From Joe Deering:
I cannot pass on the occasion to remember Doug O'Donnell pictured on the far right on the Glen Ellen basketball team coached by Greg Keegan.
Doug O'Donnell on far right
Left to right, no distinction to front row, back right.......in this pic.
Peter Barry (team manager), Tom Groak, Hank Gromada, Ray Carroll (Carrol?), Don Carson, Joe Deering, Joe Powers, Maurice Cogan (Coogan?), Bill Lepping, Greg Keegan, Doug O'Donnell. (From Frank Mulligan)
Doug was one of the five best basket players I ever been on a court with. He was fierce, determined, unstoppable, and a dream teammate. He did not make mistakes on the court.
He was a serious seminarian a couple years at GE. His brother, James, was also there a year or two. They had grown up in Baltimore.
His journey after GE is unknown to me except that he entered the US military afterward. He was killed in Vietnam, circumstances also unknown to me.
What I do know is that he is memorialized on granite 57E of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.
I reverence him at 57E everytime I go there during visits by family or friends. That has been often.
I want you to reverence him, too, as one of us, when exchanges about the Vietnam War occur.
From Hank Gromada
I was a classmate of Doug O'Donnell at Glen Ellen. After Doug left Maryknoll, he returned to his family home in DC. I had the opportunity to reunite with him when I began graduate school at Catholic University in the fall of 1962. During my first year there, I visited with Doug on numerous occasions. He was on the CUA wrestling team. I was a guest at his family's home in NE DC (Hamlin St.) several times. Joe reported in his message that Doug's family was from Baltimore; but, his family home was in DC. Doug married Bunny either in 1963. He was a student in architecture, finishing his degree in 1963. He was in the US Marine Corps version of the ROTC. I saw him off and on; he was called up to take part in a "policing action" in Santo Domingo, during the early to mid-60s. Then, I learned that he had been deployed to Viet Nam in 1966 when we were still designating our military forces as "advisors", He was killed in action there I think in the fall of 1966.
When my wife Ruth and I got married in September of 1963 (I was still in graduate school), we moved into the one bedroom apartment that Doug and Bunny had been in since their marriage; they moved out because they were expecting their first child. The only contact I had with his family after his death was in late 1968 or early 1969. I went to see my brother Joe, who was on the Xavier University basketball team; they were playing at McDonough Gymnasium. At that game, I encountered one of Doug's older brothers, Jim. That was my last encounter with anyone in Doug's family.
Regarding the picture of the Glen Ellen basketball team, I never had the opportunity to play on a college team; however, I did participate in a number of "pick-up" games that Doug invited me to. I was also a regular at a place that is known to DC area folks as "Turkey Thicket" for pick up games. I also used some skills I had learned working on a summer "road crew" out in Ohio to pour a 20 x 20 concrete slab for a basketball court that was well used by my four sons (and me).
I have not seen the Ken Burns series on Viet Nam yet; but, I plan to do so. It is my understanding that Doug O'Donnell was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam; however, I never discussed that with him. I know that, while we were together at Glen Ellen, Doug's older brother Paul was a US Air Force pilot, flying some version of the F-16 (?) jets.
Hank Gromada
Sites to check out wall
[Click] Virtual Wall Doug O'Donnell
[Click] Wall of Faces
Casualty Date Oct 21, 1966
Conflict
Vietnam War
Location Thua Thien
Cause Hostile, Died
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Doug O'Donnell