By Joe Hadsall

jhadsall@joplinglobe.com

As the colonel pinned the medal onto his chest, Spc. John Marshall’s brief, yet outstanding, military career came to a close.

Two years after being wounded outside Baghdad, the Joplin man was awarded the Bronze Star Medal during a ceremony Sunday at the armory for the 203rd Engineer Battalion of the Missouri Army National Guard.

“This means everything to me,” Marshall said, fighting back tears. “I was officially retired recently, so this is very emotional.”

Marshall, 40, was surrounded by friends, family members, and some of his fellow soldiers and commanders from the Missouri National Guard’s 110th Engineer Battalion. The crowd included his mother, Alice Marshall.

“He has been through a lot,” she said. “I’m so proud of him.”

Marshall served as a medic with the 110th’s C Company, based in Lexington. He was assigned primarily to route-clearance missions in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.

The Bronze Star is given to military personnel based on their entire body of work, said Jeffrey Hyde, company commander of the 110th.

“The award wasn’t related to his injury as much as it was related to his entire job,” Hyde said. “Being a medic and doing that under fire is a very difficult job.”

Sgt. Scharles Patterson served alongside Marshall in Iraq. He said Marshall had a good-natured personality and would laugh even when he was told a bad joke. He also was attentive to details when checking the medical conditions of soldiers.

“He would make sure that anyone in the platoon was good to go before they went back out,” Patterson said. “He was a good stickler for details, making sure we had recovered.”

In October of 2006, Marshall’s vehicle was struck by an enemy mortar shell. The resulting attack left injuries to his legs, back, neck and brain.

“I was told about the injury on a Wednesday, but I didn’t get to talk to him until that Friday,” Alice Marshall said. “Two days of not knowing what was going on was very hard.”

Marshall spent several weeks in intensive care, and underwent 15 surgeries and months of rehabilitation. He emerged with some hearing loss and a titanium plate in his spine, because of injuries to two discs in his neck.