Donald Thorpe Deere, age 21, from Scurry County Snyder, Texas .
Parents: Herman L. Deere
Service era: Vietnam
Military history: 5th Green Berets
Date of death: Tuesday, May 17, 1966
Death details: Specialist 4 Donald Thorpe Deere entered the U.S. Army from Texas and served in Detachment A-331, 5th Special Forces Group. On May 17, 1966, he was an advisor with a mobile strike force company when it encountered a Viet Cong battalion and a firefight ensued. SP4 Deere was injured in the leg during the action and during his rescue attempt, was hit by enemy automatic weapons fire and was killed during the incident. Because the mobile strike force pulled back from SP4 Deere’s position, his remains were not recovered at the time, and later attempts to recover his remains were unsuccessful. Following the incident, the Army promoted SP4 Deere to the rank of Specialist 5 (SP5). Today, Specialist 5 Deere is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed along with all his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, San Angelo Standard Times (1966), MIA
