Milunka Savic

She looks wide-eyed in this picture to me, but Milunka Savic was the opposite of an ingenue. This 20th-century Serbian fought in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and in World War II spent time in a Concentration Camp. She cleared these hurdles with chutzpah to spare and is the most decorated female soldier in history.

Born in the late 19th century in a tiny rural village in Serbia, Savic decided to disguise her gender and serve in the army in the Balkan Wars using her brother’s name. She fought in the Serbian “Iron Regiment” against the Bulgarians until she was hit in her chest during her tenth combat charge and her female identity was discovered.

Milunka Savic’s commanding officer brought her before him to explain herself. He suggested that she transfer to the nursing corps if she would like to stay fighting for Serbia but she refused. Telling her he would think things over and that she should return to him the next day to hear his decision, Savic stood at attention and replied “I will wait.” An hour later, she was not only back in the infantry, but promoted to Junior Sergeant because of her skills.

One of her most famous encounters was at the Battle of the Kolubara River, when Savic charged over no-man’s land, throwing out hand grenades from the three bandoliers she had strapped around her, and launching herself all alone into an Austrian bunker, where 20 men dropped their weapons and surrendered to her. That day she earned the moniker “The Bomber of Kolubara.”

Her numerous awards included the French Croix de Guerre — she was the only woman from World War I to recieve it

“Badass of the Week” author Ben Thompson recounts a story about Savic that happened when she was stationed in Thessalonica on a military base . . . “some French officer got word that she was fucking brutal with hand grenades. He laughed at the idea that a woman could be that badass, so he took a bottle out of a case of ultra-expensive 1880 Cognac, set it on a post 40 meters (131 feet) away, and dared her the rest of the case that she couldn’t hit it. She drilled it on her first try. That night her unit blew through 19 bottles of the finest Cognac on Earth.”