Ceremony honors slain Marine

WEST BURBANK — Forty-two years after Marine Cpl. Larry L. Maxam made the ultimate sacrifice, Burbank officials are preparing to dedicate a public park in recognition of the city’s only Medal of Honor recipient.

Dignitaries at 11 a.m. Saturday will rename Pacific Park at 3715 Pacific Ave. in honor of Maxam, who was posthumously awarded the medal by President Nixon for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” in the Vietnam War.

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military award. And while Maxam died in a war many tried to forget, one veteran, Mickey DePalo, has made it his mission over the last 1 1/2 years to give the hero — and other troops — their due.

“There’s one school of thought that says this should have been done a long time ago. My opinion is it’s never too late,” said DePalo, chairman of the city’s Veterans Commemorative Committee, which recommended the dedication to city and parks officials. “We’re able to live today because of people like him.”

Born in Glendale, Maxam attended Burbank schools before enlisting in the Marine Corps in 1965 . He arrived in Vietnam two years later and served as a rifleman, radioman and squad leader with Company D, 1st Battalion 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.

On Feb. 2, 1968, four months after Maxam was promoted to corporal, Cam Lo District Headquarters came under heavy artillery and gun fire. Wounded by fragments of exploding grenades, he ran to an abandoned machine gun and fired on advancing forces.

“As the enemy directed maximum firepower against the determined Marine, Cpl. Maxam’s position received a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade, knocking him backwards and inflicting severe fragmentation wounds to his face and right eye,” according to the citation that accompanied the medal.

Maxam returned to his feet and kept firing.

He was hit again with small-arms fire but kept firing, causing the enemy to retreat.

Then, in an attempt to silence his weapon, North Vietnamese inflicted two more wounds with hand grenades and rifle fire.