Then-Army Pfc. Kenneth David, left, and Army Capt. Hugh Nelson Jr., right, are the latest soldiers who served during the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor. (U.S. Army)
WASHINGTON — Debbie McKnight did not want her father, Capt. Hugh Nelson Jr., to go to Vietnam.
“As a 5-year-old, I remember him lifting me up in my grandparents’ house. And I told him not to go because I was never going to see him again,” she said.
Six months later, Army officials drove up to the Nelson house to inform them that Hugh was killed in action. He was 28. It happened the day before her little brother, Hugh Nelson III, turned 1 year old.
McKnight and her family know the sacrifice her father made. The rest of the country will now, too, as Nelson and Kenneth David, who also fought in the Vietnam War, are the latest recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor in combat.
President Joe Biden will present the medals on Friday at a White House ceremony, during which the Medal of Honor will also be posthumously bestowed to five Korean War veterans.
Nelson was raised in Rocky Mount and Durham, N.C. McKnight said her father was in JROTC in high school before graduating from The Citadel in South Carolina in 1959.
“He went to The Citadel, graduated, liked it so much that our mom and dad were married there,” she said. “At least that’s what we’ve been told.”
On June 5, 1966, near Moc Hoa, Nelson was the acting aircraft commander of a Huey helicopter with the 114th Aviation Company on a search-and-destroy reconnaissance mission when the aircraft was struck by a barrage of enemy fire that rendered it uncontrollable.
McKnight’s brother ‘Tripp,’ as the family refers to him, said his father was flying the helicopter with three crew members. Tripp Nelson said reports on the fight concluded the aircraft hit the ground at 100 miles per hour.
The crash left the four-man crew unconscious in the helicopter. Nelson was the first to wake up and moved to the other side of the aircraft where he found his dazed and wounded crew chief still trapped inside the Huey. After getting him out, Nelson climbed into the severely damaged helicopter to assist the door gunner, who was still strapped inside and unable to move.
While Nelson tried to free his comrade, North Vietnamese troops attacked, firing automatic rifles and small arms from about 30 feet away. The heavy enemy fire wounded Nelson, but he continued his efforts to free the trapped door gunner. After freeing the soldier, Nelson used his body as a shield to cover the door gunner from the intense enemy fire.
“I’ve read everywhere that he took between six and, I believe, 20 rounds,” Tripp Nelson said. “He passed away during that time. The other three crew members lived and luckily were evacuated fairly quickly.”
When the Army came to notify the Nelsons of Hugh’s death, McKnight said the family was returning home from getting haircuts. She had gotten gum in her hair and her mother took her to get it cut out. When they pulled up to the house, two men were waiting for them.
As the men got back in the car, one turned to McKnight and asked for directions to her grandparents’ house. When McKnight went inside, she saw her mother crying.
“She looked at me and she said that my daddy was gone, and he was never coming back. So that was how I found out that he had passed away,” McKnight said.
She said she was told not every officer would have sacrificed himself for other troops.
“That’s not something that our father would have thought about,” McKnight said. “He was just brought up as a good Christian and a good soldier, and all he would have thought about was doing the right thing. He told us, and our mother, that the one thing that he had to do was he had to fight for freedom so that everyone had the right to live their lives the way they wanted.”
Nelson received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest military decoration, for his actions and sacrifice.
Kenneth David didn’t go to a military school like Nelson. Now 74, he joined the Army in August 1969 after being drafted. He graduated from Girard High School in Ohio and had been working for a year.
“Being I was brought up proper, I went in the Army and fulfilled my commitment to our country. That’s what I believed in,” David said.
Then-Pfc. David distinguished himself on May 7, 1970, in the Thua Thien Province. He served as a radio telephone operator with Company D, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, near Fire Support Base Maureen.
“We got overrun,” he said. “[It] was pitch black at night. Explosions started going off, and we got overrun by sappers. And behind the sappers were [North Vietnamese troops].”
The enemy’s initial assault mortally wounded the company’s platoon leader. Without hesitation, David handed his radio to his platoon sergeant and moved forward to the defensive perimeter, unleashing automatic weapons fire on the enemy troops.
