Brady's Rangers, Frontier Defenders

David Ekardt is an amateur historian with a talent for digging into primary and hard to find resources to construct historical articles, books and discussions. A native of Cincinnati, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio after serving in the Marine Corps. He is a veteran of Vietnam, where he served in 1st Radio Battalion, a signals intelligence unit. Over the years he has reunited many members of his unit and has sponsored several reunions. He gave the dedication speech for the memorial plaque for the members of the unit who died in Vietnam. The plaque was dedicated at the Cryptology museum at Corey Station, Pensacola, where unit members went through training. He served as a Scoutmaster for fourteen years, and taught archery, marksmanship, camping, canoeing and wilderness survival to many Scouts. He has been active in his church also in leadership positions. His forty-four year working career included twenty-four years in security management, corporate management, and has recently retired from the State of Florida Department of Revenue after twenty years' service. All of his positions were leadership positions, which involved dealing with personnel, security, training, mentoring, developing policies and procedures, interviews and interrogations, and prosecutions. His experience in research and documentation has assisted in his writing and history talk pursuits. He has published articles in history magazines and his book, 'The U.S. Marines in the Second Creek and Second Seminole War' is a one of a kind history of the Marines in those conflicts. He regularly gives talks on the history of the Marines in Florida during the Civil War and Second Seminole War, as well as Vietnam at reenactment events, special historical events, civic groups, schools and is a regular at the Tampa Bay History Center.