Five Years as a POW in Vietnam
Myron Donald grew up on a corner of his g
randfather’s farm Moravia in central New York. His father was a carpenter; his mother a housewife. He has two brothers and a sister. In high school, he played football, baseball and basketball and was president of the Student Council. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1965 and entered pilot training in Selma, Alabama, just a few months after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights march to Montgomery.
He upgraded to the F-4 Phantom II at Davis Monthan A
FB in Tucson and George AFB in Victorville, California, and was assigned to the 497 Tactical Fighter Squadron at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, where he flew night truck hunting missions over North Vietnam and Laos for nearly six months before being converted to day missions.
On his 73rd combat mission, he was shot down by a Mig 21 near Hanoi in February, 1968. He was captured immediately after parachuting into a rice paddy and taken to the Hanoi Hilton. After being held in six different prison camps, he was released in March of 1973 after a little more than five years in captivity. After Vietnam he remained in the Air Force until retiring in 1986.
During his service, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Bronze Stars, Air Medals, the Purple Heart and other awards and decorations. While in prison he learned French, Spanish, and German from his fellow prisoners. He has a B.S. in Basic Science, an M.A. in English Literature and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship, but worked for 25 years as a finish carpenter before completely retiring in 2012.
He has three sons: one is a registered nurse, one is a mechanical engineer, and the third is a prosthetic testing technician and a chef.
He has been a member of Tucson Sunrise Rotary for 27 years. He has been to every state and every continent and visited every state. He reads lots of trash novels, goes to plays, concerts, and movies, takes many adult classes and spends most evenings ballroom or country dancing.
He doesn’t know how he ever had time for a job--not that flying fast jets was ever a job!
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