After 25 years, Dave McDonald gets his day in the sun

When Sgt. Dave McDonald ('74) left Vietnam in 1970, he wanted nothing more than to get home to his parents in Mississippi and put the bad memories behind him. A naturally big man, he weighed just 160 pounds and was suffering from malaria when he returned to the States.

McDonald had been a student at Mississippi State and a member of Coach Paul Gregory's Bulldog baseball team when he left school in 1968 to join the Army. He returned to the university in 1971, and earned a degree in physical education in 1974.

Now a successful baseball coach at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Ga., the unassuming, 47-year-old McDonald speaks every year at Wheeler's Vietnam Day ceremonies, telling students about the war in hopes that hard lessons won't be forgotten. He never speaks about himself, though--never tells his own story.

The Army, however, had a story to tell about Dave McDonald. But due to one of those familiar military oversights, the story is just now being told, 25 years after the fact.

In May 1970, McDonald's company received orders to assault a Viet Cong compound outside the A Shau Valley, where some of the war's bloodiest fighting took place.

President Bill Clinton congratulates Dave McDonald for his long-overdue recognition, while Brig. Gen. Terry Whitnell and a crowd of Wheeler High School students look on.

McDonald was the company's radio-telephone operator, not because it was his normal job, but because the previous RTO had been killed, as had the RTO before him. The company was in continuous combat for eight days before help finally arrived. During that time, McDonald slept "a couple of hours" by his own estimate. When the final body count was completed, 30 of the 36 members of his company were dead.

Early on in the engagement, while assaulting a large Viet Cong bunker, the company--in an exposed position--came under intense fire. McDonald charged the bunker, engaging the enemy with rifle fire and allowing his comrades to reach a protected position.

That story went untold for the past 25 years. A few months after the battle of A Shau Valley and after McDonald had been approved for commendation, his tour was up and he was on his way home.

And then--somehow or other--some paperwork didn't happen.

Recently, Kitty Love, a fellow teacher at Wheeler High School as well as a fellow Mississippi State graduate ('74), started the ball rolling to get McDonald the recognition he deserved.

Finally, on March 28 of this year, Dave McDonald traveled to Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta and heard Brig. Gen. Terry Whitnell read the commendation that was written on Aug. 8, 1970. He then received a host of medals, including the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, for "heroism in ground combat against a hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam."

After the ceremony, President Bill Clinton, who was in town for an economic summit, congratulated McDonald while a group of Wheeler students cheered.

"It's been a very emotional day for me," McDonald said after returning to the high school. "Just overwhelming. It brought back a lot of memories."

He didn't have too long to think about it, though. He had to coach a baseball game that afternoon.