something else at the weekends," she said.
Briggs has five children — Sarah, 29; Ryan, 28; Stuart, 26; Simon, 13; and Bobby, 11. She also has three grandchildren — Ellie-May, 2, and Evan, seven months, from Sarah; and 8-year-old Ewan, Ryan's son.
Briggs' two youngest children will stay with their sister, Sarah, while Briggs is in Afghanistan for her three-month tour. Coincidentally, Briggs's son Ryan has already served two tours of duty in Iraq as an RAF medic.
"Initially, Ryan was very wary when he found out what I was doing," Briggs told Wales Online. "But now he’s very proud of me, as are all my family."
In addition to her RAF-issued equipment, Briggs said she will be bringing plenty of photos of her family and one other item — a laptop, "to help me keep in touch with my children and grandchildren."
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