Malden’s Veterans’ Services Officer honored nearly a half century later

Earlier this month, Veterans Services’ Officer Kevin Jarvis and some fellow Marines were presented with a U.S. Marine Corps Unit Commendation for heroic efforts 47 years ago that saved an Army doctor’s life following a vicious attack in his home in Cameroon, West Africa.

Jarvis was contacted by a Historian for the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group, who inquired about the incident that he and some fellow Marines were involved in during May of 1977. Jarvis, a Malden High School student in 1974 when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, was a young Marine Sergeant stationed at the American Embassy in Yaoundé, Cameroon, with other Marines and a supervisor.

Dr. Albert Henn from Cape Cod, Mass., who served as an Army nurse during the Korean War, later went to Harvard and became a doctor with U.S. AID in Cameroon, West Africa. He was severely injured one night by three locals who committed a home invasion at his residence in Yaoundé while he was home with his wife and two small children. Although Dr. Henn attempted to fight the intruders, he was seriously wounded after being hit multiple times with a metal pipe. Although off duty, Sgt. Jarvis and fellow Marines responded to the call for help and rushed him to a clinic, carrying him into the operating room. Doctors worked on Dr. Henn for a long time without anesthesia while the men held him on the operating table.

Dr. Henn survived that incident and continued his work in Africa to help those less fortunate. Ironically, almost 30 years to the date that he was saved by the Marines, he died in a plane crash in Cameroon, the same country where he was attacked in 1977. He was returning to Nairobi, Kenya, from a conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he operated a medical clinic, when the plane crashed in Cameroon.

Dr. Henn’s ex-wife and his daughter, Julia Henn, who was seven in 1977 and now works for U.S. AID in Washington, D.C., provided the Marine Corps with a notarized statement about what the Marines did that night to help them and save Dr. Henn’s life. It took nearly half a century, but on December 13, 2024, Jarvis, Warren Kyle and Domenic Ferlaino were presented with the Marine Corps Unit Commendation during a ceremony at the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group, Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA.