GLASTONBURY, CT, USA U.S. Marines SGT, H&S CO, 3D BN, 25TH MAR, 4TH MAR DIV, BROOKPARK, OH HADITHAH, IRAQ 08/01/2005
David grew up in Glastonbury and graduated from Glastonbury High, where he played soccer. After a brief stint at Manchester Community College, he went into the Marines. If the floor shine was missing the family knew that David had used it to buff his shoes!
Marine Sergeant David Coullard died as a result of enemy small-arms fire while conducting dismounted operations outside Haditha, Iraq. Haditha was a major entry point into Iraq for insurgents. He was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Brookpark, Ohio. As part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Five other marines died with Sgt Coullard. There were attached to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward). He died on August 1, 2005.He was thirty-two years old
David entered the Marines in 1995 as a reservist. Though he’d been sent around the world to Parris Island, Norway, the Swiss Alps, Panama, Japan, the Philippines and other places, he was determined to serve in combat, his family said. So on Christmas Day, after waiting years for active duty, he told his family that he volunteered to go to Iraq.
David was a sniper in the Ohio-based 3rd Battalion. He loved hunting deer and boar, and frequently left deer hanging in the garage, his mother said. But he was also careful, making sure only to kill what can be eaten, and never leaving an animal injured in the woods. Once, his mother said, he spent a whole day trying to find a deer he’d hit who got away. He tracked a deer for 24 hours to make sure it was down. His mother said he tracked that thing all over Glastonbury, Connecticut. These valued skills made him a strong Marine. He was a professional. He was and is the family’s hero. They believed he just wanted to be in battle and do what he had trained to do.
Anita Dziedzic raised her only son as a single mother, and said she felt compelled to do things with him that a father would do. So she took him to target practice, and took a hunting course with him. He became a skilled hunter, so skilled that you could put him in the woods with nothing and he’d survive, his family said. One time, she said, he told a friend he was spending Father’s Day with his mother, because she was the one who had always been there for him. Even his professionalism amazed her.
David was working on studying for the next phase of his heating and air conditioning licenses, but if he had been asked to return to active duty again he probably would have. The United Local 777, Plumbers & Pipefitters, HVAC&R, selected him for an attitude award named in memory of another fallen serviceman.
Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell ordered all state flags to be lowered to half-staff until sundown on the day of the Marine’s burial.
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