Leon F. "Lee" Ellis

Gwinnett County, GA

This Gwinnett County Blue Star Memorial marker honors Lt. Cmdr. Porter Halyburton, a U.S. Navy flier shot down over North Vietnam who endured years as a prisoner of war. The Blue Star Memorial Highway program, begun by garden clubs in 1945 and named for the service flags of World War II, was often used to recognize individual servicemen alongside the armed forces as a whole. Here the Lake Ivanhoe Garden Club of Tucker joined the Garden Club of Georgia in the dedication.

Greer, SC

This memorial honors the Vietnamese National Military Academy, the officer-training institution based at Đà Lạt that prepared cadets to lead the Army of the Republic of Vietnam through the long war that ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975. When South Vietnam collapsed, many of the academy's graduates fled as refugees and rebuilt their lives across the United States, including in the South Carolina upcountry. Raised by that émigré community, the monument keeps alive the memory of an academy and a nation that no longer appear on the map.

Grovetown, GA

In the small town of Grovetown, Georgia, just west of Augusta, a community recreation center carries the name of Danny Goodale, a local son born in 1948 who was killed in action in Vietnam in March 1969, still in his early twenties. His death came during some of the fiercest years of American involvement in Southeast Asia, when the war reached deep into towns like this one and returned young men home as names on plaques and monuments. Naming a place of gathering, sport, and youth after him turned everyday community life into a living memorial, ensuring his sacrifice stayed woven into the town he came from.

Jefferson, GA

Built in 1907 and last run on the Gainesville Midland Railroad, this steam locomotive was among the final steam-powered engines to operate in the area. The Seaboard Air Line Railroad gave it to the City of Jefferson in 1959 as a lasting exhibit honoring the service such engines rendered the country.