Kenneth David

By BURTON COLE Staff writer

GIRARD — Highly decorated combat veteran Kenneth J. David has a mission: “To help as many veterans as I can before I pass away.”

That can mean campaigning before legislative bodies, visiting schools and civic groups, serving on the rifle team for parades and funerals, collecting food and other items or just having a cup of coffee with another veteran who needs an ear.

The 73-year-old Girard man volunteers 120-plus hours a month through Disabled American Veterans, Trumbull County Chapter 11, in Warren.

It’s for these efforts and many others that David — who already holds the Distinguished Service Cross, a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster and two Bronze Stars — was chosen as a 2023 Community Star.

The Community Stars program, co-sponsored by the Tribune Chronicle and Trumbull 100, recognizes the brightest examples of community service and the people who do those good deeds.

David was nominated by his two sons, Kevin David of Fort Wayne, Ind., and Brian David of Matlacha, Fla., and by friend Jean Parke.

“My dad has the drive and desire to help others,” Kevin said. “My dad is someone I admire and look up to as a family provider and a strong community leader. I work toward modeling those traits for my children and my community.”

Brian said, “I don’t know of anyone more dedicated to the DAV, veterans and the community than my dad — a hero and a leader.”

Parke noted that David, the adjutant

/ treasurer of DAV Chapter 11, has chaired or co-chaired committees to rename roads and bridges to honor veterans, to create scholarships, and to deliver lap quilts to veterans in nursing homes or food to veterans in need.

“We have a lot of problems with veterans not having enough. A lot of veterans are very proud,” David said. “They have to really be down on their luck to ask for help.”

The Girard High School graduate was drafted into the Army in August 1969 and was sent to the Republic of South Vietnam in January 1970. He was a radio telephone operator with the 1/506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division.

“Fifty-three years ago, I got shot up,” David said. “I came home from Vietnam on a hospital plane.”

But not before, while already wounded, he “carried a wounded comrade to a sheltered position and returned to engage the enemy until they broke contact and fled,” according to a military news release.

“Seven guys got killed,” David said of the combat on May 7, 1970. “Another guy took his life in 1990 from the horrors of what he went through in losing his leg. These names and faces I still see today. ... These are my brothers who never came home to get old and gray like the rest of us.”

David spent five months in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. After released, he said he was shocked at all the vitriol he saw unleashed on returning soldiers.

“It wasn’t right and I tried to figure out what to do,” he said. “(I) promised myself I would make it easier for the next group of veterans for when they come home.” bcole@tribtoday.com

He has retired as a heating cooling tech nician with Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396 in Youngstown, but remains active in his mission.

“Veterans shed blood for their country and they should be taken care of for defending their country,” he said.