Semper Fi note 1983 Beirut
While Commandant Paul X. Kelley was visiting an intensive care ward at Frankfurt, Germany on 25 October, 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 that to me.”
From the Paul X. Kelley Collection (COLL/3348) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division
OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH
While Commandant Paul X. Kelley was visiting an intensive care ward at Frankfurt, Germany on 25 October, 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 that to me.”
From the Paul X. Kelley Collection (COLL/3348) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division
OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH