Community Corner

Vienna Man Earns Purple Heart

Nearly seven years after injury in Iraq, James McDonough honored for service

Sept. 27, 2005 was a routine patrol day for United States Marine Corps Cpl. James McDonough. But as he began to ride through a Fallujah, Iraq market, standing atop the back of his unit's hummer, something didn't feel quite right.

His fellow Marine, in the midst of his second tour through the region, leaned over to tell McDonough he also had a bad feeling: The market, normally chaotic with transactions between vendors and residents, was empty.

Seconds later, everything went black.

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"Right beforehand, we realized something was going to happen," McDonough said.

The hummer hit an improvised explosive device (IED), knocking McDonough and his fellow Marines off their feet and onto the ground. The moments that followed were fuzzy; McDonough and the other Marine riding in the back of the hummer couldn't see straight, were nauseous, dizzy, fuzzy; struggling for days, sometimes years, to regain function and focus. 

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For his service, McDonough, 27, an alumnus of, received a Purple Heart on Wednesday — nearly seven years after the incident for which he earned it.

Though McDonough was injured in 2005, he remained in Iraq until February 2006. He left the service in June of that year.

McDonough was on a high mission tempo for the remainder of his service after the accident, he said, and "didn't want to be a detriment" to the cause by pursuing an award (and all the paperwork that comes with it).

So he returned to the area in which he grew up, enrolling in the undergraduate program at George Mason University in Fairfax with his wife Katie before settling again in Vienna.

It wasn't until early 2011 that McDonough thought about pursuing an award, when the Department of Defense and the Marine Corps more clearly changed the Purple Heart requirements to include soldiers who were treated after an IED attack for traumatic brain injury. The adjustment qualified McDonough for the award.

He tracked down his commanders, who wrote letters confirming McDonough’s injuries, and submitted all his paperwork to headquarters.

He was patient, he said, but found himself waiting, and waiting, as the months went on.

After a year, McDonough reached out to U.S. Rep Gerry Connolly (D-11th), who put him in touch with Joe Weeren, an Iraq veteran and Wounded Warrior staffer in his office. With Weeren's help, the application suddenly moved forward; McDonough was approved for the award in February.

On Wednesday, McDonough met with Connolly in his office.

McDonough, who was 22 at the time of the accident, was "awfully young" to earn the award, the congressman said, thanking him for his service.

It's not the first time Connolly, like other elected officials who work with veterans, has had to step in to assist a service member get an award, claim or resolution. Connolly recalled a Vietnam veteran whose original records had apparently vanished in a fire while being held by the government. That man waited 39 years for his award to come through, he said.

"Sometimes bureaucracy needs a little push," Connolly said.

Today, McDonough, now working as a government contractor in Crystal City, is in the process of filing a disability claim. He continues to have memory problems, chronic headaches, sensitivity to certain lights and sounds, which make him anxious, and increased irritability.

The Purple Heart will likely help him get the claim, he said, and the help he needs to make those symptoms disappear for good.


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