Given Medal of Honor, but battles continued

On May 21, 1966, seven days after he turned 20, David C. Dolby acted with what his Medal of Honor citation described as "unsurpassed valor during four hours of intense combat" in the central highlands of Vietnam.

On Sept. 28, 1967, in the East Room of the White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson draped the nation's highest award around Mr. Dolby's neck, saying that because of what he had done that day he was "one of America's bravest men."

But by the 1990s, Mr. Dolby was living on his Medal of Honor pension and military disability payments because of "mental, emotional" problems, said his brother, Daniel.

Despite years of nightmares, a few times a year he would meet half a dozen men with whom he had shared the lives and the deaths of friends in Vietnam.

On Friday, Aug. 6, Mr. Dolby, 64, of Royersford, died in his sleep while visiting with them in Spirit Lake, Idaho.

His brother said the cause of death was not immediately available. Mr. Dolby and his friends "were planning a little road trip next day to Lake Tahoe. He didn't wake up."

Born in Norristown, a 1964 graduate of Spring-Ford High School outside Royersford and a member of its wrestling team, Mr. Dolby was "the toughest guy in three counties," his brother said.

"David was an incredibly strong man," his brother said, and so it was that, years later, "he could talk about those painful things."

"You could see the pain in his eyes, but he would chuckle. . . . He wasn't fractured."

His Medal of Honor citation described what happened to the First Cavalry Division machine gunner that day in 1966.

Mr. Dolby's platoon "came under intense fire from the enemy located on a ridge immediately to the front. Six members of the platoon were killed instantly and a number were wounded."

As his platoon leader lay dying, "he, alone, attacked enemy positions until his ammunition was expended."

"Replenishing his ammunition, he returned to the area of most intense action, single-handedly killed three enemy machine gunners and neutralized the enemy fire."

After carrying a seriously wounded soldier to safety, "he crawled through withering fire to within 50 meters of the enemy bunkers and threw smoke grenades to mark them for air strikes."

The Inquirer report of the White House ceremony suggested the citation was more precise than Mr. Dolby's memory:

" 'Sometimes it comes back to me, but I can't remember too much,' he said of the action. 'Much of what I know about the battle comes from what other people tell me.

" 'I think about my six buddies who died - that's about it,' and he paused to brush away sudden tears that filled his eyes."

He returned home to a hero's welcome.

Two days after the White House ceremony, The Inquirer reported that "several thousand people in Northeast Philadelphia turned out for a rally to support America's fighting men."

"Dolby was the guest of honor. He rode through the streets on the top of the backseat of a bright-yellow convertible."

He attended a golf tournament with Bob Hope and Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer. The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Phoenixville gave him a testimonial dinner.

And yet he had to be in Vietnam.

"There's something about it," he told Inquirer columnist Joe McGinniss 10 days after the White House ceremony, sitting in his family living room in Oaks, north of Valley Forge.

"You spend a year with a bunch of guys and you know, 24 hours a day, that your life is in their hands and their lives are in your hands, and at night you know you can go to sleep because you know the guy next to you will be watching. . . .

"You live like that for a year and . . . it's not fun, you don't like it . . . but there's something about it."

After high school and a season of semipro football, Mr. Dolby had enlisted in February 1965. Enlistments were usually three years.

In a long Page One piece in 1974, The Inquirer reported that when he returned to civilian life, Mr. Dolby "wasn't particularly happy."

"On March 18, 1969, scarcely more than a year after being discharged from the Army, he reenlisted and asked to return to Vietnam. . . .

"He became only the third discharged Medal of Honor winner in the Army's history to return to active duty."

After a total of four years in Vietnam - with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart as well - he was released from active duty in December 1971.

Mr. Dolby had a few misfortunes.

In 1969, after military police broke up a brawl at Cam Ranh Bay and found he was carrying marijuana, Sgt. Dolby was demoted a rank and fined $132.

In 1973, Norristown police arrested Mr. Dolby, but charges that he was driving while intoxicated were dismissed.

In 1974, he pleaded guilty in Philadelphia to eight counts of cashing fraudulent checks totaling $1,122 in 1972 in Hawaii. He told a U.S. district judge that he "was stranded in Honolulu without any money," waiting for his wife, Xuan, to arrive from Vietnam.

After hearing the Medal of Honor citation read in court, the judge sentenced him to three years of non-supervised probation, with no requirement to pay back the money.

"This is one of those occasions," Judge Alfred L. Luongo said, "when good deeds stand in good stead."

His brother said Mr. Dolby's first job back in civilian life, for about three years, was driving a forklift at the B.F. Goodrich plant in Oaks. Their father, Charles, was the personnel manager.

Then Mr. Dolby was at Phoenixville Iron & Steel. It was, his brother said, "the hottest job in the plant," using a blowtorch to cut off dripping steel from an ingot.

It was so bad that "before they let you fill out any paperwork, the guard would drive you over and see it."

Mr. Dolby stuck with it for more than two years, his brother said.

But Mr. Dolby's wife, Xuan, died in 1990.

"I'm a painting contractor," his brother said, "and I gave him a job" shortly after that.

"It was like we were 12 years old."

But the nightmares continued.

Besides his brother, Mr. Dolby is survived by his mother, Mary.

A memorial is planned, for an hour to be determined, on Saturday, Sept. 18, at the Phoenixville VFW post, 200 Starr St. Burial is to be in Arlington National Cemetery.