embassy watching soldiers around him die. Without weapons or gear, he was caught in the middle of a firefight, pressed against the walls of the U.S. The Viet Cong launched attacks across the country, including in Saigon, where he was located. His ship left without him, leaving him stranded. “He's in a combat zone,” Collins says, “and here he is walking around like he's going on a golf outing or wherever the hell he's going.”īut the situation did become dangerous for Donohue. ![]() In the documentary, Collins recalls seeing Donohue and asking him, “What the hell are you doing here?” The YouTube documentary reunited Donohue with several of the men, one of them being Tommy Collins. Collins, who gave Donohue her son’s address. He met with Inwood pal Tommy Collins’ mother, Mrs. We were very much aware of the danger that they were in and we cared for them.” “It was just another effort to communicate to them over there,” he says. But before the trip, he met up with some family members who wanted to relay personal messages to their sons. Soldiers were receiving letters from loved ones plus a monthly newsletter from young women in his neighborhood, he says. The troops were hungry for the latest headlines, from gossip of NFL coach Vince Lombardi’s retirement to Jefferson Airplane’s new album. When speaking with high-ranking officers, Donohue simply told them: “If I told you the truth, you would not believe me.”Īlong with his backpack full of libations, Donohue brought his friends news from home. Some of them told Donohue they could use a can of beer themselves. “So it just worked.”ĭonohue let lower-rank soldiers in on the mission, and he says they got a kick out of helping him in their own way. And I knew the lingo from being in the Marines,” he says. “The longer I was there, I became aware that they're deferring to me and they didn't stop me. Soldiers assumed Donohue, outfitted in corduroy pants and a madras shirt, was some sort of American government agent, thus he was able to hitch helicopter rides to areas where his friends were engaged in battles. Once he set foot on shore, he miraculously tracked down his friends, most of whom were only in their early 20s. ![]() At the time, 28 of his buddies from the neighborhood had already died fighting in the war. Now, a feature film by Oscar-winning writer-director Peter Farrelly is in the works.ĭonohue says he didn’t know what he was thinking but knew he had to do something. ![]() His daring feat has been chronicled in a YouTube documentary and a new book. He soon found a cargo ship going to Vietnam and embarked on the “Greatest Beer Run Ever,” the title of the memoir he co-wrote with J.T. The former Marine knew the country he had been to Vietnam twice before as a merchant seaman. The Colonel's solution? Someone should bring the local heroes a beer, he proclaimed, and the bar erupted in cheers.ĭonohue took the call to action seriously. He and others saw the protesters as anti-soldier, and many troops were from their part of town. The bartender, called the Colonel, was outraged at anti-Vietnam War protesters in Central Park. It all started one night when Donohue was on a stool at Doc Fiddler's, a favorite neighborhood bar in the Inwood section of Manhattan, a close Irish enclave. In 1967, John "Chick" Donohue set out to make a beer run for some friends in his neighborhood.īut this wasn’t any old beer run - 26-year-old Donohue traveled more than 8,000 miles from New York City to Qui Nhon on a boat, stashing cold beverages for his military friends fighting in the Vietnam War. Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on July 4, 2022.
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