Harvey C. Barnum Jr. signed up for the Marine Corps his freshman year at Saint Anselm College. After graduating in 1962 and earning his commission as a First Lieutenant, he was in Vietnam three years later. On December 18, 1965, that young officer hit the ground as gunfire erupted from every direction. It was his first patrol, only two weeks in the country. His platoon barely knew his name. When he looked up, the company commander lay mortally wounded in the rice paddy ahead. Barney crawled to him, held him as he died, and rose to find a company of Marines with no one left in charge. He assumed commandβcoordinating artillery, maneuvering infantry under fire, making decisions in seconds that would take years to fully understand. When it was over, his men had broken out of an ambush that should have killed them all. Days later, he learned the commanding general had recommended him for the Medal of Honor, leaving him so emotional he dropped his coffee cup.
"My troops put me in for it," he says. "That means so much more."
Colonel Barnum went on to serve for more than twenty years after that morning in the mountains. When the Navy announced that a new guided missile destroyer would bear his name, it marked one of the only times in American history that a commissioned ship has been named for a living recipient. He had one request: that his wife, Martha, be named the ship's sponsor.Β
Barney rode the Alpha and Bravo sea trials aboard his own destroyerβthe first person ever to complete both. He sat in the captain's chair as the ship hit 34 knots, running defensive maneuvers through open water. A scholarship fund was established for crew families, funded in part by commissioning proceeds, for the life of the ship. Barney has carried one saying his whole life, "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly bear." The crew of the USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. heard it and made it their own. They call themselves the Grizzlies. Every morning, the captain comes over the PA.
Good morning, Grizzlies.
