A Marine Corps portrait of Bradley J. Campus, a Massachusetts man who died in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. Forty years after his death, his friends are fundraising for a monument in his hometown of Lynn, a Boston suburb. (Bradley J. Campus Memorial/gofundme)
LYNN, Mass. (Tribune News Service) — Bradley J. Campus was killed Oct. 23, 1983, in the Beirut barracks bombing in Lebanon. Forty years later, the Marine is being honored with a new monument at Clark Street Playground.
A fundraiser for the monument will take place at Metro Bowl in Peabody, Mass., from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday. Brian Hurley, a friend of Campus', is helping to organize it. He said food will be provided at the event, and no registration is required.
“There’s no cost to anyone who wants to bowl,” Hurley said. “All we ask is that maybe they can make a one-time donation. We’re not looking for anything overly large, $5 or $10.”
There will be another fundraiser later this year for the monument, Hurley added.
"We're going to do something more formal in September, involving a live band and renting a hall and stuff like that, but just to keep people's minds fresh," Hurley said. "Forty years is a long time — people tend to forget."
The attack that killed Campus also killed 240 other American service members when two suicide bombers detonated two truck bombs that hit the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which housed hundreds of U.S. and French military members. It was the deadliest single-day attack against U.S. Marines since the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima.
Friend and fellow Marine Charlie Griffin, who escorted Campus' body home from the airport and attended the funeral, told The Daily Item in October 2022 that he had been planning to host a rededication for the 40th anniversary of Campus' death.
Griffin has been working on improving Campus' memorial at Clark Street Playground by replacing the current plywood that displays his name with a more detailed, granite stone.
Hurley said Griffin met with city leaders, contractors and landscapers for the monument and that it is on track to be ready in October.
Griffin told The Item in 2022 that he wants the monument to be educational.
"They'll look at the stone and they'll see information about Brad and how he was killed ... You don't want to forget that somebody made the ultimate sacrifice like that," Griffin said. "So it's not just some young Lynn kid who died, but it tells where it happened, why it happened, and different things like that."
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