Name: Donald Allaway, PFC, USA
Local address: 16 Ivy Way, Aberdeen, NJ
Donald, born July 22, 1945 in Passaic, NJ, was the third of five children of Vernon Charles Allaway (1916-1979) and Dorothea Clair Birmingham Allaway (1917-2003) – father Vernon was a manager with Prudential Insurance in Newark. The family moved to Aberdeen in 1961 and resided in the “I” Section of Strathmore.
A 1964 graduate of Matawan High School, Donald enlisted in the Army for a three-year tour that September (the draft wasn’t initiated until 1969.) He planned to follow his father into business management when his tour was up. He was characterized in the 1964 Pillar – Matawan High’s yearbook – as “the salt of the earth.”
Initially assigned to the 171st Infantry Regiment, he was sent from Ft. Dix to Anchorage, AK in June of 1965 for an 18-month tour. He was reassigned to the 9th Infantry Regiment attached to the 25th Infantry Brigade and spent three months in Hawaii learning jungle warfare. After this, he was deployed to Vietnam and arrived in that country April 28, 1966. He was assigned as a gunner attached to the Headquarters Company of the regiment’s 4th battalion.
On May 18, 1966 – after being in Vietnam for just two weeks – he was sent on his first “search and destroy” mission in Cu Chi, near Saigon, in the Mekong River delta, at which time he was fatally wounded by hostile sniper fire.
PFC Allaway was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart and is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
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