Marine Corps News Room

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006604280350

Keith Matheny
The Desert Sun
April 28, 2006

But it was a warning Jamie Woodard of Paris, Texas, always offered as she said her goodbyes with her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Ben Hardgrove.

Woodard had good reason to urge her son's caution. Hardgrove, a member of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines out of Twentynine Palms, had served two tours of duty in Iraq, the last commanding a Humvee that patrolled the violent streets of Ramadi, in the Sunni Triangle.

On the evening Hardgrove returned home from Iraq March 29, he called his mother in Texas from Twentynine Palms.

"He said, 'Mom, I'm standing out front of the PX with civvies (civilian clothes) on. I am so happy to be home,'" Woodard said.

Hardgrove, as always, promised his mom he'd be careful. He told her he loved her. Those were the last words they spoke to one another, she said.

Today, as he has for nearly a month, Hardgrove, 20, lies in a coma in Desert Regional Medical Center. His skull is fractured, eight ribs and his collarbone broken, his pelvis shattered. He has brain damage from which he is not expected to recover.

Hardgrove was struck by a car hours after his return from his Iraq tour, as he celebrated being home with fellow Marines.

"That's something I think about daily: How could he have gone and been a combat warrior, served his country, never got hit, never got scratched, then the day he returns something like that happens?" Woodard said.
"I don't know. It's something that's beyond my ability to understand."

Hardgrove and fellow Marines celebrated that first night back at a motel in Yucca Valley. Hardgrove was always adamant about not drinking and driving, or being in a car with someone who had been drinking, his mother said.

At the motel, there was rowdy horseplay. There was drinking. And, for one moment, Hardgrove wasn't careful.

Hardgrove ran from the motel's parking lot out into a nearby highway and was struck by a car. In a cruel twist of fate, the car was driven by a retired Marine who had served in Vietnam, Woodard said.

Doctors offer little possibility that Hardgrove will recover from his persistent vegetative state. But as long as he struggles for recovery, his mother will have hope, she said.

"One thing I do is just keep going forward and fighting for him," she said. "I can't just give up on him, and take what the doctors say."

Hardgrove is Woodard's oldest child. She has five other children, ranging in age from 17 to a 6-month-old baby. Woodard came to Palm Springs to be with Hardgrove the day following his accident, but had to return to Texas April 11 to care for her other children, she said.

Angels arrive to help

Hardgrove's aunt, Susan Haeg, a retired Navy captain, has visited him at his bedside in the hospital frequently.
Also pitching in are Jim Forneris, a Palm Springs winter resident, and Ashley McGuire of Palm Desert. Both are volunteers with a group called Soldier's Angels.

The organization's members typically write to deployed military personnel and send care packages. But when Angels officials learned about Hardgrove's accident, they searched their roster for local volunteers who could visit him in the hospital and be a support for Hardgrove and his family.

Forneris said he has visited Hardgrove daily - talking to him, touching him, encouraging him to open his eyes and wiggle his toes.

"When I walked in (to Hardgrove's room) I thought, 'My God; that could have been my son lying there,'" Forneris said.

McGuire also visits Hardgrove regularly, and stays in almost daily contact with Woodard.

"It's so heartbreaking," McGuire said.

"You can't just bail on this guy. The family believes miracles can happen."

Born to be a Marine

Ben Hardgrove was literally born into the military, at Cherry Point Naval Hospital in North Carolina. Ben's father, Woodard's ex-husband, Steve Hardgrove, was also a Marine.
"From the time Ben was old enough to know what a Marine was, that's what he wanted to do," Woodard said.

As a high school junior, Hardgrove signed up with the Marines' delayed entry program, so he could begin training in preparation for enlisting upon graduation. Less than two months after being handed his diploma, he was in boot camp. From there he chose combat infantry school, his mother said.

Hardgrove's first seven-month tour in Iraq was spent primarily in Husaybah, a city near the Syrian border. He came home for a year, then was re-deployed to Ramadi last September.

During a firefight March 18, less than two weeks before he came home, two friends of Hardgrove's were killed, Woodard said.

"When he called home, he said, 'Mom, his brains were in my hands,'" she said. "It wasn't the first time he had lost friends he served with. There's no way I'll ever believe that did not affect him."

Woodard has struggled with trying to make sense of how her son's accident occurred.

"I think he just didn't realize where he was at, that it was on a highway," she said.

When she would give her motherly warnings to be careful, "Ben would always say, 'I'll be fine. I'll make it. I'm invincible,'" Woodard said.

"Part of that is youth; part of it is the mentality they had to develop to do what they did over there.

"The thing is, when they come home, they're not invincible here."

'It's time ... to serve him'

Hardgrove laid shirtless in his hospital bed Wednesday. A feeding tube gives him nourishment. Though he can breathe on his own, a tracheostomy tube is in his throat.
On one of his arms is a tattoo with the eagle, globe and anchor symbolic of the Marine Corps and the words Semper Fidelis, the Marine slogan, Latin for "always faithful."

The tattoo on Hardgrove's other shoulder reads, "Don't mess with Texas."

There are plans to move Hardgrove back to his home state next week, to a rehabilitation center in Austin. That's a more than five-hour car ride away for his family, but much closer than California.

Those who've spent hours at Hardgrove's bedside swear he shows signs of recognizing people, making eye contact, moving his toes on command, occasionally crying. Doctors, however, read less into his apparent responses, and are not optimistic about Hardgrove's long-term recovery prospects, Woodard said.

Still, she holds out hope; a mother's hope.

"He's stubborn," Woodard said. "I just find it very difficult that they would make a prognosis about the rest of his life in the first few weeks."

Hardgrove's Texas community and fellow Marines and their families have provided encouragement, prayers, food, gifts and cash donations, Woodard said. Some who've provided support are Gold Star mothers, whose sons were killed in Iraq, she said. A Marine mother Woodard never met bought her airplane ticket to come to California, she said.

"We are financially in a mess right now," Woodard wrote in a recent e-mail chain with Soldier's Angels members. "We have enough to pay bills but might need some food next week."

Hardgrove's story is more than a tragedy. It's a call to action, Fornaris said.

"A young man served his country, and now it's time for our country to serve him," Fornaris said.

"I think it's our obligation to get him the care he needs, the support he needs. And the family needs support, too."

How to Help

A support fund for Lance Cpl. Ben Hardgrove and his family has been established at a bank in his hometown of Paris, Texas.
To make a contribution, make checks payable to the Lance Cpl. Ben Hardgrove Fund and send them to:
Lance Cpl. Ben Hardgrove Fund
First Federal Community Bank
P.O. Box 370
Paris, TX 75461-0370