ALLAN MILTON "DOC" GOODHUE III • VIETNAM WAR
Allan Milton “Doc” Goodhue, III, 77
Gloucester, MA
Born: April 4, 1948
Born/Raised: Gloucester, MA
Service: US Army
Rank: Spec. E-5 (Sergeant)
Unit: 25th Infantry, 155th Artillery, Cu Chi
“Doc” Goodhue III’s father, “Doc” Goodhue 2nd was a WWII Navy veteran and his mother, Alma Bouchie from Nova Scotia, was one of 12 children in her family. No one’s quite sure where the nickname “Doc” came from, except that it came from his grandfather, Allan “Doc” Goodhue the first. Allan Goodhue was born in 1948, and grew up in Riverdale Park in Gloucester, “the best place you could grow up in your whole life.” His namesake father was a custodian in Gloucester schools and his mother, Alma, was a waitress at Bob’s Clam Shack.
When Allan was ten, his family lived on Trask Street and his house caught fire. In the commotion, his brother Mark was left in his crib. Allan rushed back into the burning building and rescued his brother.
He attended St. Ann’s and graduated from Gloucester High in 1966. As part of requirements then, he was in the ROTC, “I think Gloucester having ROTC saved a lot of guys.” In addition to Mark, Allan had another brother, Kevin, from his mother Alma. After her death in 1973, his father remarried and he has two half-brothers, Justin and Jeremy, from his stepmother Maryann.
Drafted in 1967, at 19, he was trained at Fort Sill and shipped off to Cu Chi, Vietnam, with the 25th Infantry, 155th Artillery. One day standing in line at the PX, he thought he recognized someone in line. That guy turned out to be Mike Favazza, a Gloucester guy a couple of years older than Allan, but friends with his brother. “We made up a story about being cousins” and got assigned to the same tank. “One Christmas they dropped us in a rubber plantation - the Michelin Rubber Company – we couldn’t see very well. We had to guard it. They lifted the tank with a helicopter crane and dropped us into the plantation.” Mike wanted a souvenir of one of the flare parachutes, “we were screaming at him to get back in the tank.”
Allan left Vietnam in April 1969 and spent the remainder of his tour training soldiers at Fort Hood before coming home to Gloucester. On his return, he took a battery of Civil Service exams and landed a position at Gloucester Schools where he worked for 28 years. He met Gail Parisi at a dance at the St. Peter’s Club and the pair married in 1972. In addition to working for the Gloucester Public Schools, Allan also worked at Greeley’s Funeral Home and managed The Mills apartment complex.
Allan and Gail have been married for 53 years and had three children, Peter, Stacy and Ben. Ben died in 2021 at the age of 46. They have five grandchildren, Emme, Augustave, Allan, Margaret and Charlotte. In retirement, Allan “hangs around with guys in the same boat as me. We meet every day at McDonalds.”