Lemuel Cornick Shepherd Jr. (February 10, 1896 – August 6, 1990) was a General in the United States Marine Corps, 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Navy Cross recipient, veteran of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

As Commandant, he secured a place on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gaining parity for the Marine Corps with the other military services.

Lemuel Cornick Shepherd Jr. was born February 10, 1896, in Norfolk, Virginia. A grandfather of his served with the Confederacy in the 15th Virginia Cavalry during the American Civil War, along with a great uncle, Lem, who was killed just prior to the Battle of Chancellorsville and for whom Shepherd was named. He entered the Virginia Military Institute in 1913 and graduated in early 1917 with a degree in civil engineering a few months before the rest of the Class of June 1917 so he could serve in the Marine Corps during World War I. While at VMI, Shepherd became a member of the Beta Commission of Kappa Alpha Order. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on April 11, 1917, five days after the American entry into World War I, and reported for active duty at the Marine Barracks, Port Royal, South Carolina, on May 19, 1917.

Less than a month after reporting for duty, Shepherd sailed for France on June 17, 1917, as a member of the 5th Marine Regiment with the first elements of the American Expeditionary Forces (Army and Marine Corps troops), and arrived at Saint-Nazaire in western France on June 27. The 5th Marines became part of the 4th Marine Brigade, 2nd Division (2nd Infantry Division), when the division was organized on October 26 in France. The 2nd Division was placed under the command of Marine Corps Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen, who had been the 5th Marines commander. The 2nd Division trained with French Army veterans the winter of 1917–18.

Shepherd served in defensive sectors in the vicinity of Verdun. When the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was committed to combat in the spring of 1918 to halt a German advance towards Paris, he participated in the Aisne-Marne offensive (Château-Thierry) where he was twice wounded in action at Belleau Wood during the fighting there in June 1918. On July 28, 1918, Marine Corps Major General John A. Lejeune (Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, named 1942) assumed command of the 2nd Division. He returned to the front in August, rejoining the 5th Marines, and saw action in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives (Champagne) where he was wounded for the third time, shot through the neck by a machine gun.

For his gallantry in action at Belleau Wood, Lieutenant Shepherd was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross, the French Croix de guerre, and was cited twice in the general orders of the 2nd Infantry Division, American Expeditionary Forces. He also received the Montenegrin Silver Medal for Bravery.

After duty with the Army of Occupation in Germany, Captain Shepherd sailed for home in July 1919. In September 1919, he returned to France. His assignment was to prepare relief maps showing the battlefields over which the 4th Marine Brigade (5th and 6th Marines and 6th Machine Gun Battalion), 2nd Infantry Division, had fought.

Shepherd returned to the States in December 1920, and was assigned as White House aide and aide-de-camp to the commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General John A. Lejeune.