JAMES "DUKE" DONNELLON • VIETNAM WAR
James “Duke” Donnellon, 81
Gloucester, MA
Born: 5/12/1944
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Army
Unit: Company C, 720th MP, 18th MP Brigade
Rank: E-5 Sergeant
Dates of Service: 1967-1969
James “Duke” Donnellon has a classic 1960s Gloucester pedigree: dad James worked at Gorton’s; mom Eileen was a registered nurse at Addison Gilbert Hospital. A member of the GHS class of 1962, Duke was a football & baseball player and a member of the school’s ROTC. An only son, he grew up on Harrison Avenue. After high school he went to Parsons College in Iowa.
“We had blood coming from out of our fingers from being dragged,” Donnellon said of his and his friends Chris Larsen & Jimmy Robertson’s experience being drafted into the Army in 1967, but they went. He trained first at Fort Dix and then MP training at Fort Gordon before being shipped off to Lon Binh, Vietnam to serve as an MP with the 720th – considered a combat tested brigade and the first to utilize Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs). He spent 15 months in Vietnam before coming home at the end of 1969.
On his return to Gloucester, he married “the love of my life” Christina Catalina and the pair have been together for more than 55 years - “I married up.” They have a son, Shamus Patrick. Duke followed in his father’s footsteps for a while, working at Gorton’s, before joining the Gloucester Police Department. He served the city in that capacity for 30 years before retiring in 2004.