Hometown: Whitesville, KY
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company B, 2d Battalion, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division
Military Honors: Medal of Honor, Bronze Star, Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: December 29, 1968 - KIA in Giao Duc District, Dinh Tuong Province, Republic of Vietnam
Age: 20
Conflict: Vietnam War, 1959-1975

He grew up on a farm near Whitesville, Kentucky—a town of just over 700 residents located 15 miles south of the Ohio River and the Indiana-Kentucky border.

David Paul Nash was known by his family and friends as “Paulie.” His parents, Ishmael and Stella Nash, operated a farm—growing corn and tobacco, raising cattle and hogs. They also raised a large family. Paulie was the second of eight children: Leon, Paulie, Randall, Earl, Ray, Wilson, Allen, Kenneth, Susan.

The Nashes attended St. Mary of the Woods Catholic Church in Whitesville, where Paulie served as an altar boy. He also attended primary and high school at St. Mary’s.

His brother, Leon, recalls that Paulie played guitar, “loved fooling with cars,” and pumped gas at a local filling station to earn spending money. He loved to work on his 1957 Chevy, sometimes letting his younger brothers “help.”

Their mother said that Paulie was a hard worker who loved to fish and hunt. He raised a tobacco crop with his younger brother, Randall, at a neighboring farm, and that “he hated to leave home.”

Everything changed on May 8, 1968, when Nash received his draft notice. At the time, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War (1959-1975) was escalating, and antiwar protests on college campuses and in Washington D.C. were becoming more frequent and intense.

Despite the national controversy, Nash expressed to family and friends that he had no second thoughts about serving his country in Vietnam, saying that it was “the right thing to do.”

Nash left for nearby Fort Knox, Kentucky, then 11 more weeks of combat infantry training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama.

Knowing that Paulie was headed to Vietnam in late October of 1968, the Nash family celebrated his November 3 (1947) birthday 13 days early. PFC Nash was assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.

According to his brothers, Nash liked the Army—even to the point of considering an Army career. In letters home, he struggled to convey what Army life in Vietnam was like. But he did send a picture home of a Christmas tree in his bunker.

Three days after Christmas 1968, PFC Nash had been in Vietnam for just over two months. He was on an ambush patrol in South Vietnam’s swampy in Mekong Delta when his unit came under attack by enemy Viet Cong forces.

His bravery and selflessness would save three others at the cost of his own life, earning him the nation’s highest military honor. His Medal of Honor citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Nash distinguished himself while serving as a grenadier with Company B, in Giao Duc district. When an ambush patrol of which he was a member suddenly came under intense attack before reaching its destination, he was the first to return the enemy fire.

Taking an exposed location, Pfc. Nash suppressed the hostile fusillade with a rapid series of rounds from his grenade launcher, enabling artillery fire to be adjusted on the enemy.

After the foe had been routed, his small element continued to the ambush site where he established a position with three fellow soldiers on a narrow dike. Shortly past midnight, while Pfc. Nash and a comrade kept watch and the two other men took their turn sleeping, an enemy grenade wounded two soldiers in the adjacent position.

Seconds later, Pfc. Nash saw another grenade land only a few feet from his own position. Although he could have escaped harm by rolling down the other side of the dike, he shouted a warning to his comrades and leaped upon the lethal explosive.

Absorbing the blast with his body, he saved the lives of the three men in the area at the sacrifice of his life. By his gallantry at the cost of his life and in the highest traditions of the military service, Pfc. Nash has reflected great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

PFC David P. “Paulie” Nash had just turned 20 years old when he sacrificed his life for his fellow soldiers and for his country on December 29, 1968. He was laid to rest in his hometown, and a granite monument was erected in Whitesville City Park in his honor.

In 2004, a section of highway in Daviess County, Kentucky, was dedicated as “Pfc. David Paulie Nash Memorial Highway” in his memory.

He is honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., where his name is inscribed on Panel 35W, Line 6.

Sources
Details provided by Mr. Leon Nash, PFC Nash’s Gold Star Brother.
U.S. Department of War: Medal of Honor Monday: Army Pfc. David Nash
Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, Apr. 25, 1999: David Paul Nash
Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, Dec. 14, 2001: Nash memorial tells story of heroic act
Congressional Medal of Honor Society: David Paul Nash
Victoria Cross Online: David Paul “Paulie” Nash
Ohio County Messenger, Sep. 7, 2026: Killed in Vietnam, PFC. David P. Nash
The Louisville Times, April 8, 1970: Parents of Kentucky GI Given His Medal of Honor
Together We Served: Nash, David Paul, PFC
Burial Site: Find a Grave

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