Thank You for Your Service, David Colvin

SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Army veteran David Colvin told 7NEWS he grew up poor.

“It was the only opportunity to maybe get the GI Bill to go to college, I wanted to go to college,” Colvin shared.

He said he received a letter that he was going to be drafted regardless of the war going on in Vietnam, so he enlisted in the Army as an Infantryman.

That first night, Colvin said things became very real.

“I am now supposed to use this rifle with a little knife on the end of it and drive somebody back out of the perimeter or shoot them or whatever,” Colvin said. ” At 18, that was really scary. And I to this day that still haunts me.”

But Colvin said he had no choice but to persevere.

Soon, he would turn those fears would into drive.

“We decided we were gonna be helicopter door gunners,” Colvin explained. “So I extended my tour for Vietnam for six months to come back and fly.”

After leaving, Colvin returned to Vietnam in 1969 for a second deployment as a Door Gunner.

“I flew almost every day. The CH-47 was a great helicopter,” Colvin said. “I had a lot of fun with it. It was clean, cool, got to see a lot of the war.”

When he came home from the war, Colvin went to college.

He said coming back was tough, veterans weren’t treated well for a service he was proud of.

“Parents didn’t understand, they couldn’t understand,” he explained. “You’re coming home and you’re a different person. You’re not this little boy they sent that went overseas, you know? And then it’s just different.”

When Desert Storm kicked off, Colvin deployed again. And then again after 9/11.

“After my second tour of Vietnam, I, I went to war two more times, you know?” Colvin said. “And people said you must be a glutton for punishment, you know.? But it was duty-bound and I always remembered like the, the soldiers, the sergeants that kept me alive in Vietnam. I owed that to the kids .”

In May of 2006, Colvin came home and retired for good.

He now spends his days biking and making sure his brothers and sisters in arms are doing alright while volunteering for Vets Helping Vets, the Greenville chapter.

“We build, we raise all the funds,” Colvin explained. “We do everything for the veteran and our veterans survivors. And we do a lot for veterans’ widows. ​”

Colvin said it keeps his mind busy.

That, and focusing on the good memories. One of those, his last return home from his deployment to Iraq in 2006.

“When we came through with two aircraft, almost 600 troops, they came there and everybody stood up and applauded and I had tears running down my cheek,” he said.

He was finally receiving recognition for the sacrifices he made.

David Colvin, Thank You for Your Service.

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