Steven L. Bennet

Steven Bennett was born in Palestine, Texas, in 1946 but grew up in Lafayette, graduated from Youngsville High School, and earned an aeronautical engineering degree at Southwestern Louisiana Institute, where Air Force ROTC commissioned him on August 12, 1968. On June 29, 1972, flying an OV-10 Bronco near Quang Tri, he strafed a massing North Vietnamese force to protect a South Vietnamese unit. A missile hit his plane on his fifth pass, and he ditched it in the Gulf of Tonkin to give his observer a chance to live. He was 26.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu — 1.1 mi
  A 6,000-square-foot museum of southwest Louisiana Carnival with about 275 costume mannequins and 14 animated figures, opened in April 2026.
• Imperial Calcasieu Museum — 1.4 mi
  Lake Charles's history museum, founded by the Junior League in 1963, with parish artifacts, Claire Chennault's uniform and the Sallier Oak.
• Sam Houston Jones State Park — 5.0 mi
  A 1,087-acre park on the West Fork of the Calcasieu with longleaf pine, cypress-tupelo swamp, five trails, cabins and kayak rentals.
• Creole Nature Trail Adventure Point — 9.4 mi
  A free visitor center at the western gateway of Louisiana's only All-American Road, with exhibits on alligators, migrating songbirds and the estuary.

More markers nearby

• Emanual Stance — steps away
• Hampton M. Roach — steps away
• Martin Freeman — steps away
• John Osborne — steps away