This has been traveling the email circuit, and it's a great story. Snopes shows its status as: Real photograph; inaccurate description. Here's the link to Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/cheerleader.asp
After reading the background, training, and accomplishments of this young lady (in the Snopes link), there is no doubt in my mind that she could have done exactly what it says in the email, and God bless her if she did.
The Real Miss America .
This 19 year old ex-cheerleader (now an Air Force Security Forces Sniper) was watching a road that led to a NATO military base when she observed a man digging by the road. She engaged the target (i.e. she shot him). It turned out he was a bomb maker for the Taliban , and he was burying an IED that was to be detonated when a US patrol walked by 30 minutes later. It would have certainly killed and wounded several soldiers.
The interesting fact of this story is the shot was measured at 725 yards. She shot him as he was bent over burying the bomb. The shot went through his butt and into the bomb, which detonated; he was blown to pieces. The Air Force, (not the Marines that get all the glory,) made a motivational poster of her.
H/T: AL N.
