Second Lt. David Skibbe and his fiancee' Georgine Hembrough at a Marine Corps and Navy Ball.

To subscribe, click here.

Want to purchase today's print edition? Here's a map of single-copy locations.

Sign up for our daily newsletter here

URBANA -- Janet Preston has been scanning through a box of sympathy cards and letters her father had saved following the 1970 death of her older brother, Marine 2nd Lt. David Skibbe, in Vietnam.

"Some of them are from people who lost their sons in Vietnam," Preston sadly noted.

Lt. Skibbe initially had been listed as missing in action.

Some of the messages expressed a degree of hope that Lt. Skibbe would be found alive.

"A lot of them had great memories of him," Preston said. "One middle school teacher said she remembered him as being one of the finest young men she ever knew."

It's a time of memories for the Skibbe family, harking to a tragic event that happened 54 years ago. It's a time of honor as well as Lt. Skibbe will be the first person to be inducted into University of Illinois Naval ROTC Hall of Fame.

Lt. Skibbe's heroism will be remembered. The University of Illinois graduate earned a posthumous Navy Cross for valor in 1970 for his actions that put his men's lives before his own but which also resulted in his death.

The recognition will take place Friday, the same night the Navy and Marine Corps Ball at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center on campus.

Preston won't be able to attend, but Lt. Skibbe's brother, Bill, and his other sister, Joan Tomoff, as well as his former fiancee, Georgine Hembrough, will be on hand.

They will also be on the field at halftime of Saturday's Illinois-Michigan football game for further recognition of Lt. Skibbe. Prior to the game there will be a flyover of F-18 jets.

Lt. Skibbe could be a no-nonsense guy when he had to be.

For instance, there was the time when, while a high schooler, he marched a fellow student down to the principal's office when he found the classmate smoking in the boys' room.

Don't get the wrong impression, says fellow Navy ROTC alum Steve Dewalt, who also plans to make the trip from Seattle to attend the ceremony. Lt. Skibbe also knew how to let his hair down and "had a good sense of humor."

CORPS TO THE CORE

"He was everything I thought a Marine Corps officer should be," Dewalt said.

He knew how to lead but kept his life in balance.

"He was just a good guy. I looked up to David," Dewalt said.

It's been more than a half century since Hembrough and Lt. Skibbe met, but she remembers a lot about her fiancee "because he was so special."

"Before he was going to leave (for overseas) we had a commitment to each other. We would marry when he got back," Hembrough said. "The question came up, 'What if he didn't come back?'"

The question was met with silence. Neither one of them wanted to answer that.

The plan was for him to start a career in forestry after he returned home while Hembrough taught high school English.

Both Chicago-area natives, Lt. Skibbe was introduced to Hembrough at the University of Illinois, where both were attending.

Lt. Skibbe worked at Stan's Gridiron Bar. Hembrough said someone there told her, "I've got somebody I want you to meet," and introduced the couple.

She remembers their first date. She had him over for dinner.

"My maiden name was Italian (Totorella), so I made spaghetti."

It was a hit.

Hembrough had scant knowledge of her fiance's time in Vietnam but learned more from a friend of his, Dan Kellum, who served in that war-torn country as a Marine lieutenant and wrote about it in his book, "American Heroes, Grunts, Pilots and 'Docs'."

Lt. Skibbe served in Vietnam with 2nd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment.

SAVED COLONEL'S LIFE

He decided to join the First Reconnaissance Battalion of the First Marine Division after 2nd Battalion was due to be rotated out of country. He made the decision because of his relationship with 2/26 Lt. Col. Bill Drumright, whose life Lt. Skibbe had saved when a flatbed rail car they were riding on and a locomotive were blown off the railroad tracks above Da Nang, according to Kellum.

"David pulled the colonel out from under the locomotive before it could crush him," Kellum said.

Lt. Skibbe was part of a seven-man recon team that went to the bush to flush out a large-scale enemy operation. While deep in enemy territory, an intense firefight broke out, and he was shot in the leg and ankle, sustaining a "penetrating wound of the lower right leg, breaking the fibula 2 inches above the ankle, leaving an open fracture," Kellum quotes a corpsman.

Two medevac helicopters arrived to remove the wounded and outmanned team, hovering 75 to 100 feet above ground over the treetops.

