John Clarke and Jim Shappee were killed in action in Vietnam while attached to India Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Ironically, both were killed during Operation DeSoto which took place in the Quang Ngai Province. Please take a moment and visit their Memorial Pages. They are only two of the more than 58,000 American servicemen who gave their lives so that we can enjoy the sweet taste of freedom.

I watched the flag pass by one day It fluttered in the breeze. A young Marine saluted it, and then, stood at ease. I looked at him in uniform so young, so tall, so proud; with hair cut square and eyes alert, He'd stand out in any crowd. I thought how many men like him had fallen through the years. How many died on foreign soil, how many mothers' tears? How many pilot's planes shot down? How many died at sea? How many foxholes were soldier's graves? No, freedom is not free. I heard the sound of taps one night when everything was still. I listened to the bugler play and felt a sudden chill. I wondered just how many times that taps had meant "Amen" When a flag had covered a coffin of a brother or a friend. I thought of all the children, of the others and the wives, of fathers, sons, and husbands with interrupted lives. I thought about a graveyard at the bottom of the sea, of unmarked graves in Arlington, No, freedom is not free.

by Cadet Major Kelly Strong in The Old Breed News October 1997

	L/Cpl John K. Clarke Memorial Page		HM3 James Shappee Memorial Page