MCDOWELL-HUGH

AN  ACCIDENTAL DEATH

 A training accident at Camp Pendleton, California, on May 9, 2019 left an officer dead and six enlisted Marines injured.  The group was training in a 13-ton LAV-25 (Light Armored Vehicle), an eight wheeled amphibious vehicle, when it rolled over during a battalion training exercise, killing 1STLT Hugh Conor McDowell, a platoon commander with the First Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.  He was unfortunately crushed in the roll over and died enroute to a nearby hospital.  The other six Marines sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Hugh Conor McDowell was reportedly born on March 11, 1995 in Washington, D.C.  His father, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a dual British and Canadian citizen was a former BBC journalist, and his mother a longtime marketing and public relations specialist at Gallaudet, a federally chartered private university for the deaf and hard of hearing.  McDowell attended public schools in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and St. John’s College High School, a historic Catholic French Christian Brothers school, which had an outstanding ROTC unit.  In his senior year he became Command Sergeant Major of the unit.  He then entered The Citadel, the historic military college in Charleston, South Carolina, because it graduated many Marine officers and had a rigorous physical and academic regime.  McDowell majored in history, minoring in French, and graduated from The Citadel in May 2017, at which time he was commissioned in the Marine Corps.

At the time of his death, 1STLT McDowell was engaged to be married and his fiancée wrote, “This beacon of strength and ferocity and courage and grace…you are a reserve of love and kindness and compassion and tenderness.  You are a light.”  The First Marine Division said in a statement:  "We recognize that military operations are inherently dangerous, and we take extreme precautions to ensure the safety and welfare of our Marines. This is a tragic accident, and we are heartbroken at the loss of a member of our Marine Corps family.”

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)