Specialist 4 Keith Allen Campbell was born on March 3, 1946, and grew up in Arlington, Virginia. From a young age he wanted to serve in the U.S. Army and one day become an Army doctor. He loved the outdoors and was a natural athlete whose talents included swimming, archery, horseback riding and skydiving. His mother later wrote of him, “You ran before you walked. You sang before you talked.” At 17 he left high school to serve his country, earning his GED along the way.
Keith enlisted in the Army from Arlington and served a nearly three-year tour, part of it as a member of the 11th Special Forces Group. His first combat deployment took him to the Dominican Republic, where he was recommended for the Bronze Star for bravery. After his honorable discharge he planned to further his education, but he set those plans aside and reenlisted, accepting a reduction in rank so that he could go to Vietnam as a combat medic with the 503rd Infantry (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate).
On February 8, 1967, in Bien Hoa Province, Republic of Vietnam, Keith saw a wounded soldier lying exposed and unprotected. Disregarding a hail of enemy fire, he ran to the man, gave him lifesaving treatment and dragged him to shelter behind a tree. As he shielded his patient from further fire with his own body, he was mortally wounded. He was 20 years old. His actions that day saved the lives of many soldiers.
For his heroism Keith was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor. His other decorations include the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device, the Purple Heart, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal and the Combat Medical Badge.
On November 14, 2006, the library at Fort Sam Houston, now Joint Base San Antonio, home of Army medical training, was rededicated as the Keith A. Campbell Memorial Library; several of the soldiers he saved met one another for the first time at the ceremony. Keith rests at Arlington National Cemetery, not far from where he grew up, beside his childhood friends Philip Newman Malone, Paul Malone and Stephen Gavin. Each Christmas his younger sister, Judy, places a small fir tree on his grave decorated with a special chain the two began making together before he left for Vietnam. His name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Panel 15E, Row 8, and he is also remembered on the Virginia War Memorial, on a memorial maintained by the Delaware River and Bay Authority and on a paver in front of “Iron Mike” at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
SP4 Keith Campbell knowingly and willingly used his own body to shield his patient, giving his life so others would live in Bien Hoa Province, Vietnam.
Joint Base San Antonio Keith A. Campbell Memorial Library Citation
Sources
- AMEDD Center of History and Heritage: Distinguished Service Cross recipients, Vietnam
- National Purple Heart Honor Mission: Keith Allen Campbell
- KeithCampbell.net (family memorial site)
- Joint Base San Antonio Libraries
- Family-provided records on file with MVF: Keith Campbell bio
