Face of Defense: Last Iraq Tour Was One Too Many for Combat-Tested Marine

Marine Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris Hedgcorth served six combat tours and escaped injury each time. But his seventh tour wasn’t so lucky for him.

On Sept. 17, 2004, Hedgcorth was serving his second tour in Iraq with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The unit was stationed at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, when insurgents started firing rockets at the camp. Shrapnel from the first rocket severed Hedgcorth’s patellar tendon, which holds the kneecap in place.

Hedgcorth joined the Marine Corps 25 years ago because “it was the best,” he said.

“It seemed like an easy choice after the Beirut bombing,” he said quietly. “I had three friends of mine on that wall.”

A terrorist bomb killed 241 Marines and Navy corpsmen in a barracks in the Lebanese capital on Oct, 23, 1983.

Hedgcorth’s knee injury marked the first time in his career that he’d been injured, and he freely admits that he’d pushed his luck until it happened. He served in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, two tours in the Balkans, and two tours in Iraq, and the Purple Heart he received for his injury came with some mixed feelings.

“At first, it was the ‘Enemy Marksmanship Award,’” he said. “It’s not something I walk around wearing on my sleeve, [but] it is something I can use to help others.”

That’s what the chief warrant officer decided to do...

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