By Dennis McCarthy, LA Daily News
POSTED: 05/21/15, 6:28 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 DAYS AGO
Larry Maxam was his name, and before we begin filling our propane tanks, roasting the hot dogs and cracking open a beer, I’d like to tell you his story.
Because, to me, he is the perfect face of Memorial Day. The guy we should all be thanking this weekend.
Sometimes we lose track of what Memorial Day is all about. It’s not a patriotic celebration of military might, but a remembrance of the 1 million plus casualties of all our wars who never made it home.
Most of them were still kids, really, like Maxam.
His buddies from Vietnam say he was a friendly, quiet guy who wore his Mormon religion on his sleeve right next to his corporal stripes.
“Other guys would go out, get rowdy, whatever, but not him,” says Larry Clinesmith, who shared a foxhole with Maxam. “He was quiet, always looking to help the new guys coming into the platoon.”
No one ever made the quiet kid from California as a hero.
The night he died, Feb. 2, 1968, Maxam was in charge of a fire team of four men protecting part of a defensive perimeter set up around the Cam Lo District Marine headquarters.
Sometime around midnight, the VC — Viet Cong — threw everything they had at the perimeter. Maxam spotted a hole in the defense where a large group of VC was gathering for a full frontal attack.
He got there before they could break through, set himself up behind an abandoned machine-gun placement, and began firing.
What happened next earns you the Medal of Honor.
https://www.dailynews.com/lifestyle/20150521/larry-maxam-the-real-meaning-of-memorial-day