Apr 15, 2026 1:59 am
1LT Kestra Anne Thrace serves as the platoon leader for 3rd Platoon, C Company, 2‑503rd PIR, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Born and raised in Alaska, she grew up in the shadow of the Trans‑Alaska Pipeline and the avalanche that killed her father a week before she was born. The cold shaped her early—long winters, thin margins, and a mother who taught her that survival wasn’t about strength but attention. She earned her Airborne wings during a college summer program, commissioned soon after, and completed two rotations through the Northern Warfare Training Center, where instructors noted she "reads terrain like a map."
Before joining the 173rd, Thrace cut her teeth with the 10th Mountain Division, building a reputation for calm under pressure and an instinctive grasp of cold‑weather operations. Inside Charlie Company she’s known as a quiet, intense officer who listens to her NCOs, moves like she’s lived her whole life in the mountains, and never freezes—physically or mentally. Among her soldiers she’s the one who will drag a man out of a kill zone herself, and among her peers she’s the one who sees trouble coming before anyone else does.