Dennis Dean Ferguson

Dennis Dean Ferguson graduated from United Community High School in 1957. After graduating from Iowa State Univeristy in February 1962, he entered the Marine Corps in March of that year and was sent to Vietnam in 1965. Captain Dennis Dean Ferguson was returning to Danang Air Base following a nighttime medevac mission when his Sikorsky H-34 helicopter crashed at sea on March 20, 1966. The incident is credited to poor weather during the monsoon season. The four crewmen, along with an on-board patient, suffered fatal injuries. His co-pilot Captain Arthur Beach’s body was never recovered from the wreckage. Captain Ferguson served in the United States Marine Corps for more than four years at the time of his death and his enlistment would have ended in three months. He was buried at the Paton Township Cemetery in Paton.