1. Milunka Savic
The most highly-decorated war veteran ever that just so happened to be born with interior genitals. Born in a humble village in southern Serbia in 1888, her life remained unremarkable until one fateful day in 1913. Bulgaria, deeply displeased with the outcome of a war that had ended barely a month earlier (not hyperbole), decided to start another one. The small nation fought all of its neighbours at the same time, because it was inconceivable that such an ingenious scheme could end any way but favourably. How precisely young Milunka ended up donning a helmet and wielding a rifle is uncertain: some sources claim she went the
Mulan route and cross-dressed to save a conscripted relative. Whatever the catalyst, her commanders would not regret her deployment. She first proved her mettle at the Battle of Bregalnica, where she joined several infantry charges right into a static wall of Bulgarian death: bayonets, barbed wire, machine guns and artillery. Her patriotic rampage was only stopped by a close encounter with a grenade. As she was Milunka goddamn Savic, she laughed at Death's feeble effort, albeit in significant pain. When she was inevitably found out during her brief sojourn at a field hospital, she staunchly defied an offer to be moved to a quaint nurse unit purely on account of her Girl Parts, as it didn't entail her enthusiastically stabbing people in the groin and jamming grenades where they shouldn't be. Her commanding officer was so impressed that he promoted her then and there mostly because she refused to move until he relented and allowed her to stay in her post. Her gallantry earned her a long respite, until late June 1914 when a certain Austro-Hungarian Archduke who would later give his name to a Scottish indie band was murdered by hilariously incompetent assassins, activating alliances that triggered the greatest war in human history (to that point, because
damn the 20th century to hell). Aided by Germany and with an excuse to fulfil their longstanding imperial ambitions, almighty Austria goose-stepped into scrawny Serbia. Presumably, their scouts didn't know Milunka lived there. Sergeant Savic, not wanting to miss out on the whole 'Great War' thing, leapt into action to defend her homeland. She was now part of the Iron Regiment's Assault Bomber Squad, a unit with a name so awesome and manly most men would recoil at its mere mention. She became infamous as the 'Bomber of Kolubara' for her actions in battle, where she lobbed grenades around with the fervour of miscreant teens egging a house. Surrounded by enough gunfire and explosions to make Michael Bay weep joyously, she tore across the ruination between the trenches and pointed her shiny bayonet at a rabble of Austrian troops. They all surrendered immediately, and secretly hoped she wouldn't notice that the smell wasn't from the stacked corpses. Not content with capturing prisoners, Milunka continued to use enemy machine gun posts as target practice, in the forlorn hope that grenade-throwing would rival javelins at some future Olympics. Then an untimely artillery shell rudely imbedded shrapnel in her skull. Milunka Savic once again gave Death the finger, and duly accepted her Order of the Karaore's Star with Swords, one of Serbia's highest military honours. But one medal was not enough. The Battle of Kolubara proved to be a tailbone-shattering boot to the backside that evicted the Austrians from Serbia for months afterwards. Presumably they had learned to dread the invincible one-woman war machine. When she had recovered and resolutely ignored the orders of her physicians to stop taunting God, Serbia had suffered in her absence and the situation was dire: Germany and Austria had renewed their attack, and were closing in along with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Milunka managed one last hurrah in 1916, showcasing her mad skills at trench domination and rounding up some two dozen hapless, terrified Bulgarians through her time-tested method of gunfire, grenades and pointy things. This earned her another Karaore Star. Alas, her treasured nation's position was increasingly precarious and untenable, and it was time to begin a fighting retreat. Even when running away, Sergeant Savic kicked copious amounts of enemy ass, brazenly and stubbornly refusing to die as she sustained another seven injuries on her long and arduous road through Montenegro and Albania to the safety of the Adriatic Sea. Fatal to most normal people, bullets were clearly merely mildly irritating to Milunka. Whilst grudgingly tolerating not being able to brutally murder people during her unit's convalescence in Greece, an arrogant French officer promised her a whole cask of vintage cognac if she could prove her skills as a grenadier, fully expecting her to fail on account of her Girl Parts. She rewarded her comrades with copious amounts of alcohol in short order. Once the hangover had worn off, she fought through the rest of the war. For her years of dedicated awesomeness in service to her beloved Serbia, she twice received the French Legion d'Honneur, the Russian Cross of St George, the British Most Distinguished Order of St Michael, the medal of Miloš Obili from her homeland, and the French Croix de Guerre. After she was released from the army in 1919, she returned to a comparatively disappointing humble life, working a number of menial jobs and living modestly with her adopted children. She died in 1973 at the age of 84. So the next time some sexist bigot twists themselves in knots about how women are unfit for military service, silence them with the amazing accomplishments of Milunka Savic. And so there are six who might, in part, serve as inspirations for future characters in the colossal crime series. Isn't learning fun? Feel free to point out any you know of who you think might be awesome too.