Lt. Skibbe refused to be evacuated until another wounded man with more serious injuries was evacuated.

Despite the wound, he continued directing his men.

Finally, a hoist cable with a jungle penetrator was removed to evacuate him. When Lt. Skibbe got about 20 feet from the door of the helicopter, 80 to 100 feet above ground, the cable snapped and Lt. Skibbe fell to the ground.

Discovering Lt. Skibbe was not in the copter, a return trip was made by two helicopters to attempt to find him.

Capt. Lavoy D. McVey was lowered to the ground in an attempt to find Lt. Skibbe, but that cable snapped as well, also sending the captain to his death.

It was decided not to attempt to recover the men due to the enemy strength, position and dense jungle.

Hembrough spent several years trying to get answers from the White House about her fiance's death. It was not until 40 years later when Kellum was researching his book that she found out a Vietnamese local had discovered Lt. Skibbe's body on which he found a picture of Lt. Skibbe and Hembrough.

His body was never recovered and brought home.

The gymnasium at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Mt. Prospect, where Lt. Skibbe was a member, was named for him.

LOVED THE OUTDOORS

Bill Skibbe remembers his older brother enjoyed the outdoor life.

"He did the whole scouting thing, all the way up to getting the Eagle Scout Award," Bill said. "He was an outdoorsy guy."

Among his favorite hobbies was fishing. The family would travel to a relative's north Wisconsin cabin, where Lt. Skibbe enjoyed getting up early and angling for muskies.

Bill said it wasn't all play and no work for his brother though. He held a number of jobs, most, including working at a grocery store, at the post office during Christmas mailing rush, as a baggage handler at O'Hare Airport and at a concrete-paving block plant.

"Back then you could pay your tuition pretty easily with your earnings from a summer job," Bill said. "He was a natural-born leader" and was on various high school athletic teams, including cross country and track.

Bill Skibbe said he looked up to his brother.

"We definitely were close," he said. "We had a fairly typical middle-class upbringing. We shared a relatively small bedroom in a house with six people and one bathroom, which was pretty normal in the late '50s and early '60s."

Their sister, Joan Tomoff from Prescott, Ariz., said their father was a World War II Army medic who came ashore the day after the D-Day landings at Normandy.

"David, I thought he always wanted to be a soldier," Tomoff said. "Dad stayed in the National Guard and went to parades in Chicago and camp every summer. I think David picked up on that."

Tomoff noticed her brother's leadership abilities early: "The neighborhood was full of little boys his age. They kind of all did what David wanted to do."

His sister also noticed his spending habits. Maybe that's why he worked so much.

LIKED TO SPEND MONEY

"A big difference in us is he would spend his money," Tomoff said. "Instead of one paper route, he had two. He bought records. He bought a car when he was in high school ... a blue convertible."

Another thing that didn't seem all that important to her brother was school.

"He liked working," Tomoff said. "He'd get home late at night, eat and go to bed. I don't remember him doing homework."

Added sister Janet: "I guess that's why he didn't mind getting up at 6:30 Saturday morning to mow the lawn and whatever else to earn some money."

The siblings got along, Tomoff said.

"I don't remember competing with him or being jealous of him. In general he was a good kid."

Preston said she named her son David, after her brother. Her nephew, who was born two months after Lt. Skibbe's death, was middle-named David.

Commander John Thompson, executive officer of Illinois ROTC, said one of the reasons Lt. Skibbe will be the inaugural inductee into the Hall of Fame was because he showed uncommon valor for such a junior officer.

"He was only a second lieutenant when he died," Thompson said.

"He had only been in the Marine Corps for about a year. Our students, when they graduate our program, they will be second lieutenants.

"The fact that Dave Skibbe was so junior and did this very heroic thing ... he was a very young junior officer," Thompson said. "He wasn't a 10- or 15-year seasoned veteran. It was very impactful for our students."

Dewalt, two years younger than Lt. Skibbe when he entered ROTC, said he "always felt protected by David."

"We competed in drill team activities together," Dewalt said. "He kind of took me under his wing. David had all the qualities that make a good Marine Corps officer.

"He put his troops first. The tragedy is he was the last person to leave, but the cable broke."