MJ Hegar

• Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School[4]
• Flight school

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. She was initially stationed at Misawa Air Force Base in Misawa, Aomori, in the northern part of the island of Honshū of Japan. She was also stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster, Missouri, about an hour east-southeast of Kansas City, 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, Hegar was selected for pilot training by the Air National Guard. Upon completion of her training at the top of her class, she served two deployments to Afghanistan, flying Combat Search and Rescue[13] on over 100 missions[14] as well as Medevac missions as a helicopter pilot.[15][16][17] As a member of the California Air National Guard, she worked as a pilot and trainer at the San Jose, California-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, wildfire suppression with buckets of water on cargo slings, performed pilot duties in evacuating survivors from hurricane-devastated cities, and rescued many civilians on civil search and rescue missions in California and at sea.[3]

On July 29, 2009, on her third tour to Afghanistan, Hegar, who went by the call sign Pedro 15,[18] was shot down on a Medevac mission near Kandahar and sustained wounds during a conflict with the Taliban.[19] She was operating as a combat search and rescue helicopter co-pilot on loan to the U.S. Army for the Medevac mission. Taliban ground forces shot at the helicopter, which disabled her helicopter, and wounded her with shrapnel in her arm and leg. Although injured, Hegar and her pilot were able to rescue the soldiers but under further heavy fire, the helicopter was forced to conduct an emergency landing. U.S. Army helicopters were able to rescue her, her team, and the other soldiers, but because the rescue helicopters were small and full, she and others had to fly out while standing on the skids. On the way up out of the area, she saw insurgents and returned fire towards the area where she saw muzzle flashes.[20][21]

Hegar was awarded the Purple Heart in December 2009.[17] Her actions on this mission earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device in 2011.[22] She was one of the few women to receive this medal after Amelia Earhart.[18][23] In 2016, she described a 2007 mission to medevac a child in great detail in a TEDx Talks presentation.[24]

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,[25] Hegar transitioned out of the Air National Guard and became a Reservist Liaison.[4]

Hegar relocated to Austin in 2010 and worked as a program manager at Seton Healthcare Family, a position she held until 2015. From 2015 to 2017, she worked at Dell Computers as a consultant.[10]

Hegar has taught at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business as well as at UT in the ROTC and Women's Studies departments. She has mentored cadets at the university[26] and has served on the AFROTC Advisory Committee.

Hegar has worked as an executive coach and consultant. She writes and speaks publicly about her experiences in the military and her fight to put women in combat, which she calls “equality”, and claims will increase military readiness.

In March 2017, Hegar's memoir, Shoot Like a Girl, was published by the Berkley Books imprint of Penguin Books, in a new military division called Caliber.[20] In 2016, it was announced that the movie rights to the book were optioned by TriStar Pictures, with Angelina Jolie reportedly in negotiations for the lead role.[27][28]

Hegar voted for Carly Fiorina in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries.[29]

On July 6, 2017, Hegar announced that she would be running to be the Democratic nominee for the United States Representative in Texas's 31st congressional district.[2] She won the Democratic nomination.[6] Running a close race, she was defeated by 3% by incumbent John Carter in the November 2018 elections. She said that she thinks the political leaders for this district need to be more reflective of the population served, and notes that the district has more military personnel living there than in 97% of the districts in the rest of the country.[30]

In June 2018, Hegar released a short form political ad called "Doors" that described her career in the military, which included her being shot down in Afghanistan.[31] The video went viral and drew the attention of celebrities like Lin-Manuel Miranda.[30][32][33]

On April 23, 2019, Hegar announced that she was running to be the Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas for the seat occupied by John Cornyn.[34] She came in first in the March 3, 2020 primary, winning 22.3% of the vote and advancing to the July 14 runoff against Texas state Senator Royce West who garnered 14.7% of the primary vote.[35]