Add Your Loved One to the Grateful Nation Memorial Hero Wall

As surviving military families, we are connected by a common thread. We are part of a larger American legacy of grief and loss. At TAPS, we honor and remember our fallen heroes every day. We share our loved ones with a Grateful Nation on whose behalf our heroes served and died.

You can share the legacy of your fallen hero by adding your loved one to the Grateful Nation Memorial Hero Wall and with the thousands of supporters on our social media platforms.

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Sgt. David Wayne Chuculate Army Infantry Big Red1 68-69 TET

David was a 100% DAV Vietnam Vet/PTSD....he was a wonderful man! He was a fullblood Cherokee from a small town in Oklahoma and learned to speak English when he was about 6. He attended Haskell Indian School in Lawrence Kansas for 2 years. He and his wife took "Indian Relocation" to Denver and they had 1 son. David joined the service and it really effected him as he was a very sensitive person. He got a "Dear John" while in Nam and only learned he had 3 grandsons when he was about 60. He never got to meet any of the boys. I was his 3rd wife and we were married 13 years before he passed. It took him a month to vacate his apartment and move into "my" house after we were married...he was very quiet and shy. He didn't like "critters' but I said "you'd better learn as I have 22 cats, 3 dogs and 6 birds.' One day we were riding down a gravel road and I spotted a tiny stray kitten, he was hollering "no no no!" as I jumped back in the car with the cat! A few weeks later, I saw that kitten in his fatigue pocket...and pretty soon, he said "my Baby" is moving into the house! He had her picture in his wallet when he passed in 2011. I still have her and she will get off the bed so I can make it if I say go sit by Daddy Dave (picture on the nightstand) She is 16. He had a guinea pig who would snatch a small carrot out of his mouth when he put his face to his cage..I told him "you are sucking face with a pig!"..he laughed! He learned how to laugh! He learned how to love and feel again. He did volunteer plumbing for churches and people, cooked, cleaned and even went to drum lessons. He was deaf as a doorknob, so he had an outbuilding filled with amps and drums and all that stuff. Everyone just loved Dave...we had a Halloween hayride for about 20-40 kids every year and he hung lights, made props...even a real log cabin. At Christmas he hung hundreds of lights and turned the little cabin into "Santa's workshop". David bloomed!! He was the biggest hearted man I've ever known..so I called him "Big Honey' (he was also overweight). Everyday he'd ask me for his"marching orders' before I went to work. I love that man with all of my heart...he left the war, but the war never left him...but he escaped it most of the time we were married. He was a fine Christian man and I was blessed to have him.