GARDINER — The only Navy Seabee to receive the Medal of Honor, Marvin G. Shields, was remembered for his selfless heroism under extreme fire during the annual Veterans Day ceremony at Gardiner Cemetery.
Steady rainfall failed to dampen the spirit of more than 100 civilians and U.S. Navy Seabees personnel from around the Northwest who gathered Friday at the cemetery where Shields, a Port Townsend High School graduate who was mortally wounded in a Viet Cong attack during the Vietnam War, has been buried since 1965.
“I think it’s so important on a day like today that they never ever forget, that everyone remembers those who have served,” said Shields’ widow, Joan Bennett, a longtime Gardiner resident who lives there with her second husband, Richard.
She attended the service put on by Navy Seabee Veterans of America.
Bennett vowed to attend every annual ceremony for Shields, or “as long as I can.”
Awarded posthumously
Shields was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson for gallantry during combat.
He died at the age of 25 in Vietnam, where he was a Seabee mechanic with the Navy’s mobile construction battalion.
On Friday, Bennett and many in her family stood solemnly, protected under a canopy, while Navy Seabee Chief Builder Kelly Daw declared, “This man stood the watch.”
Shields’ Seabee team arrived at Dong Xoai, Vietnam, on June 10, 1965.
He was wounded when his unit came under heavy fire from a Viet Cong regiment’s machine gun, heavy weapons and small arms.
Construction Mechanic 3rd Class Shields carried on despite the injury, resupplying his fellow soldiers with ammunition and returning the enemy fire for almost three hours.
Shields was wounded a second time during the Viet Cong attack but continued to fight.
At one point, he assisted in carrying a more critically wounded man to safety, then resumed firing at the enemy for four more hours.
A commander eventually asked for a volunteer to accompany him in an attempt to knock out the enemy machine gun emplacement that was assaulting their position.
Shields volunteered.
The group knocked out the gun, but Shields was shot again and mortally wounded.
It was the 45th time a Veterans Day has taken place since Shields was laid to rest at the cemetery.
Seabees Force Master Chief Ray Kelly, the highest ranking naval officer at the ceremony, said it was an honor to come from his post in Washington, D.C., to attend the ceremony.
“It’s a pretty solemn event for a very American hero, and it’s a big event,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
