First Lieutenant Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr. (CGS’01, COM’03) (from left); First Lieutenant Richard Lane (Questrom’42); Captain Robert H. Landess (COM’37, Questrom’37); and Marine Major Megan McClung (MET’06). Photos courtesy of the Bacevich family; Chris Stout/FindaGrave; LTC Kenneth Harris/togetherweserved.com; U.S. Marine Corps

Veterans

Six BU Alums to Remember This Memorial Day

The holiday honors men and women who died while serving in the US military

Memorial Day weekend traditionally kicks off the summer, with cookouts, and for many, a day off from work. But the last Monday in May, declared a federal holiday in 1971, is also a somber occasion when Americans honor the men and women who died while serving in the US military.

“As citizens, we should remember these men and women who sacrificed all for something greater than themselves,” says John D. Woodward, Jr., a Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies professor of the practice of international relations, director of the BU Division of Military Education, and a former CIA officer. “As members of the BU community, we who have been given so much can show respect for our fallen by selflessly striving—each in our own ways—to make our nation better.”

Here, we remember six Boston University alumni who fought and died for the United States since World War II.

Captain Robert H. Landess (COM’37, Questrom’37)

After graduating from BU with a degree in journalism, Landess was a publicity assistant until he joined the army as a first lieutenant in July of 1941. He received a promotion to captain a year later and was killed in action on November 9, 1942, during Operation Torch, the Allies’ invasion of North Africa. 

Landess was awarded the Silver Star Medal and a Purple Heart for his actions. The occasion was featured in a 1943 issue of Life magazine, which wrote, “For the heroism that marked his death at Djebel Murdjadjo [in Algeria], the US Army placed his medal into the hands of little Ann Hamilton Landess, his six-week-old daughter that he never had the occasion to meet.”

Second Lieutenant Neal Hubbard (Questrom’42)

Hubbard was a senior studying business when he enlisted in the Army in 1942. According to the March 2018 newsletter for members of the 345th Bombardment Group, while hundreds of young men participated in BU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) each year, a “select group of 29” entered into an accelerated program to achieve their commissions through Officer Candidate School. Hubbard was one of them.

It is believed Hubbard was serving with the 11th Infantry Division when he was killed in France, at the Battle of Metz, on October 18, 1944.

“Neal faced land warfare impeded by rivers, bridges, and dams,” the newsletter article states. “Random outbreaks of danger and violence threaded through every hour of Neal’s existence, exemplified by artillery, snipers, mined roads or patrol routes, ambushes, and even just the challenges of staying healthy on the march or in a winter bivouac…. Likely, he fell prey to a trap or a sniper’s round while leading a patrol that probed the German positions.” 

Along with his classmate Richard Lane (Questrom’42), he is the namesake of BU’s Hubbard-Lane Award, established in 1947 for the top cadet in the ROTC program. He was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.

First Lieutenant Richard Lane (Questrom’42)

After graduating from BU, Lane attended the Army Air Force Navigation School in San Marcos, Tex., and married Priscilla Walker (Sargent’43), whom he met at BU. 

In August 1945, Lane was the navigator of a B-25 bomber that was to clear the skies for the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, according to Priscilla Walker Lane’s obituary. Lane’s aircraft was damaged and forced to land in Kumamoto Prefecture. All five crew members were taken prisoner.

“They fell into Japanese hands as prisoners, a desperate fate,” according to the March 2018 newsletter for members of the 345th Bombardment Group. “When one considers that the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, compassion and mercy were in short supply among the Japanese forces.”

Lane and his crew were quickly killed after the announcement of the Japanese surrender in World War II. “In a bid to cover all evidence of their prior abuses, the Japanese soldiers deliberately finished off the remaining prisoners and burned their remains,” the article states.

Lane posthumously received an Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, awarded for “single acts of heroism or meritorious achievements while participating in aerial flight and foreign military personnel in combat in support of operations,” according to the US Air Force. 

Lieutenant Colonel William Francis Buckley (CAS’55)

Buckley, who died in 1985, was a CIA station chief and one of the CIA’s most decorated officers.

