As part of “Week of the Eagles” festivities in Fort Campbell, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth paid a visit to the installation Monday morning — presiding over Purple Heart awards to several 101st Airborne Division soldiers.
Many of Monday’s recipients were hurt during a 2003 grenade attack in Kuwait, in which one U.S. soldier threw explosives into three tents and fired his M4 rifle at an officer — wounding 16 in all, three egregiously, and two fatally: Army Captain Christopher Scott Seifert and Air Force Major Gregory Stone.
Those honored this way included: retired Col. Townley Hendrick, retired Col. Andras Marton, retired Lt. Col. Shawn Phillips, retired Lt. Col. Kenneth Romaine, retired Maj. David Santos, and veteran 1st Lt. Gian Amorsolo for wounds received on March 23, 2003.
Others honored included: veteran Sgt. Mark Pham for wounds received on April 30, 2006, veteran Corporal Marcus Sandoval for wounds received on April 7, 2006, and veteran Spc. Miguel Lopez for wounds received on May 2, 2006.
Hegseth also delivered a Call to Arms for a mass reenlistment.
The “real 1%,” he added, aren’t the celebrities of America, but the soldiers in the 101st.
The 45-year-old Hegseth graduated from Princeton in 2003, and was commissioned as an Army second lieutenant through ROTC — where he briefly worked as an equity analyst at Bear Stearns. He completed basic training at Fort Benning in 2004 and served with the Minnesota Army National Guard at Guantanamo Bay for about 11 months, where he led a platoon guarding detainees.
After returning briefly to civilian work, he volunteered for deployment in the Iraq War as an infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, where he earned a Bronze Star. In Iraq, he initially served in Baghdad before moving to Samarra as a civil affairs officer, working with local officials to support governance and build relationships with the city council.
