LYNN — A memorial will be unveiled in honor of Marine and Lynn resident Bradley J. Campus at the Clark Street Playground on Saturday, Oct. 14 at 11 a.m. The memorial is being organized by Campus’ friend and fellow Marine, Charlie Griffin.
Campus died on Oct. 23, 1983 in the Beirut barracks bombings that took the lives of 241 American service members. Campus, 21 at the time, was reported to be missing initially. His body was not found until days later.
The Daily Item reported in June that Griffin, who escorted Campus’ body home from the airport, was working on replacing the current memorial with a granite stone for the 40th anniversary of Campus’ death.
In an interview with The Item in 2022, Campus’ older sister Brenda Haskell said that she still remembers his funeral and the subsequent procession and gun salute.
“It was days later before they came and told us they found his body,” Haskell said. “It was hardest on my mother. It was tough for me and my sister but for her, she just couldn’t function because of not knowing.”
Speaking a year ago, Haskell said she was still in disbelief that Campus had been gone for 39 years.
“At this point, you think about how he could have been a grandfather with his own grandchildren by now and things that could’ve happened but didn’t,” she said. “It’s like, how could this happen? He was just a sweet, funny little boy.”
Griffin met with city leaders, contractors, and landscapers for the monument. In 2022, Griffin told The Item that he wanted the new memorial to be more “educational” than the current one, a plywood sign with Campus’ name.
“They’ll look at the stone and 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.”
