Quick answer: Who was Roger Donlon?
Roger Donlon was the Special Forces captain who earned the first Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War for defending Camp Nam Dong on July 6, 1964, despite four wounds. John met him in 1991, and years later Donlon passed his medal around a table of White House Fellows and became a mentor to John's son.
John first heard Roger Donlon speak in 1991, when he was a new Special Forces captain at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Donlon's wife, Norma, was with him. Donlon spoke mostly about leading people and taking care of soldiers, and he spoke openly about the men he had lost in Vietnam. On July 6, 1964, Captain Donlon commanded Special Forces Detachment A-726 at Camp Nam Dong, west of Da Nang near Laos, when a reinforced Viet Cong battalion attacked before dawn. During the five-hour fight he was wounded four times and kept carrying weapons and ammunition between positions and treating the wounded until daylight. Three men who held the inner camp with him were killed: his team sergeant, Master Sergeant Gabriel "Pop" Alamo; his radio operator, Sergeant John Houston, who was twenty-two; and Australian Warrant Officer Kevin Conway, the first Australian killed in action in the Vietnam War. Fifty-seven South Vietnamese defenders also died. When President Johnson presented the Medal of Honor that December, Donlon said it belonged equally to all of them. Years later, when John was a White House Fellow in the 2000-2001 class, he invited Donlon to speak to the Fellows over lunch at Jackson Place, across from the White House. Donlon came with Norma and passed around his Boy Scout handbook from Troop 36 in Saugerties, then a small compass his father had given him, which he said reminded him of true north, and finally his Medal of Honor, which he placed in John's hands. His main message that day was to never become discouraged. Donlon became a friend to John's family and an early mentor to John's son Luke, showing him the knives, coins, and medal he kept in his home office in Leavenworth, Kansas. He and Norma were together for fifty-five years and spent decades reaching out in peace, including with Wreaths Across America and at Fort Leavenworth, where he taught at the Command and General Staff College. After about twelve years with Parkinson's disease, which his family attributed to Agent Orange, he died in Leavenworth on January 25, 2024, five days short of his 90th birthday, and was buried at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. John writes that the values Donlon lived by helped shape Heroes' Path.
Why it matters for leaders: Donlon showed his scout book and his father's compass before his medal, because the courage at Nam Dong came from values he had settled long before the battle. He carried the loss of his men for sixty years and still told young leaders never to become discouraged.
Q: Why did Roger Donlon receive the Medal of Honor?
A: He led the defense of Camp Nam Dong in South Vietnam through a five-hour predawn attack by a reinforced Viet Cong battalion on July 6, 1964, and kept fighting and treating the wounded after being wounded four times. It was the first Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War.
Q: What did Donlon share with the White House Fellows?
A: He passed around his Boy Scout handbook, the scout compass his father gave him, and his Medal of Honor. He said the compass reminded him of true north and the medal reminded him of the friends he lost and the cost of war.
Read the full essay on Substack → https://heroespath.substack.com/p/true-north-in-my-hands
By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation