Barbara Shields, 3, was noticeably restless that September morning at the White House, as she sat on the Oval Office desk watching President Lyndon Johnson give her father’s posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor to her mother, Joan Shields.

 Just 15 months earlier, in June of 1965, the Vietnam War was being fought in the Vietnamese town of Dong Xoai, where a fierce battle ensued.  A Navy Seabee unit encamped with an Army special forces unit, was under attack from Viet Cong soldiers.  One of the men of the Seabee unit, despite suffering severe bullet and shrapnel wounds, rescued a U.S. Army officer, helped carry out a dangerous mission, and at last made the ultimate sacrifice.

 Some 30 years later, on August 13 1998, a military bus carrying a group called the Navy Seabee Veterans of America was taking a tour of the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, MS.  One point of interest was the Naval Seabee Museum, which contains the history of Navy Seabees and their role in U.S. military history.

 When the bus reached the front entrance to the museum, Barbara Shields, 34, stepped off the bus and onto a street named, oddly enough, Marvin Shields Boulevard.
 
 The group of Navy Veterans that Barbara Shields accompanied, was on the Gulf Coast celebrating their 50th anniversary.  The 52nd Navy Seabee Veterans of America convention was held at the Imperial Palace Casino in Biloxi, where Barbara Shields was one of the guest speakers.

 Barbara Shields is an enlightened young woman with a cheery disposition, whose life has become intertwined with the glorious past of a fallen war hero.
 
That hero, Barbara Shields’ father, was that brave Navy Seabee, whose valiant actions at the battle of Dong Xoai, would set the example for years to come for the nation’s fighting men to follow.  He was Marvin Shields (1939 - 1965) of Port Townsend, Wash., the posthumously famed Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

 Marvin Shields’ bravery at the battle of Dong Xoai has had a profound impact upon the lives of the men he served with, the Navy, and the country he died for — but not even he could have envisioned the sheer impact of his legacy upon his loved ones, and in particular his only child, Barbara Shields, a young girl at the time of his death.

“. . . It still hurts,” Barbara Shields said sorrowfully.  “I know that he did what he had to do without thinking about it, because that’s the way he was. . . .  He died as he lived, for his friends.”

--Marvin Shields and the battle of Dong Xoai--

 The year was 1965, the president was Lyndon Johnson, and the place was the city of Dong Xoai in the Republic of Vietnam, during the Vietnam War.  On the night of June 9, a Viet Cong Force invaded the U.S. Special Forces Camp positioned there.  Stationed at the camp were the U.S. Navy Seabee Team 1104, U.S. Army Special Forces, and the South Vietnam Defense Force.

 Seabee Marvin Shields, 25, was a third class construction mechanic stationed at the camp.  He suffered shrapnel wounds as a result of the initial attack, and early the next morning, June 10, he suffered a bullet wound to the face.  Despite his many injuries, he assisted another man in carrying a seriously injured Army Officer to safety.  In those predawn hours he resumed firing his rifle at the Viet Cong.

 At first light, Shields volunteered to assist Special Forces 2nd Lt. Charles Williams in destroying a Viet Cong machine gun emplacement in a nearby schoolhouse.  After crawling through heavy fire, Shields, with the help of the lieutenant knocked out the machine gun and the gunners.

 While returning from this mission, Shields was struck by machine gun fire and mortally wounded.  He continued crawling back to headquarters, but at last, did not make it.

  Later he would be removed from the site by a fellow Seabee and two Rangers of the Army Special Forces and placed on a rescuing helicopter, but during the flight he died from his wounds.

 His valor would later earn him, posthumously, the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor-- the nation’s highest military decoration for heroism-- among other awards.  To date, he is the only Navy Seabee to earn the Medal of Honor.  The Navy, and the military will not soon forget Marvin Shields.

--Survivors wife Joan, and daughter Barbara visit Washington, D.C.--

 On Sept. 13, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson invited Marvin Shields’ survivors to the White House where his Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony took place.  Among those present was newly promoted First Lieut. Charles Williams of Vance, S.C., who also was formerly awarded the Medal of Honor, and who was with Marvin Shields in Dong Xoai that fateful day.

 After the ceremony, Barbara Shields, with mother Joan and the President at her side, went to the White House lawn.  A now older Barbara Shields looks back at that day and recalls fond memories of picking flowers and of meeting two Presidential dogs with two very unusual names.

“I remember his dogs, Him and Her,” she said cheerfully. “I remember him [Lyndon Johnson] showing them to me . . .  and I picked flowers, and I was giving him flowers.”

 She also remembers the reason earlier at the award ceremony she was calmed from squirming, and abruptly placed on the Oval Office desk by none other than Lyndon Johnson himself.

“. . . I could not sit still, and he picked me up and put me on his desk so that I would stay in one spot,” Barbara Shields said.

 The New York Times newspaper on Sept. 14, 1966, reported the Medal of Honor ceremony and described young Barbara Shields as “. . .  too young to understand the solemnity of the ceremony in President Johnson’s office.”

 Her mother Joan Shields Bennett, 54, currently lives in Mukilteo, Wash., where she has remarried and lives with husband Richard Bennett, 58, a retired Navy public affairs officer.  Joan holds all the memories and momentos of the life of Marvin Shields, and daughter Barbara holds on to
a picture.

 “I have a picture of dad around my first birthday, and I think it is the only one around,” Shields said of her only memorial keepsake.  “He was just leaving for ‘Nam, his team had just got done with its training . . .,”

 One can only imagine what was it like for young Barbara Shields growing up in the shadow of a renown war hero.  Shields recalls a school history class where her father was the subject of much interest, as was his namesake, the now decommissioned warship, USS Marvin Shields (FF-1066).

 She brought to class, for show and tell, some souvenirs of the Naval ship.  Once her mother caught wind of her daughter’s so-called class project, daughter Barbara was scolded for “showing off” and told not to repeat the incident.

 Since those years of repressed enthusiasm for her father, she has been set free in many ways.  She since married, gave birth to daughter Sarah, 5, who bears a remarkable facial resemblance to Marvin Shields.  Later Barbara Shields would divorce and move to Everett, Wash.
 
--Marvin Shields’ memorial online--

 Barbara Shields has so very few precious memories of her father that she has now gone on a vision quest of sorts.  She hopes to learn of him from the men who served with the Seabees during the Vietnam War.

 Now her curiosity of her father’s life runs amok on the Information Super Highway.  The Internet now can add to it’s rich repertoire, Barbara Shields’ web page -- http://members.aol.com/Bdshields/Myhero.html.  The memorial web site holds everything you ever wanted to know about the late Marvin Shields, but were afraid to ask.

 And don’t be afraid to ask Barbara about a group she also belongs to called Sons and Daughters In Touch, which is a survivors' group that keeps in touch, children of Soldiers and Sailors killed in action or missing during the Vietnam War.
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