David Richard Merrell was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 13, 1944 to Dr. Hosmer T. Merrell and Mary Jane Mentz. David’s father had a doctor’s office located at 115 W. Union and the family lived at 311 S. Fourth Street in Marion.

He graduated from Marion High School in the class of 1962. While attending Marion High School, David participated in football, basketball and track in his first two years and then specialized in track and cross country his last two years, in which he won numerous awards.

In 1963, David married Phoebe Burress, daughter of Henry Burress and Winifred Burkhart. Phoebe graduated from Marion High School in the class of 1963.

David attended SIU at Carbondale and graduated in the class of 1966.

He entered the Army in June of 1967 and attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Upon graduation, he was commissioned an Army Second Lieutenant on December 15, 1967.

David was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, before going to the Republic of Vietnam late July 1968. He was assigned to the 1^st Battalion, 61^st Infantry, 5^th Division Mechanized.

Only three months after entering the country, he was mortally wounded by small arms fire while near the DMZ in Quang Tri Province on October 25, 1968, at the age of 24. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

Services were held at 2 P.M. Tuesday, December 10, 1968 at Mitchell Funeral Home in Marion with interment following in Eastlawn Memorial Gardens.

Lt. Merrell was survived by his wife; parents; sister, Linda Merrell, then of San Francisco and brother, Jim Merrell, then a freshman at Tulane University.

David was the first Vietnam loss for Marion and brought the war a lot closer to home in Marion. Unfortunately, David was only one of 58,220 U.S. military lives. His name is listed on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. on Panel 40, Row 33.

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(Southern Illinoisan, 1968:, Virtualwall.com; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 12/12/2013)