MJ Hegar


Mary Jennings Hegar is an American politician, United States Air Force veteran, and teacher. In 2017, she published the memoir Shoot Like a Girl, which describes her service in Afghanistan. She also sued the U.S. Air Force to remove the Combat Exclusion Policy.
In July 2017, Hegar announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for United States House of Representatives to Texas's 31st congressional district. After winning the nomination, she narrowly lost to incumbent Republican John Carter. On April 23, 2019, Hegar announced her intention to challenge incumbent United States Senator John Cornyn in the 2020 election. She won the Democratic nomination on July 14, 2020.

Early life and education

When Hegar was 7 years old, her mother, Grace, moved her and her sister from Fairfield, Connecticut, to Cedar Park, Texas. Hegar grew up in Cedar Park, where her mother remarried a Vietnam veteran, David Jennings, when she was 10 years old.
Hegar attended Faubion Elementary School in Cedar Park and graduated from Leander High School in Leander, Texas. She was class president, on the cheer squad, and played various sports, including soccer.
In 1999, Hegar received a BA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied criminology, sociology, philosophy, and world religions. While an undergraduate, she was Vice Wing Commander of Detachment 825 AFROTC and Deputy Commander of the Arnold Air Society. In 2015, she graduated from Leadership Austin Essential Class. In 2016 she received an Executive MBA, also from the University of Texas at Austin.

Career

Military

In December 1999, Hegar was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force through ROTC at the University of Texas. From April 2000 to March 2004, she served on active duty as an aircraft maintenance officer. Initially stationed at Misawa Air Force Base in Misawa, Aomori, Japan, she was later stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster, Missouri. At Whiteman, Hegar worked on the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Her maintenance career culminated in responsibility for 75% of all B-2 maintenance as a Captain and selection as the Company Grade Officer of the Year for 2003.
In 2004, the Air National Guard selected Hegar for pilot training. Upon completion of her training at the top of her class, she served two deployments to Afghanistan, flying Combat Search and Rescue on over 100 missions as well as Medevac missions as a helicopter pilot. As a member of the California Air National Guard, she worked as a pilot and trainer at the San Jose-based Counterdrug Task Force from 2007 to 2011.
In addition to the deployments to Afghanistan during the Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan, Hegar flew marijuana eradication missions, suppressed wildfires with buckets of water on cargo slings, performed pilot duties in evacuating survivors from hurricane-devastated cities, and rescued civilians on civil search and rescue missions in California and at sea.
On July 29, 2009, on her third tour to Afghanistan, Hegar was shot down near Kandahar with a co-pilot on a combat search-and-rescue mission. She received shrapnel wounds in her arm and leg from Taliban ground fire, but her helicopter was able to rescue the soldiers it had been sent to help. Under further heavy fire, her helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing. Other U.S. Army helicopters rescued her, her team, and the other soldiers, but because the rescue helicopters were small and full, she and others had to fly out standing on the skids.
Hegar was awarded the Purple Heart in December 2009. Her actions on this mission earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device, awarded in 2011. She was one of the few women to receive this medal after Amelia Earhart. In 2016, she described a 2007 mission to medevac a child in great detail in a TEDx Talks presentation.
Due to the restriction of the Combat Exclusion Policy on women applying for ground combat positions, and because she was medically disqualified from flying due to a serious back injury sustained during the 2009 mission, Hegar transitioned out of the Air National Guard and became a Reservist Liaison.

Other work

In 2010, Hegar relocated to Austin and worked as a program manager at Seton Healthcare Family until 2015. From 2015 to 2017, she worked as a consultant at Dell Computers.
Hegar has taught at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business and in the ROTC and women's studies departments. She has mentored cadets at UT and has served on the AFROTC Advisory Committee.

Writing

In March 2017, the Berkley Books imprint of Penguin Books published Hegar's memoir, Shoot Like a Girl, in a new military division called Caliber. In 2016, it was announced that the movie rights to the book had been optioned by TriStar Pictures, with Angelina Jolie reportedly in negotiations for the lead role.

Politics

Hegar voted for Carly Fiorina in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries. Fiorina had dropped out of the race several weeks earlier.
On July 6, 2017, Hegar announced that she would run for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Representative in Texas's 31st congressional district. In May 2018, she won the nomination. In June, Hegar released a short-form political ad, "Doors", that described her military career, including being shot down in Afghanistan. The video went viral and drew the attention of celebrities like Lin-Manuel Miranda. In the November election she lost to Republican incumbent John Carter, who received 50.6% of the vote to her 47.6%; it was Carter's narrowest win in his nine elections to Congress.
On April 23, 2019, Hegar announced that she was running for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas for the seat held by John Cornyn. She came in first in the March 3, 2020, primary with 22.37% of the vote, and won the July 14 runoff against Texas state Senator Royce West, who had received 14.7% of the primary vote.

Combat Exclusion Policy

Shortly after the 2009 mission in which Hegar was wounded in Afghanistan, she was medically disqualified from flying due to the military's Combat Exclusion Policy. She had not been previously barred from air combat as a pilot. She was automatically excluded from applying for combat positions that would have moved her military career forward. She was barred from cross-training for a ground combat position despite her expertise as a pilot, which had it not been for her gender would have been a next step.
In 2012, Hegar was the lead plaintiff alongside former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Zoe Bedell, U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Colleen Farrell, U.S. Army Reserves Staff Sergeant Jennifer Hunt, and the Service Women's Action Network in a lawsuit against U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asserting that the Combat Exclusion Policy was unconstitutional. Hegar said the suit was about military effectiveness and would give military commanders a larger pool of applicants. The lawsuit failed, but the policy, implemented in 1994, was repealed in January 2013 for political reasons.

Personal life

In 2011, Hegar married Brandon Hegar, whom she knew from high school. She and her family live in Round Rock, Texas, a suburb of Austin. She has two sons as well as stepchildren from her husband's previous marriage.
Hegar has many tattoos, which were prominently featured in her 2018 viral campaign ad, "Doors." She has said that the cherry blossom tattoo on her shoulder was a way to cover up shrapnel scar tissue, to take control and make the wounds beautiful. In her book, she mentions being sexually assaulted by an Air Force medic during a physical exam. "Doors" also featured domestic violence by her father that she, her mother and her sister experienced when she was young.

Honors and awards

RibbonDescriptionNotes
Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device2011
Purple Heart2009
Air MedalFour oak leaf clusters
Air Force Commendation MedalOne oak leaf cluster
National Defense Service Medal
Afghanistan Campaign MedalOne service star
Humanitarian Service Medal
Air Force Longevity Service Ribbon? oak leaf clusters
Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon
Air Force Training Ribbon

Works and publications

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