Sergeant, Field Artillery Crewman (Gun Chief of a M109 self-propelled, 155 millimeter howitzer), Battery B, 5th Battalion, 4th Field Artillery, 5th Infantry Division, U.S. Army (Vietnam War)

National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Vietnam Service Medal & Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Panel 04w, Line 51

View Cenotaph located at Honolulu Memorial.

Written by Don Cordle, Buddy of David and enlisted with David
Some mistakes due to the copying

David again after that. He returned to Ft Still Oklahoma, and I continued my trip to Vietnam. When I got to Hopkins again for the actual trip to Vietnam, I was headed into the unknown for a whole year, and at the time, I honestly felt like this really WAS good bye, and a permanent one. I arrived in Vietnam, and reached my unit on or about Kent State Day May 4 1970, and was immediately assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, 2nd Bn, 502nd Infantry Aco One of THE most storied units in the US Army. After that, I kind of lost track of everyone for a several months, as I was physically in the jungle, and things were awfully intense at that time. Those six months took all my focus, energy, and thought process. By any stretch of imagination, it was the worst time in my life. Eventually though started thinking of David, and how unfair it was that i never got a chance to see him on his wedding-day Started writing to him, and eventually found out that he was scheduled to arrive in Vietnam, probably a month or so before I was to be going home, around March of 1971 or thereabouts. I had already spent my time in the bush...and survived, well, let's just say I survived a LOT of things. They pulled me out of the bush, as was the custom for any infantry grunt in our outfit who had spent his time in the jungle, and was now "short" meaning his time in country was "short" typically less than 100 days and they gave you a cushy job (if you can call it that) in the rear area. away from most of the danger, to try and ensure your safe return home. It was a very good practice, because we had heard horror stories of GIs losing their lives a day or two before being sent home...not good at all. I was assigned as a dispatch clerk in the motor pool after my 9 months in the jungle. This was sometime around February of 1971. Dave and I started writing regularly. I knew EXACTLY when he was to arrive in country, and I knew EXACTLY where his unit would be. In my mind, I started to concoct a plan for a short visit before I went home. My plan was iffy at best, but if the moon and stars aligned up properly. I would manage to see Dave before I returned home...Really cool, If I can pull it off. I was really close friends with the battalion chaplain's jeep driver while I was a clerk in the motor pool. His name was Bob Burns, and the plan was, to "borrow" his jeep, and he and I would head up Highway One, out of Hue city from our 101st base camp Eagle....north, to fire support base Charlie Two, where he was stationed. He had just arrived, because I had a letter telling me he was there, and he had settled into his job as a crew chief on a 155mm mobile howitzer. One morning in early April of 1971, the plan was set, and everything was in place. Bob and I commandeered that jeep, which looked like a small tank with the sand bags and all armed ourselves to the teeth, and headed out. It was probably 35 or 40 miles from our base camp, to fire support base Charlie II where David was stationed. Everything was going like clockwork, until we got probably two or three miles from that firebase, and the Military Police had all the roads blocked. They told us no one in, or out, as that base was under siege from the NVA. I was so disappointed, but what can you do with something like that? All we could do, was turn around and head back to Eagle hoping like hell, no one missed us, or that jeep We were so dan lucky, not one single shot was fired, and we put everything back where it belonged. No one ever knew what we did, or that we were even gone. I wrote Dave a couple times after that with no response from him, and I started processing to go home about mid April. I was on the plane bound for home by the third week in April of 1971. I thought at first it was a bit odd...that he didn't write back, but I shrugged it off, and forgot about it. I got to go home for a couple of weeks before I finished my draft obligation at Ft Campbell Ky...and one of the first things my dad told me when I arrived home, was that David had gotten killed. And to top it all off...he died on March 15th...about two weeks BEFORE I made the trip to go see him. No one at home, would even dream of telling me that news until they knew I was home safe and sound. They also believed, and rightly so, that I probably would have volunteered to go back, and go right back into the bush, where some good old fashioned "whup ass" could take place. This was never meant to be, and I'm forever thankful for that, but still, this is one of the events that has shaped my life, like it or not, it simply is what it is. David had died within the first week of his arrival to his unit. Since he was a crew chief, his job was to actually pull the lanyard, and actually fire the big cannon. What happened, as I found out later, they got hold of a faulty round, it was simply too big in diameter to go through the barrel...and it all blew up in the chamber, a "breech fire of the 200 lb round, and the 100 lbs of gun powder instantly killing three of the four crew members, David included. To add so much insult to that the Army politely LOST his remains, and they were never returned home. They were simply misplaced, or mislabeled, or sent to someone else. This absolutely crushed his family, and myself also. In addition, if you check out the Vietnam Wall memorial page it lists his death as "accidental... motor vehicle accident and not combat related.