I’ve known Dave since I was 12 years old. He has always been a friend to our family and my goal is to uplift his voice.
Below is David Egolf’s letter he sent to Senator Mark Kelly. The best way you can help at this moment is to support this video and share so we can get this to government leaders who can help.
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Dear Senator Kelly,
As a preface to this message, I feel I should first introduce myself. I grew up and attended schools in Casper, Wyoming. I graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1966 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant through the army ROTC program. I'm now a retired professor of electrical engineering and a veteran of the war in Vietnam, where I served as a combat engineer platoon leader in 1969. In that capacity, I was awarded the U.S. Army's Bronze Star Medal for bravery in rebuilding a jungle outpost near Kontum, South Vietnam that had been destroyed by a midnight Vietcong attack. I survived the war, but with lasting "internal" injuries: hearing damage from artillery, colitis from extreme anxiety, PTSD due to survivor's guilt, and cancer from exposure to agent orange.
Following the war, I attended Purdue University on the G.I. Bill, where I earned a PhD in mechanical engineering. Since 1976 I have served as a faculty member at several different institutions of higher learning: U. of Wyoming, U. of Georgia, Pennsylvania State U., Loyola U. of Chicago, U. of Arizona, and U. of Idaho. I retired from the U. of Idaho in 2013.
The subject of this message is disposition of the Bronze Star Medal that I received for my war efforts. I'm proud of having been awarded that medal, so had my name and the words "Vietnam 1969" engraved on the back side. In fact, that medal and an occasional free cup of coffee at a neighborhood convenience store are the only thanks I ever received for participating in the war. I'm now 81 years old and I imagine the medal will sit on some dusty shelf after I'm gone, to eventually be discarded after the stories of my war exploits have long faded away.
However, I believe that medal might have a "second life" in helping to boost the morale of at least one Ukranian soldier, just as it boosted my morale in 1969. Therefore, I would like to send my medal to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and ask him to award it to some deserving soldier in the Ukranian military for his or her heroic efforts in fighting the Russians.
Further, I can imagine that if American military veterans like me were asked to donate to President Zelenskyy the medals they received for bravery in previous wars, he would be flooded with them. Such an action would certainly boost the morale of Ukranian soldiers and would let the people of their country know that, unlike Donald Trump, ordinary citizens of the United States are strongly supportive of their efforts to boot the Russians out of their country.
If this scheme I am proposing is of interest to you, then please contact me or ask one of your colleagues to contact me so we might discuss the ways in which such medals might be solicited, collected, and delivered to President Zelenskyy.
Sincerely,
David P. Egolf, PhD
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