Notice Nearby

Decorations register · Notice Nearby

No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the decoration and the writing, not an invented face.

Brian M. McPhillips

1978–2003

First Lieutenant

Tank / scout-sniper platoon commander; 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division; later 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division (ambush near Al Jisr, Iraq, 4 April 2003)

Documented decorations

Brian M. McPhillips’s posthumous Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart are named in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ #VeteranOfTheDay profile of his service. This decorations page records those two types from that VA list. It will not invent a Silver Star the VA page does not name, and it will not place a Navy Achievement Medal chip on this awards row even though the VA paragraph also names that earlier award.

Commissioned after Providence College, McPhillips served as a tank platoon commander with 2nd Tank Battalion and later moved with 1st Marine Division into Iraq in 2003. On April 4, 2003, near Al Jisr on the approach to Baghdad, his convoy was ambushed; he returned fire and was fatally wounded the same day. The VA profile is the published official naming of the posthumous Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart used here.

He is not yet on a war-roll essay. Pembroke, Massachusetts roots and burial at Saint Bernard’s Catholic Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, are public fact. They are not printed here as medals.

This name is not yet on a war-roll essay. The decorations above are the documented public record this register will stand on until that essay is written.

A publisher register — not a verification

This decorations register is publisher-curated from public records — Medal of Honor Society citations, published general orders, and official Army, Navy, and Marine Corps biographies. It is not a verified-veteran product. Notice Nearby does not certify service and does not issue badges.

A paid or unpaid memorial does not enroll anyone here. Checkout, VET50, and a family’s mention of service on an obituary are not applications to this list. We add a name only when a public official source names the decoration.

Claiming a decoration that was not awarded is stolen valor. It is a disrespect to those who earned the medal and, in some cases, a federal crime. This register will not invent an award to fill a page.

These pages are a historical register. They are not Legal Publication, not a newspaper notice, and not proof that a statute was satisfied.