Donald Wall

Killed In Action – 6 April, 1968, Quang Tri, Vietnam
His name can be found on The Wall on Panel 48E, Row 36.

Donald Lee Wall was a career soldier in the U.S. Army who volunteered to go to Vietnam long before many people had ever heard of the country. He had lived on Vandora Avenue and attended Garner schools before enlisting. He was a jump master in the 101st Airborne and among his duties in the air was coordinating the jumps from the aircraft.

As the war in Vietnam heated up, he volunteered. He could make three requests for transfer and he wrote, “Vietnam, Vietnam and Vietnam.”

He arrived in December of 1967, weeks before the Tet offensive. He fought in Hue, going house to house, building to building in urban warfare. The fighting lasted from Jan. 31, when the North Vietnamese seized the city, until March 2.

Wall participated in five major campaigns in Vietnam before he was killed on April 8, 1968 near Hue City in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. His platoon was ambushed in a cemetery and he responded in textbook fashion until he was killed by a mortar explosion.

Both of his brothers were career military men. His brother Dana served in Vietnam and he visited the site where his brother had been slain.