Hometown: Grand Rapids, MI
Branch: U.S. Marine Corps
Unit: 3rd Marine Division, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, E Company
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: June 6, 1968 - KIA near Con Thien, Quang Tri province, South Vietnam 
Age: 19
Conflict: Vietnam War, 1959-1975

Private First Class Dennis Lobbezoo, a rifleman, was assigned to the 26th Marine Regiment operating just south of the Demilitarized Zone during the Vietnam War.

In early 1968, his platoon was under siege at the Khe Sanh Air Base for 44 days. Lebbezoo sustained multiple shrapnel wounds from an exploding mortar and was evacuated by helicopter to the USS Repose (AH-16), a Navy hospital ship, for treatment. There he was treated by general medical officer Edward Byrd.

Thinking back on his three weeks of knowing PFC Lobbezoo, Byrd recalled, “He seemed to have real peace in a hellish environment. He didn’t complain or express reservations about doing what he believed to be his duty. He showed great courage in combat and exemplary loyalty to his brothers in arms.”

After recovering, Lobbezoo was sent back to duty near the Demilitarized Zone that had been heavily infiltrated by enemy North Vietnamese troops.

According to an account from The Herald-Mail:

On June 6, 1968, Labbezoo and 15 other Marines were on a security patrol near Con Thien…when they were ambushed by North Vietnamese troops firing from a fortified bunker hidden in thick vegetation. Simultaneously, enemy troops on the patrol’s opposite side opened fire, pinning the Marines down and inflicting heavy casualties. With most of the Marines dead or wounded, the order was given to fix bayonets and charge the bunker.

During the assault on the bunker, PFC Lobbezoo was cut down by machine-gun fire. Only two of the 16 American Marines survived the intense firefight. 15 North Vietnamese soldiers were killed. Only their cook, who was taken captive, survived the assault.

PFC Dennis Lee Lobbezoo, who was born on the fourth of July, died for his country just weeks away from his 20th birthday. He is honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., Panel 59w, Line 6.

Decades after meeting and treating the teenage PFC Lobbezoo, Dr. Edward Byrd was moved to create a bronze sculpture in honor of his former patient, and “as a perpetual reminder that the tragic cost of war is paid by our best men and women and that their sacrifices are suffered by their families for a generation or more.”

In an interview with The Herald-Mail, Dr. Byrd recalled, “He was kind, calm, friendly to all, easy-going, respectful and loved by everyone who encountered him. On the Repose, where I knew him for a short time, he seemed to personify America’s best qualities.” In 2015, Dr. Byrd donated the Lobbezoo sculpture to the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Sources
Details submitted by Ms. Joyce Washburn, PFC Lobbezoo’s fiancée.
Card Photo: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
Honor States: Dennis Lee Lobbezoo
Virtual Wall: Dennis Lee Lobbezoo
Fold3: Lobbezoo, Dennis Lee, PFC
The Post and Courier: Doctor’s sculpture pays homage to lost Marine
Herald-Mail Media: Former Hagerstown surgeon creates sculpture for Marine killed in Vietnam
Burial Site: Find a Grave