Shepherd and Warriors salutes Medal of Honor recipient Donald “Doc” Ballard.
With the hope of one day being a dentist, Donald Ballard entered the Navy in 1965 with the expectation that he would serve as a dental assistant. During basic training he learned dental assistants were over strength, so he changed course and became a hospital corpsman.
In 1967, he deployed to Vietnam with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. Almost immediately after his company arrived in theater, they were engaged in fire fights with the enemy. Before he would return stateside, Ballard would receive three Purple Heart Medals. When he publicly recounts his time in Vietnam, he will often share the unforgettable experiences of hand-to-hand combat with the enemy and the realities of living each day with post-traumatic stress.
On May 16, 1968, immediately after treating and evacuating two heat casualties, Ballard’s platoon came under heavy enemy fire. As he was treating a wounded Marine with severe injuries to both legs, an enemy hand grenade landed next to him and his casualty. In the next few moments Ballard’s courage and sense of duty were on full display. His Medal of Honor Citation reads in part, “Ballard fearlessly threw himself on the lethal explosive device to protect his comrades from the deadly blast.” When the grenade failed to detonate, Ballard picked up the grenade and threw it in the direction from which it came, a moment later it detonated in mid-air. Miraculously, no one was wounded.
Two years later on May 14, 1970, at a White House ceremony, President Richard M. Nixon presented HC2c Ballard the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in combat.
Prior to receiving the Medal of Honor, Ballard had decided to pursue a career as an Army dentist. For the next 30 years he continued his honorable service to the nation as a dentist. He retired from the Kansas National Guard in 2000 and was inducted into the Kansas National Guard Hall of Fame in 2001.
Today, Ballard devotes much of his time and energy to ensure that every indigent veteran receives a proper funeral and burial. As he points out with an enlisted man’s brutal honesty, “VA benefits will pay for your burial, but they don’t pay your way to the cemetery… Your buddies just can’t drop you off at the cemetery.”
When you spend time with Doc Ballard you soon realize that just underneath the gruff exterior is a big-hearted man whose love for veterans and first responders fuels many of his charitable endeavors.
