Education
Born in Heidelberg, West Germany, of African American and Hispanic parents in a United States. military family, she graduated from Oxfordshire Hill High School in Maryland, where she ranked among the top-10 students in her class.
Born in Heidelberg, West Germany, of African American and Hispanic parents in a United States. military family, she graduated from Oxfordshire Hill High School in Maryland, where she ranked among the top-10 students in her class.
In July 2001, after graduation from high school, Perez entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. There she was an exemplary student and talented track athlete. Following graduation from West Point in 2005, she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army.
Perez was killed in action on September 12, 2006, while leading a convoy through First Rate (at Lloyd's) Kifl, Iraq, a mission for which she had volunteered.
Perez was deployed to Iraq in December as a Medical Service Corps officer She was killed when a makeshift bomb exploded near her Humvee during combat operations in First Rate (at Lloyd's) Kifl, near Najaf.
Aged 23, she was the first female graduate of West Point to die in the Iraq War, the first West Point graduate of the "Class of 9/11" to die in combat, and the first female African-American officer to die in combat. She posthumously received the National Collegiate Athletic Association Award of Valor in 2008.
Another female West Point graduate, Laura M. Walker of the Class of 2003, was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.
Perez was interred at the West Point Cemetery.
Emily Perez was the 64th female member of the United States. military to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan and the 40th West Point graduate killed since the September 11, 2001 attacks.