Their Story
Remembering Christopher R. Hrbek.
Sergeant Christopher R. Hrbek grew up in Westwood, New Jersey, the kind of town that shows up for its own. Before he ever put on a uniform for the Marine Corps, he wore one for his neighbors, nine years as a volunteer firefighter with the Westwood Fire Department, a job he'd chosen as a teenager because he wanted to be the person who showed up when things went wrong.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2003, in the wake of September 11th, and became a field artillery cannoneer with 3rd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, out of Camp Lejeune. He deployed to Afghanistan's Helmand Province, where the work was as dangerous as it gets.
On December 23, 2009, his battalion sergeant major stepped on an improvised explosive device. Under enemy fire, Sgt. Hrbek moved to him and got him out alive. For that, he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" for valor, the act of a man who ran toward the worst moment of someone else's day, the same instinct that had put him on a fire truck back home.
Three weeks later, on January 14, 2010, Sgt. Hrbek was killed in Helmand Province. He was 25 years old.
Westwood has never let his name fade. That June, Congress passed Public Law 111-189, and the Westwood Post Office was formally dedicated as the Sergeant Christopher R. Hrbek Post Office Building; the town declared November 27th "Christopher Hrbek Day" in his honor. His mother, Cheryl Hodges, leads the Sgt Christopher Hrbek Scholarship & Memorial Fund, which has spent more than a decade turning his memory into scholarships for students who carry forward the same instinct he had, showing up for other people, at cost to themselves.
He is remembered in Westwood as a firefighter, a Marine, and a hometown son who never stopped being the person who ran toward trouble to help someone else through it.
