David Lee Wyatt, a retired United States Army colonel, was born in Gibson County, Indiana, December 23, 1933. Family historians long ago debunked his claim that his mother swam the Ohio River the night before his birth to keep from birthing a Kentuckian.
David was the second of five children born to Bessie Clara Ward Wyatt and Paris Robert Wyatt. He loved his family dearly, and they were always close knit, even when living half the world away. His principal memories of early childhood involved his brother Max popping a “big gray spider” into his mouth, and older brother Bob scaring the daylights out of him with a story about a bear down in the creek (crick). At ten years old, he was baptized into the First Baptist Church, in Waynetown, Indiana.
The family moved several times, following Paris’s work where he found it. From Gibson County to Waynetown, then Pittsboro, where work included farming, working in an Alcoa aluminum plant, and then managing lumber yards. Highlights included renting a nice house with electricity, right after WWII. The family cow moved from place to place with the rest of them. When Dave was about 14, Paris and Bessie moved into a brick house with indoor toilets and bought a 1946 Dodge. They were movin’ on up!
After graduating from Pittsboro High School, Dave attended Purdue University. He learned to play pool and therefore dropped out before completing his studies. At 20 years of age, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He moved quickly from basic training in Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, to advanced basic training as an Army engineer at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and then Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Less than a year after enlisting, he received a commission as a Second Lieutenant of Artillery. In 1955 he moved to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he was appointed platoon commander in a battalion operating the Corporal Guided Missile System, shooting missiles at White Sands Missile Range. While stationed at Fort Bliss, Dave discovered the sister city of Juarez, Mexico, where a rum and coke cost twenty cents, and there was a bullfight every weekend.
His Corporal Missile battalion took him to Northern Italy, where he learned he could snow ski on Saturday and water ski on Sunday. While stationed in Vicenza, Italy, he met Hildegard Anna Brunner (Gerdy), and on May 17, 1958, they married at the Army Chapel in Patrick Henry Village at Karlsruhe, Germany, where her family lived after the war. They raised four sons, David, Michael, Robert and James.
Dave’s career took him back to Fort Bliss, where he attended a Nike Missile qualification course and a Hawk Missile System Course, and commanded a Hawk battalion; then to Fort Sill for the Artillery Officers’ Advanced Course; then to Omaha, Nebraska, where while working he also completed his baccalaureate degree; then back to El Paso, where Gerdy lived with the first two boys, David and Michael, while Dave was stationed in Vietnam, in 1964.
In Vietnam, Dave served as the advisor to South Vietnamese military forces in Bac Lieu Province in the Bassac Delta. He often bivouacked with local Regional and Popular Forces in the rice paddies to clear Viet Cong from the villages and canals. In his words, “We also participated in occasional ‘search and destroy’ missions that were pretty much what their name implies.” While in Viet Nam, Dave earned the Combat Infantry Badge.
The U.S. Army Captain who replaced Dave was killed in an ambush while working on one such canal clearing mission. On another occasion, Dave and his forces were pinned down for days in a small fort they had built in Choung Thien. The small arms fire was too intense for Army helicopters to land, so they held down the fort until massive air strikes outside the perimeter of the fort could clear an opening for the choppers to land and haul out the dead and wounded. During Dave’s tour in Viet Nam, American troop strength went from 10,000 to almost 60,000.
Back stateside, Dave enjoyed time with the growing family, touring the Western states, the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, and Mexico in 1965. A loving and devoted father, Dave coached his sons’ Little League when he could, and later a basketball team. He was also a skilled craftsman, woodworker, and general handy man.
From El Paso, the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama, then to Naples, Italy, where Robert and James were born, respectively, in that order. While in Naples, Dave attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1969. He served in the headquarters of NATO’s Southern Region, and travelled frequently to northern Italy, Greece, and Turkey, for annual inspections of Allied missile units, occasionally returning home with a new carpet or other fine memorabilia. Dave and Gerdy collected many fine furnishings and artworks during their many and varied travels. From Naples, Dave and family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he attended the Armed Forces Staff College. And then back to El Paso, where the family, now all four boys, waited out Dave’s tour in Korea commanding a Hawk Missile Battalion. Before heading to Korea, Dave and Gerdy took the boys on another month-long tour of the west in the family Terry trailer, seeing most of the national parks from Yellowstone to Sequoia. After returning to El Paso from Korea, Dave sold the house there, and the family moved to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on the Chesapeake, where Dave bought a ski boat and took the family water skiing regularly, and taught many of the local kids to ski as well. After Aberdeen, Dave was stationed at the Pentagon, and the family lived in Woodbridge, Virginia, for three years.
In May 1976, Dave was promoted to full colonel and stationed to attend the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. While in Carlisle, Dave also obtained a Master of Science degree from Shippensburg State College, and a private pilot’s license. From Carlisle, Dave was stationed back at Fort Bliss, where he served as TRADOC System Manager for the Patriot Missile System. His staff affectionally referred to him as “Mr. Patriot-TSM.” Since there was no soccer league on Fort Bliss, Dave created one for his boys and became the base Soccer Czar.
Thence to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, where he was the Project Manager for the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Command and Control Systems for four years.
Dave retired much decorated from the Army in 1984, and lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for his remaining years. Dave continued to work in various positions, including on the research faculty of Georgia Tech, supporting the joint Army-Marine Corps development of unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles. He also volunteered every year on the Arsenal to assist others with completing and filing their federal income taxes.
During those years, his and Gerdy’s lives blossomed into a constant whirl of activities. For several years, they volunteered as camp hosts across the West, living in their fifth-wheel camper trailer on park grounds, and performing whatever host services the park rangers would direct, from picking up litter and touring busloads of students to directing traffic and providing trail advice to local hikers. Dave and Gerdy also explored the Sierra Madres, Chihuahuan Desert, and Copper Canyon of Northern Mexico, and spent family time in Ohio, Texas and Arizona.
In 2005, Dave and Gerdy found a property just west of Colorado Springs, where they built a large steel Quonset barn, and moved their 36-foot camper trailer in. Every summer from then on, they drove from Huntsville to Colorado to spend the summer in the camper, which they parked on a promontory with a 270-degree view from Pike’s Peak to the east to the Collegiate Range and Continental Divide in the west. Dave joined the county sheriff’s posse and assisted with traffic control during emergencies such as the wildfires that ravaged local communities. The last time Dave made that two-day drive from Alabama to Colorado, he was 89 years old.
Although Dave had his share of serious health scares through the years, from a collapsed lung in Italy (and again in Virginia), to malignant melanomas, he was a strong-willed and fierce survivor. As he entered his 90’s, he suffered strokes and a decline in his cognitive abilities but always maintained a very strong grip. As he entered hospice in April, Gerdy was at his bedside every day.
Dave Wyatt was preceded in death by his parents, Bessie and Paris; his brothers, Bob and Jerry; and his beloved oldest son, David Brunner. He is survived by his loving wife of 68 years, Gerdy; his sons, Michael Rudy (Karla), Robert Thomas (Paula), and James Terrence (Stephanie); his beloved grandchildren, Noah David, Rachel Mary Grace (JP), Joey, Marissa Nicole and Constance Hope; his lovely great-granddaughter, Gwenivere Scarlett; and his well-loved siblings, Margaret (Andrew) and Max (Julie).
Visitation will be at 10 a.m. followed by mass at 11, on Friday, October 2, 2026, at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Huntsville, Alabama.
In lieu of flowers, please reach out to those you love and hold them dear.
