On Thursday, 25 April 2024, Prince Harry, presented Sergeant First Class Elizabeth Marks with the prestigious Military Times Soldier of the Year award. Go to link to watch the video of the award. #PrinceHarry eloquently presents Soldier of the Year Award 2024 — Military Times Service Members (youtube.com)
Sergeant First Class Elizabeth Marks graduated high school at age 16 before attending community colleges in Arizona. She then joined the U.S. Army in July 2008 at age 17 and earned the military occupational specialty 68W, Health Care Specialist. While she was deployed in Iraq in 2010 she suffered bilateral hip injuries that left her disabled. Marks, recovered from her injuries, first in Germany than at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas.  While it initially appeared that she could be declared unfit for duty by Army medics, she set a goal to become fit for duty. She began swimming as way to complete additional physical therapy and cardio while at BAMC and obtained the fit for duty classification on July 3, 2012. In July 2012, Elizabeth Marks began competing in swimming competitions shortly after joining the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.
Elizabeth Marks has won a gold medal at the 2015 Military World Games and four gold medals at the 2016 Invictus Games. She qualified for the 2016 Summer Paralympics by clocking a time of 1:28.54 at the U.S. trials, which was only 0.01 seconds short of the world record. She won an individual gold and a relay bronze medal at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio. In June 2021 the US announced the 34 Paralympic swimmers who would be going to the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. The women’s team was Marks, Jessica Long, McKenzie Coan, Rebecca Meyers and Mallory Weggemann. On April 14, 2022, Marks was named to the roster to represent the United States at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships. On April 29, 2023, Marks was named to the roster to represent the United States at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships.

Sergeant First Class Elizabeth Marks is a 2017 U.S. Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame member.