On Marvin Shields' tombstone it says
"He died as he lived, for his friends"
Veterans replace stolen coins at war hero’s graveKOMO News
By Mark Miller
Published: Aug 31, 2014
GARDINER, Wash. – At a small cemetery in the town of Gardiner, a wrong has been made right.
“I feel very honored, very blessed, very loved at this point in time,” said Joan Shields, as she looked at the headstone of the man she lost to the Vietnam War.
On Sunday, veterans held a ceremony to replace the special military coins that were stolen from Marvin G. Shields’ graveside earlier this month.
The fallen Navy Seabee posthumously received the Medal of Honor for saving many lives during a battle in Don Zoai, South Vietnam in 1965.
Shields was 25 years old when he volunteered to take out a Viet Cong machine gun nest. He fought while wounded, rescued another wounded soldier, and kept fighting for hours. Shields later died of a gunshot wound.
He was the first member of the Navy to earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.
“I'm pretty sure he’s sitting up there, you know, just grinning. He's gotta be grinning,” said retired Seabee Bill Pletcher, who led the effort to replace the stolen coins, and hold a ceremony to honor Marvin Shields and his family.
Bill decided to do something after seeing a KOMO4News Problems Solvers report on the theft of three challenge coins from the headstone.
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