David Pedersen

David Pedersen is a third-generation Army veteran from Rockford, Illinois. David joined the United States Army in July of 2001 as a Military Policeman and served in South Korea as a machine gunner, riot control team member, and an undercover investigator with the Criminal Investigation Division’s Drug Suppression Team in Weisbaden, Germany. He was also selected for special duty assignment as a Public Affairs Operations NCO for the USAUER Soldier’s Chorus in Heidelberg, Germany. In 2005, after an unsuccessful surgery for a service-connected training injury he received in South Korea, David was honorably discharged. He is a certified paratrooper.

David is now a graduate student at Northwestern University, studying prose and poetry. He is a published author and former public servant, who spent several years working for the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs as the Director of Volunteers for the Manteno Veterans Home during the Covid-19 pandemic and an Officer Coordinator and Site Technician for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. David hopes to gain business operational knowledge from Dog Tag, which will help him open a used bookstore in Rockford, Illinois.

His favorite baked good is cherry pie.