1st CEVG Combat Skyspot Memorial

On March 10 and 11, 1968, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces took Lima Site 85, a mountaintop in Laos where Air Force technicians, posing as civilians, ran a radar that guided about a quarter of American bombing missions over North Vietnam. About 1,000 Hmong soldiers under General Vang Pao and 300 Thai police helped defend the site. Twelve Americans were killed or missing, and four were still unaccounted for in 2026. Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger died helping wounded men into a rescue sling, and his Air Force Cross became the Medal of Honor in 2010.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Street Museum — 3.8 mi
  An 1866 bank building downtown that also held a Freedman's Savings and Trust branch in 1870, now a free LSUS-run museum with a Victorian parlor and the original vault.
• Shreveport Municipal Auditorium — 4.0 mi
  The Art Deco hall of 1929 where the Louisiana Hayride went out over KWKH from 1948 to 1960 and where Elvis Presley first played Shreveport on October 16, 1954.
• Shreveport Water Works Museum — 4.2 mi
  An 1887 brick pumping station on McNeill Street where Worthington steam pumps ran until 1980, now a free museum and a National Historic Landmark.
• R. W. Norton Art Gallery — 5.1 mi
  A free art museum and 40 acres of azalea gardens in Shreveport, founded in 1946 on Rodessa oil money, with Remington and Russell, an Audubon folio and no photography allowed.

More markers nearby

• Linebacker II (The Christmas Bombings) — steps away
• "Hell's Angels" — 0.3 mi
• Bowling at Holiday Lanes — 0.7 mi
• Fort Humbug — 2.6 mi