PFC Raymond "Mike" Clausen, Jr.

Raymond Clausen was born in New Orleans on October 14, 1947. On January 31, 1970, near Da Nang, he crossed a minefield six times to load wounded and dead Marines aboard a helicopter, and stayed until every man was accounted for. President Nixon presented him the Medal of Honor at the White House on June 15, 1971. He was released from active duty that August and died in Dallas in 2004 at 56. He was buried with full military honors in Ponchatoula Cemetery. In 2007 the CH-46 he flew was dedicated in his honor at a Charlotte aviation museum.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tickfaw State Park — 11 mi
  A floodplain park on the Tickfaw River, with cypress-tupelo swamp, bottomland hardwoods and about 4.75 miles of trails and boardwalks, plus a nature center with an 800-gallon river aquarium.
• Fontainebleau State Park — 27 mi
  Lakeshore park on the Northshore where Tchefuncte potters, Acolapissa and Choctaw lived, and where 153 people were enslaved at Marigny's sugar and brick plantation by 1840; the mill ruin still stands.

More markers nearby

• Ponchatoula Depot — 0.9 mi
• USS Ponchatoula Memorial — 1.0 mi
• Hammond Junior College — 4.5 mi
• City Of Hammond — 4.8 mi