How Medal of Honor recipient Ken David continued to serve

How Medal of Honor recipient Ken David continued to serve



It’s a cold, snowy Friday night in Warren, Ohio. Dozens of members of DAV Chapter 11 file into the modest one-story headquarters building. Outside, a placard marks a parking spot reserved for local legend Sam Lanza, a combat-wounded Marine veteran of the Battle of Okinawa. Inside, members stomp salty snow from their boots, sign the attendance roster and find their seats.

Chapter Commander Frank Gillespie raps the gavel, calling the meeting to order. Seated to his left is the chapter’s adjutant, Ken David. Unlike the others, David wears his Army green service uniform. Around his neck hangs the nation’s highest honor for valor.

A long-awaited recognition

On another snowy day only days earlier, David stood proudly at the White House, where then-President Joe Biden presented him with the Medal of Honor. It came more than five decades after his actions during the Vietnam War.

According to his citation, then-Pfc. David showed extraordinary bravery and selflessness during an enemy attack on May 7, 1970, while serving with Company D, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, on abandoned Fire Support Base Maureen in Thừa Thiên province, Vietnam.

In Vietnam for a few months, David had already been wounded, hospitalized once and welcomed to the country by enemy flak as his aircraft circled to land. When the previous platoon radioman was killed, David stepped into the role.

His company’s three platoons were stretched out, two at the bottom of the mountaintop fire base they were tasked to hold and David’s platoon at the top. With heavy activity in the area, real estate was fought for and secured by the Americans and then abandoned for new ground in a deadly game of “whack-a-mole” with the North Vietnamese enemy fighters who were hiding just outside the perimeter under the thick jungle canopy.

The ambush came early the morning of May 7. As many as 300 enemy fighters zeroed in on Company D’s 50–60 soldiers.

Almost immediately, David’s platoon leader was killed, and several other soldiers were wounded. Without hesitation, David handed off his radio and moved to the defensive perimeter, firing at the enemy. Recognizing his wounded were vulnerable, David repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire, deliberately yelling and firing to draw attention away from his comrades.

Characteristically humble and understated, David simply believes he was doing his job.

“I did what I was trained to do,” David said. “I was the only one on three-quarters of the perimeter that was wounded but still able to fight.”

David had no access to a machine gun, all of his rounds were single shots from his M-16. He also had grenades and the enemy’s satchel charges that were being tossed at the Americans. David picked up several and threw those back.

Despite being wounded and running low on ammunition, David continued to fight using hand grenades. When a medic named Kenneth Kays arrived, David refused treatment, kept fighting and helped secure the safety of incoming medevac helicopters.

Reinforcements came, but after he carried a wounded soldier to safety, David returned to provide covering fire until the enemy retreated.

For his actions, David was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1971. What he didn’t know then was that Kays, the medic who came to treat him, would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the same battle.

The battle back home

After his discharge from the Army in 1972, David found it challenging adjusting to civilian life. He moved back in with his parents. And while he had left Vietnam, the war hadn’t left him.

“I told Mom to never come upstairs and wake me up. She did once, and I scared her as much as I scared myself by screaming,” David recalled, acknowledging that he was in the throes of post-traumatic stress disorder. “The government took my smile away.”

His younger sister, Karen Williams, recalls him being isolated and withdrawn in those early days.

“Kenny didn’t talk about what happened,” Williams said. “We lived on a dead-end street, and he pretty much spent his days in the backyard going down to the creek and building a rock wall behind the house.”

She recognized a similar detachment in her own father, who had been a medical technician in World War II. He was one of the earliest Allied troops in Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped.

“[Ken] wasn’t the same person who left,” she said. “How can anyone go through something like that and be OK?”

David slowly emerged from his mental shell. He found a career path in HVAC and purpose when he became involved with DAV.

His DAV journey started with assistance from benefits advocate Garry Augustine, a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran. Augustine, who recruited David, would go on to a storied DAV career that culminated as the executive director of DAV Washington Headquarters from 2013 to 2018.

Through DAV, David said he found a way to continue serving, protecting, being among and providing justice to warriors.

