Pages


Friday, February 03, 2023

Mad Dog Dave Dolby

David C Dolby - Medal of Honor Recipient
VIDEO HERE  (5:28 minutes)

*

David Charles Dolby (May 14, 1946 – August 6, 2010) was a United States Army soldier who received the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in the Vietnam War.

Dolby was born on May 14, 1946, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. His father, Charles L. Dolby, was a personnel manager for B.F. Goodrich Company in Oaks, Pennsylvania. He had a younger brother, Daniel.

Dolby joined the Army from Philadelphia at age 18, and by May 21, 1966, was serving in the Republic of Vietnam as a specialist four with Company B, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). On that day, his platoon came under heavy fire which killed six soldiers and wounded a number of others, including the platoon leader. Throughout the ensuing four-hour battle, Dolby led his platoon in its defense, organized the extraction of the wounded, and directed artillery fire despite close-range attacks from enemy snipers and automatic weapons. He single-handedly attacked the hostile positions and silenced three machine guns, allowing a friendly force to execute a flank attack.

*****

Dave Dolby is one of those guys that did what he had to do when it needed to be done, just a regular guy in a horrific situation, not a god to be worshipped.
He got into quite a bit of trouble both during the war and afterwards, and had this to say:

“Look, we’re all equal,’’ Mr. Dolby once said of Medal of Honor recipients. “We all did things that, if we had chosen not to do, nobody would have said we should have done. We all had that one moment in our lives. Other than that, we’re just normal people.’’

2 comments:

  1. A brave man. Slow salute.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's so cool. I live a couple of miles from Norristown and Oaks Pa. and didn't know any of this.

    Some other Norristown natives include Tommy Lasorda and Jaco Pastorius (perhaps the greatest electric bass player ever).

    ReplyDelete

All comments are moderated due to spam, drunks and trolls.
Keep 'em civil, coherent, short, and on topic.