David, from his position, beat back enemy efforts to overrun him. Realizing the impact of the enemy assault on the wounded, who were being moved to the center of the defensive perimeter that the U.S. troops had established, David moved to a position outside of the perimeter while continuing to engage the enemy.
Each time the enemy attempted to concentrate its fire on wounded Americans inside the perimeter, David jumped from his position and yelled to draw enemy fire away from injured troops. Refusing to withdraw in the face of the concentrated enemy fire now directed toward him, he continued to engage the enemy.
Though wounded by an exploding satchel charge and running low on ammunition, he tossed hand grenades toward the attackers to counter their fire. The unit’s medic, realizing David had been injured, moved to his position to provide medical aid. David told the medic that he was OK and continued to fight on.
“The adrenaline was so high in me that I had no idea … but I was able to save seven [other troops],” he said. “So, between the effort of Greg and myself, we did our duty.”
David credited his buddy, Spc. Gregory Phillips, for his efforts during the fight. Phillips received the Silver Star for his actions.
David received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroics that day.
He spent five months in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania to recover from his injuries. David retired as a heating and cooling technician with Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396 in Youngstown, Ohio.
His goal for years has been to help as many veterans as possible. For 39 years, David has been a member of Disabled American Veterans Trumbull County Chapter 11 in Warren, Ohio.
David made it out of Vietnam 54 years ago, but seven other soldiers from the unit did not. Their names are located on panel 11 west of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, lines 121 to 128. The names are — Cpl. Robert Berger, Pfc. Peter Cook, 1st Lt. Lawrence Fletcher, Cpl. Jose Gonzalez, Sgt. Lloyd Jackson, Cpl. Robert Lohenry and Staff Sgt. Joseph Redmond.
“I was able to go on a virtual wall [and] pull off their bios. They’re in a book, and I carry that book in my truck all the time,” David said. “That’s my way of coping with my stress. I always talk about my friends. We knew the way they walked, we knew the way they talked, their heartbeat and we would do anything for each other in any situation.”
David is the second soldier from the platoon to receive the Medal of Honor. Pfc. Kenneth Kays of the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division received the award in 1973 for his actions on May 7, 1970.
The Medal of Honor process can take years before a service member receives the award.
Herm Breuer, an Army veteran and a veterans service officer in Trumbull County, examined David’s records and felt the Medal of Honor was justified. David said Breuer devoted 17 years to work on a recommendation packet for him.
“Mr. Herm Breuer never gave up on me, and that’s why I’m here today, and I thank him for that,” David said.
Tripp Nelson and McKnight said Ted Curtis was working in the archives of The Citadel and discovered their father’s story. Curtis, also a graduate of The Citadel, got other graduates involved after reading the story. They investigated the history and submitted their review five or six years ago. Then-Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., kept McKnight updated on the process. It took three years for the Army Review Board to look at the information.
“When Ted was putting the package together, he was able to contact former members of my father’s unit who have actually since passed away,” McKnight said. “I witnessed reports from them about what had happened. Tripp and I had gotten portions of the story, but we never knew the whole story until after Ted did all of this research. We’re just so grateful that he never gave up and would just call or periodically email and just say, ‘Hey, it’s going to happen.’”
David said he was honored to receive the call and looks forward to meeting President Joe Biden in person with his friends and family.
McKnight said she remembers the day that Biden called. The phone call lasted two minutes and 16 seconds. She was sitting down because her knees were shaking.
After the president recapped Nelson’s actions and he would present the family with the Medal of Honor posthumously, Biden commented her father was a very handsome man.
“I was like, ‘Yes, my mother thought so too,’ ” McKnight said. “And that was when the conversation ended. I’m not sure if I should have said that to him, but it always kind of makes me smile and giggle when I think about having said that to the president.”
Tripp said despite not knowing his father, he has several of his possessions. He has his uniforms and parachute. He also has his father’s wallet.
In Nelson’s wallet, there was a picture of his wife and a vaccination card. There were three or four documents related to code of conduct and what to do if you were captured by the Vietnamese. His father also had a prayer in his wallet.
“It was filled with documents he was keeping with him, I guess, to remind him what good conduct was. I don’t think he needed to remind himself,” Tripp said. “You can tell a lot about a person. He felt he was in the right place where he belonged, and that was in the war, fighting for our country.”
