Ohlson honored at medal presentation ceremony in Urbandale

Dave Ohlson spent his first wedding anniversary off the coast of Vietnam in 1972 aboard the USS Cone DD-866, and the retired Navy Operations Specialist couldn’t wait to get home to Ogden. Still, being deployed in the early 1970s is an experience he hasn’t forgotten, and neither has U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, who presented Ohlson and eight other veterans (two were awarded posthumously) with the medals and honors they’d earned during a ceremony at Purdue Global in Ankeny last Wednesday.

“It stunk. It would’ve been our first Christmas together,” he said, speaking of his wife Donna, who he’s still married to today. “But you know, you have this other family on the ship. It’s 300 guys, and you’re all on a ship that’s 400 long and 41 feet wide.”

About a year ago, Ohlson, who served from 1970 to 1976 including his reserve duty, learned through a veterans’ Facebook group that the crew on his ship had been recognized with a Meritorious Unit Commendation for its efforts during Operation Linebacker II, a bombing campaign in North Vietnam at the end of 1972. As an operations specialist, he sat in the ship’s war room during combat and ran radar equipment, identifying other ships and targets by their signals.

“We were shooting at high-value targets in North Vietnam, and they were shooting at us, of course,” he said.

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