title: Barbara O. Barnwell
text: # Barbara O. Barnwell
  
  Staff Sergeant Barbara Olive Barnwell, USMCR (born c. 1928) was the first female Marine to be awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, which she was awarded on August 7, 1953, for saving a fellow Marine from drowning in the Atlantic Ocean near Camp Lejeune in 1952. She was born in Kansas City.
  
  