Loving father of Sarah (David) Parrack and Christopher Johner; dear grandfather of Jackson, Samantha, & Grant Parrack and Cori, Liam, Margaret, & David Johner; great grandfather of Nada; dear brother of Jerry Johner, Maryann (John) Sinclair, and the late Edwin (Bernice) Johner, Donald Johner, and Wally Johner; dear brother -in-law of Betty Johner.
One thing Dave could not stand was how people are often anointed with some sort of sainthood post-death, and we somehow forget some of the more gritty portions of their character. Being a human is to be complex and multiple things can be true at the same time, and Dave certainly embodied that complexity.
On one hand, he could be as direct and honest as anyone; you wouldn’t be surprised if he did indeed call someone’s baby ugly. On the other hand, he could spin a tall tale on the scale of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, or Johnny Appleseed—often with himself as the star and always built around some kernel of truth, with the listener left to sort out what that might be.
If you needed a helping hand with your car, house, yard, or any other hands-on project, he would gladly assist and bring a lifetime of knowledge on such things to bear, gladly sharing what he knew. On the other hand, don’t expect too much support of the emotional kind. That is not to say he wouldn’t try, but having lost his father at a young age and growing up in a German immigrant family in a German immigrant community—a lot certainly known more for their stoicism than their warmth and tenderness—he likely just didn’t know how to give what he had never received.
He did have a mentor, though: a man named Leo, who would bring him under his wing at his construction company and begin teaching all those things that eventually Dave would be so willing to mentor others on. He also had learned some leadership lessons he could share having served as a combat officer in Vietnam, advising the South Vietnamese, a people he grew very fond of. Those experiences instilled in him a deep respect for a foreign culture, and for the rest of his life, when others were critical of immigrants, he saw the best in them: people working hard to make a better life for themselves far away from home.
While overseas, he earned medals from both the US and from the South Vietnamese for valor and gallantry, respectively, with the action being recorded as moving along a row of bunkers and inserting hand grenades with plastic explosives molded to them until all had been eliminated. But he also earned a pretty severe case of PTSD, like most of those pressed into service in that time, and it wasn’t uncommon for Dave to also go off like a hand grenade covered in C4.
However, even after seeing the worst of what men could do to each other, I think all who knew him could agree: he had a smile that could light up a room, a laugh that could be endlessly contagious, and could tell a story that we will never forget. So let us all continue to go forward, telling our own stories of Dave, not afraid to embellish them a little, or a lot as he surely would understand, keeping his story going.
SERVICES: Visitation 10am-11am Wednesday, February 11, 2026, at Hoffmeister South County Chapel 1515 Lemay Ferry Road, Lemay, MO.
Interment with Military Honors to follow at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
