Rank: Private First Class
Unit: D Company, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment
MOS: 11E – Armor Crewman
Awards: Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device, Purple Heart Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal
Badges: Combat Infantryman Badge
Unit awards: Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm device
Enlisted by: Regular
Date of birth: 31-Dec-1947
Hometown: Des Plaines, Illinois
Marital status: Never Married
Campaign: Vietnam Conflict
Entered service: 17-Oct-1966
Start of tour: 30-Mar-1967
Incident date: 22-May-1967
Date of casualty: 22-May-1967
Age at death: 19
Cause of death: Hostile, died of wounds. Grenade. Multiple fragmentation wounds.
Donald Edward Walters Jr was passenger in a military vehicle on combat operation when the vehicle was hit by hostile recoilless rifle fire.
Location of fatality: Pleiku, South Vietnam
Place of interment: Ridgewood Cemetery, Des Plaines, Illinois, USA
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BRONZE STAR MEDAL
WITH VALOR DEVICE
POSTHUMOUS
PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DONALD EDWARD WALTERS JR
22 MAY 1967
D COMPANY, 1st SQUADRON
11TH ARMORED CAVALRY REGIMENT
Private First Class Walters distinguished himself by valorous actions on 22 May 1967, while serving as back deck gunner on a bulldozer tank when contact was made in a Viet Cong base camp with an enemy force of unknown size in the jungles of Vietnam. Private Walters’ tank was covering the right flank during the assault and was receiving small arms fire when the main gun tube became entangled in heavy vines making it impossible to traverse the tube. Without regard for personal safety, Private Walters immediately began to return fire on the enemy position allowing the tank to disengage the gun tube from the vines and move to a position to direct its heavy firepower. Although exposed to a torrent of hostile fire, Private Walters remained at his position until he was struck by fragments from an enemy anti-tank round and mortally wounded. Private First Class Walters’ personal bravery and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division General Orders No. 1926 (27 June 1967)