Garrett Carnes

U.S. Marine Cpl. Garrett Carnes (in wheelchair), a squad leader with 3rd Platoon, India Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and 22-year-old native of Mooresville, N.C., begins a motivational run with fellow Marines and sailors on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, May 29, 2012, held in honor of Carnes’ life and sacrifice. The infantryman lost his legs in an improvised explosive device attack Feb. 19 while supporting combat operations in the Khan Neshin district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Shortly before the attack, Carnes had earned a combat meritorious promotion to the rank of corporal. Teams of his fellow Marines and sailors ran 46 miles in his honor, traveling the same distance between the Afghan village in which he was injured, Malakhan, and the fighting position from which he operated, Observation Post Thomas Hill. The men of ‘America’s Battalion’ recently returned from their deployment, marking the battalion’s sixth combat tour in eight years and its final scheduled one to Afghanistan.