DAVID BENJAMIN • VIETNAM WAR
David Benjamin, 74
Gloucester, MA
Born: 11/4/51
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Rank: E-3 Airman 1st Class
Service: US Air Force
Unit: 590th AF Band, Strategic Air Command, USAF, Westover AFB
Dates of Service: 1972-1973
David Benjamin has been a musician since the fourth grade when he started his lifelong companionship with the clarinet at Beeman Elementary School. Born to Robert and Gertrude, his first family home was a rehabbed chicken coop on Cherry Street. The family eventually moved to Wheeler Street where David grew up with his three sisters: Donna, Joan and Nancy. Their father, Robert, was a WWII Navy veteran who served in the Pacific.
Following his graduation from Gloucester H.S. in 1969, David attended Holyoke Community College for 1 ½ years before he transferred to Lowell State University. He then, “took a semester off for seven years.” He decided to enlist in the Air Force. He knew some guys who were in the band at Westover AFB in Chicopee, MA, and managed to get assigned there as a musician. He and the 35-member band played for various public relations events as well as ceremonial occasions. He served for 14 months before a back injury sealed an early discharge and a return to Gloucester.
In 1970 he started dating the librarian for the Cape Ann Symphony, Sally Knowlton, who he knew from high school. They married in 1974 and just celebrated their 51st anniversary. By 1978 he returned to Lowell University and got his B.A. in Music Education. He taught in Georgetown and Lynn Public Schools before landing a job first at Gloucester High School and then O’Maley Middle School where he taught music to Gloucester children for nearly thirty years. Likewise, Sally taught 1st grade in the Gloucester Schools for thirty years.
He retired in 2011, but that hasn’t kept him from filling his days with music. He managed the Cape Ann Symphony for 35 years and currently runs the Summer Concerts in Gloucester; the Salem Willows Concerts; is the director of the Cape Ann Community Band; the Golden Echoes Big Band, and the director of the Boston Fireman’s Marching Band seen regularly at the Horribles Parade and the St. Peter’s Fiesta. He also performs with the Walker Creek Sax Quartet and is forming the Leverett Street Flute Quartet.
David and Sally have three children, Alyssa Teixeira, Jonathan Benjamin and Jesse Benjamin, and six grandchildren.