After serving two years in the military police, Buckley was commissioned a second lieutenant in the US Army and fought on the Korean peninsula and in Vietnam. He received the Silver Star Medal for single-handedly shooting down a North Korean machine-gun emplacement and was awarded the Purple Heart. When he returned to the United States, he enrolled at Boston University to study political science under the GI Bill, according to Buckley’s biography, Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah’s War Against America (Penguin Random House, 2018).

Authors Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz say that the CIA requested Buckley’s BU transcripts 10 months before he graduated. He was “a CIA recruiter’s dream come true,” they wrote. In addition to his military experience, he could speak some French, German, and Russian, and he took classes on the “Far East, Soviet Foreign Relations, and Governments of Europe” while at BU, they wrote. 

According to BU ROTC’s biography of Buckley, he volunteered to serve as the CIA station chief in Lebanon following the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut, the deadliest attack in CIA history. Islamic jihadists, acting at the behest of Iran, kidnapped Buckley in Beirut on March 16, 1984, holding him captive for the next 444 days. He was tortured and denied medical care, and he died in June 1985. His body was identified in 1991. 

“He spent much of his career developing information to deter terrorist attacks on Americans in the Middle East,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in his obituary. Buckley is one of the CIA’s most highly decorated officers. In April 2022, BU inducted him into its US Army ROTC Hall of Fame.

First Lieutenant Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr. (CGS’01, COM’03)

According to his obituary, Bacevich could not enroll in ROTC in high school because of his asthma. When the military eased its restrictions, he became an officer in the US Army. He was the son of Andrew Bacevich, now a BU professor emeritus of international relations and history, a 23-year Army veteran who rose to colonel and later became a harsh critic of the war in Iraq.

After graduating from BU with a degree in communications, the younger Bacevich was a legislative aide to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2004. He joined the Army that year and was stationed in Iraq with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. He was killed in May 2007 by an improvised explosive device while serving in Iraq.

“I got to know Andrew as a legislative aide in my office, and before he left we met and talked about his plans,” Romney said in a statement at the time of his death. “He was driven by a desire to serve, first as part of our team and then as a member of the military. His loss is a deep personal loss for me and for all of those who knew him.”

Bacevich was also remembered as active and funny; he liked to be with friends and play soccer. In a testament to his athleticism, his sisters told WBUR, he decided to run the Boston Marathon on a whim, without training, and performed “really, really well.”

“His soldiers say he saved the life of his gunner by the way he had positioned himself,” WBUR reported. Bacevich was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.

Marine Major Megan McClung (MET’06) 

McClung grew up in a Marine Corps family in Mission Viejo, Calif., and received her officer’s commission from the US Naval Academy in 1995. She left active duty in 2004 and went to Iraq as a private contractor. In 2006, she returned to Iraq as a Marine. That year, she completed her online master’s degree program in criminal justice at BU’s Metropolitan College. According to MET, most of her schoolwork was done in a war zone. She was also a hardcore marathon runner and finished six Ironman competitions. 

McClung was assigned to the Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, Camp Pendleton, in California. She died on December 6, 2006, while supporting combat operations in the Al Anbar Governorate province in Iraq. 

The US Naval Institute’s magazine Proceedings refers to her as the first female Marine officer to be killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as the first female graduate of the US Naval Academy to be killed in action since the college was founded in 1845.

Her awards include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal.

In May 2007, McClung’s parents attended what would have been her BU Commencement ceremony. That weekend, MET announced a scholarship fund in her name and memory to support students in the online Criminal Justice Program. It is awarded annually to students who exemplify McClung’s academic excellence, strong citizenship and character, and desire to make a meaningful contribution to society.

“Megan served with the mindset of running to the sound of battle, not away from it,” said her former colleague and classmate Colonel Riccoh Player, in an interview with Proceedings. “She accepted every mission, every billet, every challenge with vigor, creative abandon and a find-a-way-to-make-a-way ethos.”