American Artillery and the Medal of Honor

Major General David T. Zabecki enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1966. He served in Vietnam as an infantry rifleman in the 9th Infantry Division, 1967-68. He left Vietnam shortly after the Tet Offensive. After transferring to Germany he was assigned to an 8-inch artillery battalion and eventually became the Battalion Fire Direction Chief. After leaving active duty at the end of 1969, he transferred to the Army National Guard, where he also served as a Battalion Fire Direction Chief in a 105mm unit. Zabecki is a 1995 graduate of the U.S. Army War College. He completed the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in 1988, receiving the General John J. Pershing Award as the Distinguished Honor Graduate of his year group. He also completed the officer advanced branch courses for Field Artillery, Military Intelligence, Infantry, Armor, Air Defense Artillery, Military Police, and the Psychological Operations Officer Course. Zabecki holds a functional area specialty in Operations (54A), and additional skill indicators as a Military Historian (5X), and as Nuclear and Chemical Target Analyst (5H). An editor and a writer specializing in Military History, he is the Editor of Vietnam magazine, and the author or editor of numerous military history books, including Steel Wind: Colonel Georg Bruchmüller and the Birth of Modern Artillery (1994); World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia (1999); On the German Art of War: Truppenführung (2001); Vietnam: A Reader (2002); and The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in the Operational Level of War (2006). He has written more than 400 articles for journals, magazines, and encyclopedias. He previously served as an Assistant Professor of Military History with American Military University. Zabecki also worked for 20 years in private industry as an engineer. Zabecki is a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality and holds certifications from ASQ as both a Quality Engineer and a Reliability Engineer. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in History from Xavier University (Ohio); a Masters degree in Systems Management from Florida Institute of Technology; and a Doctorate in Military Science from the British Army's Royal Military College of Science.