At 104, David G. Perez is living a long life full of devotion to his family and his country.
Born March 1, 1920, he grew up with a large extended family on a ranch owned by his grandfather in California and joined the Army in 1941. He trained in California where they had to train on wooden weapons and chalkboards instead of real equipment.
“They shipped out from San Francisco, and they were headed to the Philippines, but the Philippines had gotten taken over from the Japanese, so then they ended up diverting to Hawaii,” said his daughter Felicia Perez Kausin.
David trained as a medic in Hawaii before deploying to Saipan and Okinawa. He received two Bronze Star medals during his service, one for saving four men under fire at the Battle of Saipan and another for his actions in the Battle of Okinawa where he suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent five days in a coma. Even after all these years, he continues to deal with post-traumatic stress.
“He had a TBI, and now we call it TBI, but back then it was called shell shock, but they didn’t acknowledge the fact that what he really had was that,” said Felicia. “When he has his episodes, he’s always fighting the Japanese. He’s like, ‘this guy was trying to chase me.’”
David was released from service in September 1945 with several awards. He married his wife Lillian in 1950 and they had two children, Celia and Felicia.
Today, Felicia is her dad’s caregiver, and because of his PTS, she likes to be by his side as much as possible. Over the last several years, he has been through a lot.
In 2018 he suffered four heart attacks in just 24 hours, leading to a triple bypass open heart surgery at the age of 98. He also suffered a fall and a fracture in 2023. Felicia needed to find lodging so she could stay by his side.
Initially, she got a room at the Defender’s Lodge, but only stayed one night because it was at capacity. That’s when the social worker found her a room at the Fisher House.
“I was like, this is unbelievable. I was in awe, and it was wonderful for me to be there,” she said. “Dad was very worried about me and where I was and stuff and had a really rough time that first go around when we were first there, but we got into our groove and really got to know some phenomenal people who I’m friends with to this day.”
“Everybody was there, and they all had their story and their loved ones that they were caring for,” she continued. “I’m like, ‘Okay, let me take you under my wings and try to do what I can.’ It really becomes a family with your people there.”
Felicia stayed at Fisher House for most of the ten months that her dad was in treatment. She explained that his comfort of having her so close, where they would share memories and stories, meant a lot to her father. She described helping him look out his hospital room window and showing him the Fisher House.
“I think that the comfort of him knowing that I had some place to stay, that I was safe, that I didn’t have to be driving back and forth. That whole concept of that, of just being able to be there, I think has been wonderful,” she said. “The comfort and the community, the sense of community that forms there. I think that’s one of the things that’s really just unbelievable. I’ll never forget this experience for the rest of my life.”
