Donald Park '67

Donald William Park graduated from Fork Union Military Academy, Virginia, and entered the Texas A&M Merchant Marine Academy, completing two years in that program. He went to sea with the merchant marine and in 1971-72 served on a tanker shuttling fuel from Bahrein to Camh Ran Bay, Vietnam. In 1976 he earned a diesel engineer license from the Calhoon MEBA Engineering School in Baltimore and established a career as a diesel engineer aboard US Merchant Marine ships. He married Sandra Colligan in 1978. Don and five others died on 15 February 1991 as a result of an engine room fire. The freighter had recently off-loaded munitions at Kuwait City, supplying the Desert Storm operation. Don is considered a casualty of Desert Storm and is honored on a monument in Fairfax City, Virginia, where he and Sandy owned a home and raised two boys. Sandy passed away in 1993.

Don is survived by his sons Michael and Brian Park (a small business owner in Michigan), his older sister Phyllis Park Saarinen and his mother Miriam Ney Park both in Gainesville, Florida.