“When I got out in ’71, the way I was treated was very disrespectful,” David said. “I told myself whatever I can do for the person behind me, that’s what I’m going to do.”

David learned the ropes of DAV advocacy from past chapter leader Lanza, the local legend, World War II veteran and longtime chapter adjutant.

“Sam was dedicated to service, particularly VA hospitals. He taught Ken to do the same,” said Department of Ohio Adjutant Mike Stith, noting that their relationship was like a student and teacher.

David has gone even further, saying “Sam was like a father to me.”

What David didn’t know was that Lanza had developed an interest in the wartime service of his protégé that would lead to a multi-decade effort to upgrade David’s medal.

A fight for justice

The true recognition David deserved is a testament to the persistence and resilience of his fellow DAV members.

Leading the charge was Lanza and another combat-wounded veteran, Herman “Herm” Breuer, a county service officer in Trumbull County, Ohio, and a member of Chapter 11.

An Army veteran, Breuer was wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb in 2004. His service continued post-military as a DAV veterans advocate. His passion caught Lanza’s attention when he watched the young soldier navigate the Pentagon’s bureaucratic maze to secure a Bronze Star for a Bataan Death March survivor.

Lanza asked Breuer to help with David’s upgrade, and he agreed. As he interviewed survivors of the battle, the story that emerged only deepened his and Lanza’s commitment.

“All of [the soldiers there] say the same thing: Without Ken David, none of them would be alive,” Breuer said. “Children and grandchildren got to grow up with [fathers and] grandfathers. Generations changed because of Ken David’s actions that day.”

Still, David’s actions had to withstand the scrutiny and iron-clad precision of the Medal of Honor’s vetting process, including concurrence for a newly submitted Army Form 638, the first trial in the pursuit of justice. The form requires sign-off from the entire chain of command, the members of which, according to Breuer, were needles in a haystack of Army records.

A trip to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, in 2016 was Breuer’s Hail Mary pass. While he didn’t find the identity of David’s chain of command for the form, he did discover the same information for Kays’, the medic who received the Medal of Honor for the same battle.

That was the clue that cracked everything open, revealing overlaps between the citations for David and Kays, who was injured and extracted earlier in the battle while David stayed behind and fought.

With then-Rep. Tim Ryan helping secure the Archives information, Breuer verified that nearly every member of David’s chain of command was deceased. The sole survivor was a 97-year-old general who was located for a signature on a sworn affidavit in the last days of his life in a Texas nursing home.

A momentous occasion

By the time the letter of justification was submitted in 2017, David’s parents and Lanza had died. But the letter skillfully resolved gaps in early documentation, including eyewitness statements, unit records and official documentation from the battle. Notably, it confirmed that David had fought until the last evacuation helicopter arrived, ensuring others survived while he risked his own life.

The evidence was compelling enough that David received a call from the president last Halloween.

The Medal of Honor ceremony was a poignant moment for David and his supporters. He was surrounded by dignitaries, family and fellow veterans, including Breuer and fellow Chapter 11 members Skip Cole and Bob Marino.

“To sit there and watch your friend receive the highest honor a veteran can receive … it was emotional for me,” Marino said. “It’s hard to describe how proud I was and emotional I was when the president put that medal on him and shook his hand.”

Marino found it fitting that Cole, who had a seat close to the front of the room, was able to render David his first salute after he received the medal.

For David, the moment was as much for Marino, Cole, Breuer and his fellow veterans as it was for himself.

“I want them to enjoy the moment with me because it’s not about me, it’s about all the people around me,” David said.

Breuer said he’s especially proud to be a part of this effort that was the legacy of veterans across generations all bonded together through sacrifice and their continued service through DAV.

“There are probably more stories like this lost both to time and veterans not understanding the [medal] process or even just wanting to remain quiet and put their service behind them,” Breuer said.

Back in Warren, David continues to build on his nearly 40-year legacy of service.

As snow falls outside the Chapter 11 headquarters, the meeting adjourns. Members across generations shake hands and congratulate their adjutant. David speaks with each of them. The room empties, and he packs his things and turns off the lights.

Unsurprisingly, he is the last one out.