Meanwhile, 36 years later
While Commandant Paul X. Kelley was visiting an intensive care ward at Frankfurt, Germany on 25 October 1983, he observed Jeffrey Nashton “with more tubes going in and out of his body than I (Gen. Kelley) have ever seen. When he heard me say who I was, he grabbed my camouflaged coat, went up to the collar and counted the stars. He squeezed my hand, and then he wrote…’Semper Fi’,” Gen. Kelley explained. The Commandant later recalled, “When I left the hospital, I realized I had met a great human being, and I took off those stars because at the time I felt they belonged more to him than to me.” From the Paul X. Kelley Collection (COLL/3348) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH
In the U.S. House, H.Res.515 has recently been introduced “Expressing support for the designation of October 23, 2019, as a national day of remembrance of the tragic 1983 terrorist bombing of the United States Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.”