SSgt Louis F. Cardin

Staff Sergeant Cardin enlisted in the Marine Corps in June 2006. Upon completing recruit training, Marine Combat Training, and the Field Artillery Cannon Crewman Course, he reported to Battery R, 5th Battalion, 11th Marines in 2007. He fulfilled duties as a 0811-field artillery cannoneer assigned to an M198 howitzer section. In 2008, he earned the 0814 MOS and served as HIMARS driver and gunner. He later served with 3/10, 2/11, 5/11, and 2/10 executing 3 combat deployments and employed every artillery weapon system in the Marine Corps inventory including the M198 Howitzer, M777 Howitzer, M142 HIMARS Launcher, and M327 120mm EFSS mortar.

In early March 2016, while serving in Echo Battery 2/11, he was deployed to northern Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. The battery established a 300-meter by 300-meter austere firebase to support the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces to isolate Mosul, Iraq. On the morning of 19 March 2016, while improving their position and establishing a firebase to conduct subsequent fire missions on enemy positions, enemy forces attacked the battery position with two 122mm Katyusha Rockets, one of which directly impacted Staff Sergeant Louis F. Cardin’s howitzer location, mortally wounding him.

Staff Sergeant Louis F. Cardin was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.