David L. Ramsay, born and raised in Boston, a graduate of English High School and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, rose to become a captain in the U.S. Air Force. The recipient of many military honors, including the Air Force's highest award, the Distinguished Flying Cross, he died in battle while piloting a fighter jet in Vietnam in 1970. In 1973, a decade before the nation unveiled its first monument to the Vietnam war dead, a group of Roxbury veterans named Boston's only Black VFW post at 54 Woodrow Avenue in Dorchester for Ramsay. Located at the corner of Washington and Ball Streets in lower Roxbury, near Melnea Cass Boulevard, the David L. Ramsay Park has been established in his memory.