MJ Hegar

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. The video went viral and drew the attention of celebrities like Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Hegar has many tattoos, which were prominently featured in her 2018 viral campaign ad video, "Doors." She told Megyn Kelly during an interview on the Today Show that the cherry blossom tattoo on her shoulder was a way to cover up the shrapnel scar tissue that she had there, an idea to take control and make those wounds beautiful. In her book, she mentioned getting sexually assaulted by an Air Force medic during a physical exam. The video also featured the domestic violence by her father that she and her mother and sister experienced when she was young.

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. 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.

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. She won the Democratic nomination. 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.

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

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.

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 (SWAN) in a legal suit filed against the then U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asserting that the Combat Exclusion Policy was unconstitutional. Hegar said that the suit was about military effectiveness and would provide a larger pool of applicants to the military commanders. The assertion was not upheld, but the policy, implemented in 1994, was repealed in January 2013 for political reasons.

In 2011, Hegar married Brandon Hegar, whom she knew from high school. She and her family live in Round Rock, Texas, a town outside of Austin, Texas. She has two sons as well as stepchildren from her husband's prior marriage.

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.

On July 29, 2009, on her third tour to Afghanistan, Hegar, who went by the call sign Pedro 15, was shot down on a Medevac mission near Kandahar and sustained wounds during a conflict with the Taliban. 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.

Hegar was awarded the Purple Heart in December 2009. Her actions on this mission earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device 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.

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 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, California-based Counterdrug Task Force from 2007 to 2011.

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, 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.

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.

Mary Jennings Hegar (née von Stein; born March 16, 1976) is an American politician, Air Force veteran, businesswoman, and teacher. In 2017, she published the memoir Shoot Like a Girl, which describes her service in Afghanistan. She also sued the Air Force to remove the Combat Exclusion Policy. In July 2017, she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for United States House of Representatives to Texas's 31st congressional district. After winning the nomination, she was narrowly defeated by 3% by incumbent Republican John Carter. On April 23, 2019, Hegar announced her intention to challenge incumbent United States Senator John Cornyn in the 2020 election.