Barrett-Bonifas Memorial Ceremony 2019

Area North, Seoul, Osan, Korea, OT

Legionnaires Bill Beatty, Chris Vaia and Steve Tharp of Lewis L. Millett Post 38 in South Korea attended and participated during the Barrett-Bonifas Memorial Ceremony held by the United Nations Command Security Battalion-Joint Security Area in Camp Bonifas on Aug. 27, 2019. Tharp also represented Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 810 during the ceremony. The ceremony was to remember the loss of two soldiers - Maj. Arthur Bonifas, of Newburgh, N.Y., the Joint Security Force company commander, and 1st Lt. Mark Barrett, of Columbia, S.C., the 1st platoon leader - who were brutally axed to death during a routine tree-trimming operation near the Bridge of No Return. During the memorial ceremony, Beatty and Vaia each placed a single stem of flower in front of the memorial photo of Barrett and Bonifas. The main guest speaker, Gen. Robert B. Abrams, Commander, United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea, spoke of the sacrifices made by Bonifas and Barrett. The memorial at Camp Bonifas was commemorating the 43rd anniversary of the 1976 axe murder incident.


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