Dixon in Lee County, Illinois — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Photographed By Sean Flynn
1. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Marker
Inscription.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. . , In memory to these men who gave the ultimate sacrifice. They served their country in a land far away so others could enjoy the freedom we have. We will forever honor their service and dedication. , Leroy Clyde Schaneberg, Ashton IL, 03/20/1940 - 06/30/1970, Laos . John Michael Babich, Franklin Grove IL, 03/16/1950 - 07/22/1970, Thua Thien South Vietnam . Dennis Eugene Dawson, Dixon IL, 10/13/1948 - 02/13/1969, Thua Thien South Vietnam . Roger Allen Scarbrough, Dixon IL, 02/26/1950 - 08/31/1970, Quang Ngai South Vietnam . Melvin Vernon Levan, Dixon IL, 10/29/1950 - 06/22/1971, Quang Nam South Vietnam . Patrick Martin Dixon, Dixon IL, 09/01/1945 - 05/28/1969, Long An South Vietnam , ,
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ , . ,
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own and in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind." ,
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell Springfield IL , Written - 1 January 1970 , Dak To, Vietnam , MIA - 24 Mar 1970 , Listed as KIA - 7 Feb 1978.
In memory to these men who gave the ultimate sacrifice. They served their country in a land far away so others could enjoy the freedom we have. We will forever honor their service and dedication.
Leroy Clyde Schaneberg, Ashton IL, 03/20/1940 - 06/30/1970, Laos • John Michael Babich, Franklin Grove IL, 03/16/1950 - 07/22/1970, Thua Thien South Vietnam • Dennis Eugene Dawson, Dixon IL, 10/13/1948 - 02/13/1969, Thua Thien South Vietnam • Roger Allen Scarbrough, Dixon IL, 02/26/1950 - 08/31/1970, Quang Ngai South Vietnam • Melvin Vernon Levan, Dixon IL, 10/29/1950 - 06/22/1971, Quang Nam South Vietnam • Patrick Martin Dixon, Dixon IL, 09/01/1945 - 05/28/1969, Long An South Vietnam
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own and in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell Springfield IL
Written
Click or scan to see this page online
- 1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
MIA - 24 Mar 1970
Listed as KIA - 7 Feb 1978
Location. 41° 50.874′ N, 89° 30.246′ W. Marker is in Dixon, Illinois, in Lee County. Memorial can be reached from the intersection of Palmyra Street (Illinois Route 2) and Palmyra Road, on the right when traveling west. The marker is located in Veterans Memorial Park, on the western side of the park in the paved circle not far from the POW-MIA flame. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 668 Veterans Parkway, Dixon IL 61021, United States of America. Touch for directions.
This eternal flame for POW-MIA is located just to the left (west) of the Vietnam marker.
sectionhead>More about this memorial. The marker includes a map of Vietnam that locates where each of the lost men of Lee County died.
Regarding Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Leroy Clyde Schaneberg, a native of Ashton, a Lee County village of 1,000 people about 15 miles east of Dixon, graduated from Ashton High School in 1958 and attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He joined the Air Force in 1959 and graduated from air squadron school in 1964. In October 1969 he was stationed in Thailand as a helicopter pilot. On June 30, 1970, Schaneberg was commanding a Sikorsky Sea Stallion Search and Rescue Helicopter (HH-53C) on a rescue mission in Savannakhet Province in Laos when his chopper was hit by hostile fire, burned and crashed. Schaneberg and his four crew members were declared missing in action and assumed dead based on eyewitness accounts. In 1994, a U.S.-Laotian search team found the crash site and recovered remains that were later identified as those of Schaneberg and his crewmates; those remains were later interred together in Arlington National Cemetery. Schaneberg left behind a wife, Peggy, and a daugther, Vicki. A memorial flagpole was erected in his honor in Ashton in 1971; he is also listed on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu.
John Michael Babich, a native of Franklin Grove, about 10 miles east of Dixon,
Photographed By Sean Flynn, January 7, 2024
3. Veterans Memorial Park
The Vietnam memorial is obscured in this photo but is to the left and rear of the Veterans Memorial Park sign, near the POW-MIA flame.
was a corporal in the 101st Airborne. He had been stationed in Vietnam for four months when he was killed in action in Thua Thien. According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Virtual Wall, U.S. troops had been engaged in a fierce weekslong battle with North Vietnamese troops in the area around a Firebase Ripcord, which was in use by the 101st Airborne. On July 22, Babich, in Company A, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, was one of 12 men killed in a fight on Hill 805, about a mile east-southeast of Ripcord. He was 20 years old. He is buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Dixon.
Dennis Eugene Dawson of Dixon was the first Lee County resident to die in Vietnam when he fell, age 20, at Thua Thien. A 1966 graduate of Dixon High School, Dawson was a member of Company A of the 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division when he was killed by small arms fire on Febrary 13, 1969, four months into his tour in Vietnam. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Dixon.
Roger Allen Scarbrough, of Dixon, was 20 years old when he was killed on August 31, 1970. He was serving as a combat medic with teh 1st Battalion, 52nd Infantry Regiment, 198th Light INfantry Brigade when his when his unit was ran into a booby trap. He was a 1968 graduate of Dixon High School. He is buried in Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens.
Specialist Melvin Vernon Levan, a heavy
vehicle driver for the Army, died of accidental drowning in Vietnam on June 22, 1971, at age 20. According to newspaper reports from the time, he died while swimming, just two weeks before he was scheduled to return home. He graduated from Amboy High School, about 12 miles southeast of Dixon, and is buried in Dixon's Oakwood Cemetery
Patrick Martin Dixon was the great-great-grandson of Dixon's founder, John Dixon, and the son of Sherwood Dixon, a World War I veteran and Democratic politician who was Illinois' lieutenant governor from 1949 until 1953 and unsuccessfully ran for state governor in 1953. Patrick, like his father, graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where he competed on the Irish basketball and track teams. After graduation, he joined the Army and attended ranger school at Fort Benning in Georgia. On May 28, 1969, he and four other men in the Recon Platoon that he led as part of E Company, 5th Battallion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, were killed when, after landing two miles northwest of Ben Luc Bridge, they were attacked by Viet Cong fighters. Dixon, 23 at the time, was Lee County's second Vietnam death. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.
Michael Davis O'Donnell of Springfield (the Illinois state capital, about 140 miles south of this marker), quoted at the bottom of the plaque, went missing in Cambodia on March 24, 1970. According to the Department of Defense's POW-MIA Accounting Agency, he was a member of the 170th Aviation Company, commanding a UH-1H Iroquois helicopter on a mission to extract a long-range reconnaissance patrol in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia when it exploded and crashed. A U.S. search team recovered remains associated with the lost In April 1995, a U.S. search team recovered remains associated with the O'Donnell's lost chopper. Six years later, in 2001, some of those remains were identified as belonging to O'Donnell. Those remains were interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Additional keywords. KIA
Credits. This page was last revised on January 10, 2024. It was originally submitted on January 9, 2024, by Sean Flynn of Oak Park, Illinois. This page has been viewed 47 times since then. Photos:1, 2, 3. submitted on January 9, 2024, by Sean Flynn of Oak Park, Illinois. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
