DAVID LLOYD • VIETNAM WAR
David Lloyd, 78
Gloucester, MA
Born: 8/15/47
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Rank: Specialist E-4 MOS 71Q20
Service: US Army
Cam Ranh, Vietnam
Dates of Service: 1966-1968
We were the “Park Kids” says David Lloyd – who grew up in Riverdale Park. One of five children, his father left when he was two and it was his grandfather and uncle, he says, who taught him to survive. A graduate of GHS class of 1965, Lloyd was drafted into the Army in 1966 and volunteered to go to Vietnam. “Four of us volunteered and the four of us came back.” He served until July of 1968 extending his tour an additional three months.
He spent his service as an information specialist primarily at Cam Ranh which was an Air Force base during the war. “There was sand in the food and sand in the bunks.” Assigned to the 44th Medical Brigade he spent his time interviewing convalescing wounded soldiers.
On his return to Gloucester he took work as a painter and eventually became a licensed electrician, apprenticing with his best friend, Vito Favalaro. He worked all over Canada and the United States, a member of IBEW 103. He retired as an electrician at 60. Lloyd would have three marriages, the longest, 40 years, to Ida Scola, with whom he had two children, Brian Lloyd and Bethany Parachi.