David Sooter was born on August 16, 1938, in Walla Walla, Washington. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 21, 1956, and served as a Sergeant in the United States and then in West Germany from March 1964 to September 1965, when he was accepted into the Army Warrant Officer Candidate school. He was appointed a Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army and awarded his Army Aviator Wings on July 19, 1966. His first aviation assignment was as a UH-1 Iroquois and OH-23 Raven helicopter pilot with D Troop, 1st Squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment in South Vietnam from August 1966 until he was captured and taken as a Prisoner of War on February 17, 1967. After spending 2,210 days in captivity, CW3 Sooter was released during Operation Homecoming on March 5, 1973. He was briefly hospitalized to recover from his injuries, and then served as a helicopter pilot with the Support Element at Headquarters 6th Army at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, from November 1973 to October 1974. His next assignment was as a flight instructor in the Light Observation Helicopter Branch and then in the Utility Helicopter Branch of the U.S. Army Aviation School at Fort Rucker, Alabama, from October 1974 to August 1977, followed by service as a UH-1 pilot with the 114th Aviation Company at Albrook AFS, Panama, from August 1977 until his helicopter crashed and he was listed as Killed in Action on February 17, 1981, while flying an observation mission on an Organization of American States peacekeeping mission during the border disputes between Ecuador and Peru.

His Silver Star Citation reads:

For gallantry and intrepidity in action in connection with military operations against an opposing armed force while a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam on 6 November 1967. Ignoring international agreements on treatment of prisoners of war, the enemy resorted to mental and physical cruelties to obtain information, confessions and propaganda materials. Chief Warrant Officer Sooter resisted their demands by calling upon his deepest inner strengths in a manner which demonstrated great devotion to duty and country in accord with the finest traditions of the military services.