Remembering Victims of Lesser Known Wars
Since 1965, eight Marine Corps C-130s and 43 Marine aircrew members have been lost—some two dozen in the 1960s alone. The pain of loss is borne stalwartly by the families and friends of the departed, individuals like John Keene, a resident of Richmond, Virginia, whose cousin, Captain Robert Wallis, perished in a 1970 C-130 training mishap. Mr. Keene was subsequently taken with the idea of commissioning a memorial honoring all of the Marines who’d lost their lives in C-130 accidents. He envisioned a granite monument surrounding the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia’s Semper Fidelis Memorial Park, and got promptly about the daunting business of actualizing his notion ...