Francisco Pegueros

We lost Don in 1967 at the age of 20.  He was killed in the Viet Nam war serving our country.

Skip Leonard Carlucci

I didn't know DON that well, but what I did know was that he very good person. I had classes with him now and then but we did not hang out. I didn't not know we lost him until we moved sacramento. GLORIA and I have gone to the state capital on the MEMORIAL weekend to read his name. HE is always in my prayers.I felt the need to say something for him.   skip

Michel Ann Piazza ('63) (Walters)

I've been to the Vietnam wall in Washington and looked up his name.  He was the only person that I knew of that was killed in Vietnam.  I did not know him very well.  I think we may have had a class or 2 together.  But I think of him often when i hear references to Vietnam.  I remember him being a nice, quiet and polite young man.  The reason I knew him was because my ex Brother-in-Law Don E Walters shared names.  Don E. Walters passed away too.  But it was from cancer in or around 2000.  Thanks to all the Soldiers that have given some and those that gave all.

Dennis Leatherman

Don and I were good friends. A teacher and mentor brought us together. That mentor was Charles Crutcher, Art Teacher and friend. Many lunch hours were spent on the third floor art class. 
Don enjoyed art and would spend his lunch hours in the art class. I also enjoyed art and spent many lunch hours talking and socializing in that art class.

Mr Crutcher was a wonderful teacher. We learned so much about art, and being an artist. Charles (MR Crutcher) would guide us in our school life, help us when we had problems, and just be one of us. He had a way of answering our questions with different solutions. many of those solutions were with art.

Don painted and grew socialy  during this time.

One afrternoon in last period art class I remember Don, me and a few others played a practical joke on "Charles:. Charles liked to nap in the afternoon at his desk. We turned of the lights, moved the clock ahead to 5PM. Then we all snuck out of the room, leaving it dark and empty. A few minutes later someone banged on the classroom door. A few minutes out comes Charles with his brief case and London Fog jacket. He saw us, stopped and smiloed, then laughed. He could take a joke as well as hand them out.

When we graduated Don went on to others Adventures. I later found out that he had been killed in Vietnam. I was hurt with that news. The war had finally hit home.

Later while I was at the DLI, Presidio of Monterey, a half size model of the Vietnam Memorial was brought to that Institute. I looked up Dons name. I found it. As I stood there I began to cry. There was a friend, a person I never thought would be there.

Today I still have the memories of this friend and fellow artist.

Martha Egdorf (Pegueros)

Dennis  - That is a very nice tribute to Don.  I too saw the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC we found our classmates and I also cried so very moving.  Thank you Don for making the ultimate sacrafice.  Martha Egdorf Pegueros.

Gordon Phillips

Skip and Dennis, I think about Don also. We were in the same classes pretty much through elementary school. Don's mom and mine were friends through PTA, etc. but I never saw much of him.  Like you've said, he was quiet, and had a great sense of humor. I saw him briefly just before he went overseas. I'd just returned and was finishing up my furlough. We ran into each other at Sav-On and spent about half an hour together. The humor was still there and we parted with both of us laughing. When he died, the hurt was something terrible. I wanted to believe somebody had made a mistake. I've thought of him often ever since, always will.

Dennis, you, Skip and I were part of Charles E. M Crutcher's mavens. I never had so much fun in a class. Do you remember the "Rank Rack?" I started high school as a college prep science major, which didn't work out real well. I went to the counseling office and told them I didn't like the classes or the teachers. I thought there'd be trouble, but as it turned out I, and Bill George, who'd also talked to counseling, were given five art classes and a PE class daily. Thought I'd walked through the Pearly Gates. Nothing could be better. We had that schedule from Junior year through Senior year. C.E.M. failed me in one class as a senior because I handed in more extra credit work than assigned work. Still graduated. I think I was 430 out of a class of 425. I remember your portraits of famous people. I'm glad somebody succeeded with art. I do pointillist pen and ink drawings for fun. Helps me escape for awhile. Take care.