Bell left Benjamin Franklin High School in November 1965, a month after his 17th birthday, to enlist in the Marine Corps. By July 1966, he was in Vietnam, serving as an ammunition carrier, assistant gunner and machinegun team leader with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, and 3rd Marine Division. The corporal died on Sept. 16, 1967, in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital of wounds sustained in Quang Tri Province, He was 19 years old. Bell was survived by his parents, a brother and six sisters.