A native of Massachusetts who moved to Houston, Texas, as a child, McNerney served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War before enlisting in the Army.

He was recognized with the Medal of Honor when, as a first sergeant in Vietnam on March 22, 1967, his company came under attack by a numerically superior North Vietnamese force.

Although wounded, McNerney took command of the company and organized the unit's defense, exposing himself to hostile fire to mark and clear a helicopter landing site.

After serving four tours of duty in Vietnam and 16 years of service, McNerney retired in 1969 and began a career as a customs inspector in Houston.

McNerney was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on June 2, 1931, into an Irish Catholic family with a history of military service.

His father was a decorated World War I veteran who received the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts.

Briefly attended the University of Houston, McNerney disliked school and decided to join the Army after seeing a recruiting poster on campus.

[6] He enlisted in the Army in 1953 at Fort Bliss, Texas In 1962, he volunteered for special warfare training and was among the first 500 U.S. military advisers sent to Vietnam.

Instead, they were assigned to a forward operating base for an extended period of time, possibly in retribution for the altercation with the 101st Airborne.

[7] After a few months in country, Company A moved to the Central Highlands during the Tet New Year holidays near the Cambodian border.

Within 15 minutes of breaking camp on the morning of March 22, Company A came under attack by a North Vietnamese force about three times their size.

To help helicopter pilots find the unit's location, McNerney climbed a tree in full view of the enemy, exposing himself to fire, so he could place a large identification marker in the upper branches.

[6][7] To clear a landing zone for helicopters, McNerney braved heavy enemy machine gun fire to collect demolition equipment abandoned in rucksacks that had been dropped early in the battle, now outside his company's perimeter.

Facing continued heavy small arms fire, he returned to the company's location and blew up trees to create a landing site so a helicopter could extract the wounded.

To evacuate wounded and bring in fresh supplies, helicopter pilot CWO Donald Rawlinson repeatedly returned to the company's position despite heavy enemy small-arms fire.

McNerney returned to the United States in August 1967 and worked as a training instructor at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

[2] He worked at the Port of Houston as an inspector with the United States Customs Service, a job he held from 1970 until his final retirement in 1995.

[4][5] In his later years he attended numerous public speaking engagements and events in his honor and was involved in Crosby's American Legion post and Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program.

It is displayed in the William H. Gross Gallery along with First Sergeant David H. McNerney's photo and a selection of his stamps from Korea and Vietnam.

In spite of enemy fire he remained exposed until he was certain the position was spotted and then climbed into a tree and tied the identification panel to its highest branches.

When explosives were needed to remove large trees, he crawled outside the relative safety of his perimeter to collect demolition material from abandoned rucksacks.