DON KING
After the war Don attended several Easy Company reunions. Among them the ones in Chicago and Illinois. He did not know they had started up again until someone contacted him and that was many years ago. He attended many of the reunions prior to the Paris reunion. He loved each and everyone of the guys. Through these reunions, he opened up alot about the war whereas before the reunions he would hardly talk about it. I had the opportunity to meet him there and also during the Phoenix reunion and Emmie Awards in 2002.(r)

Don was born in Washington (Illinois) on November , 1921. He was raised in a normal family and had one brother. His father was employed at Libby, McNeal _ Libby Canning Co. At the age of 22 he joined the army. He already was married.

Like so many others, he had chosen for the Airborne because of the $50,-- bonus.

The most impressive part of the training was his first jump. Before the war he only had heard the characteristic things like the canals, dikes and the little boy who saved Holland from flooding by putting his thumb in a hole in one of the dikes.

The announcement that the war was over made a huge impression on Don because he realized that he had survived those terrible years. Before the war he was employed at Cater Pillar Tractor Co. He returned there after the war un till he retired in 1982.

He doesn't think that his children have been influenced in one or another was because he was in a war. For Don it was just a job that had to be done. This shows that Don was a humble man who thought it a normal thing to do. He also told me that he did not recall the important moments from WWII. He was one of very few who told me that it was not necessary to remember the war every year. "It happened and that's it." he says.

I received a poem from Don that was send to him by Dick Winters. He said to me: "I think this poem says more than I can tell. That should do.""

fltr: Philip Perugini - Earl McClung - Paul Rogers - Don King - Ed Tipper during the D-Day commemoration in Normandy June 6, 2001.

© P.van de Wal

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