Before enlisting in the Army in 1967, Covington attended Benjamin Franklin High School, where he played football and basketball, and worked as an orderly at Albert Einstein Medical Center. The specialist four, a combat construction specialist, was sent to Vietnam in August 1967 and assigned to Company D of the 1st Engineer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division. Covington, 19, died on Feb. 29, 1968, the day Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced his resignation. Covington was engaged to be married. Survivors included his mother, stepfather, four brothers and a sister