Decorations register · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the decoration and the writing, not an invented face.
David H. McNerney
1931–2010
First Sergeant
Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division (Polei Doc, Republic of Vietnam, 22 March 1967); later Company B, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division
Documented decorations
Purple Heart
Named in VA #VeteranOfTheDay (23 May 2022) among career decorations. Do not invent an oak-leaf count from wound language in the Medal of Honor citation alone.
Public sources
Bronze Star Medal
Named as a Bronze Star in the same VA #VeteranOfTheDay profile. Do not invent a Combat “V” or oak-leaf count without a matching official device list on this page.
Public sources
David H. McNerney’s Bronze Star and Purple Heart are named in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ #VeteranOfTheDay profile of his service. The same VA account places those decorations beside the Medal of Honor for Polei Doc on March 22, 1967. This decorations page records the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart from that VA list. It will not invent a Silver Star the VA page does not name, and it will not place a Medal of Honor chip on this awards row — same Murphy rule as the live register.
Near Polei Doc, McNerney ran to the heaviest contact, was wounded by a grenade, destroyed a machine-gun position that had pinned five soldiers, assumed company command after the commander and artillery observer were killed, marked a landing zone from exposed ground and a tree, and refused evacuation until the next day. That citation is the public Medal of Honor record held by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. The Bronze Star and Purple Heart are the published wartime decoration names on the VA profile. They are not the same sentence.
He is not yet on a war-roll essay. Houston National Cemetery burial after his death on October 10, 2010, is public fact. It is not printed here as a medal.
This name is not yet on a war-roll essay. The decorations above are the documented public record this register will stand on until that essay is written.
A publisher register — not a verification
This decorations register is publisher-curated from public records — Medal of Honor Society citations, published general orders, and official Army, Navy, and Marine Corps biographies. It is not a verified-veteran product. Notice Nearby does not certify service and does not issue badges.
A paid or unpaid memorial does not enroll anyone here. Checkout, VET50, and a family’s mention of service on an obituary are not applications to this list. We add a name only when a public official source names the decoration.
Claiming a decoration that was not awarded is stolen valor. It is a disrespect to those who earned the medal and, in some cases, a federal crime. This register will not invent an award to fill a page.
These pages are a historical register. They are not Legal Publication, not a newspaper notice, and not proof that a statute was satisfied.