As a boy Donnell Phillips hunted with his friends along Gazley Creek in Smithville, moving through the dense brush and under the big trees with ease as they tracked small game to add to the dinner table back home. A few years later and thousands of miles away, Phillips found himself in similar terrain, marching through the rain along a river valley in enemy territory, hunting and being hunted.

On Thursday, Nov. 25, 1965, The Smithville Times printed a front-page story about the 22-year Phillips, telling his hometown that he had been killed in Vietnam during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley, one of the first major battles of the war and one immortalized in the 2002 film, We Were Soldiers.

While Phillips was fighting in Asia, America was experiencing deep cultural change brought on by social movements that cut across the fabric of society. The Civil Rights Movement was marching at full tempo. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had just passed, banning discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.

In a casualty report issued by the military the week Phillips was killed, there were nine Texans on the list and a total of 95 servicemen killed in battle. The war in Viet Nam was escalating rapidly and there was growing unrest from those opposed to the war.

“We were young, small-town country boys, shoved into something we did not understand,” said Leon “Cowboy” Webster. “At the time I don’t think we knew exactly what we were fighting for.”

Phillips and Webster were drafted, along with thousands of other young men, pulled from all walks of life to serve their country. There was growing resentment against the draft and many felt that minorities and the poor were hardest hit because they did not have access to deferments available to wealthier Americans.

Phillips didn’t end up in Viet Nam because of the draft though.

“Donnell served two years in Alaska and was discharged,” his father said to The Times in 1965. “But he couldn’t find a job here and re-enlisted last year. Then they sent him to Viet Nam, where he was killed.”

Phillips was born on Dec. 13, 1943 and grew up on the south side of Smithville where his brothers and his friends had room to roam.

“I would see him most every weekend,” Webster said. “We did a lot of boy stuff, running along Gazley Creek; that was our backyard. We would sneak up to Blue Hole, a little swimming hole along the creek. That’s where we learned to swim.”

The boys would hunt for rabbits, raccoons and squirrels.

“We would all share what we caught with the different families,” Webster said.

Phillips graduated from the segregated Mary A. Brown High School in 1965.

“He was an athlete, very athletic,” said Johnnie Ray Thomas, a friend who grew up with Phillips and his brothers Eddie Joe and James. Phillips played on the football and basketball teams and ran track.

Willie Phill McCook was a neighbor who remembers Phillips as a big kid who was mild mannered and quiet.

“I remember Donnell as being very, very nice,” McCook said. “He was very low key.”

Phillips died with many of his military brothers on Nov. 15, 1965 during a series of ambushes and attacks by large numbers of well trained and battle experienced troops from the PAVN – The People’s Army of Vietnam. The battle of Ia Drang took place over several days with both sides suffering heavy losses. The battle was well documented by journalist and photographers who recorded scenes from firefights that claimed 234 U.S soldiers and left 242 wounded.

Phillips was attached to C Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Calvary, U.S. Army. His battalion was led by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, who prepared a detailed After Action Report one month after the battle. The report provides chilling detail to what 1st Battalion endured during enemy engagements, including episodes of intense hand-to-hand fighting.

Phillips received the Purple Heart and his name is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

Phillip’s mother, Mrs. Mittie Bell McDuffy, told The Times shortly after her son’s death that she heard from him often while he was in Vietnam. She received letters from him on Nov. 9 and 10. In one of his last letters he told his mother he was going into the field.

John Sargent, chaplain at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, officiated at Phillip’s service at Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church. Members of 4th Missile Battalion were pallbearers. He was laid to rest at West Point, next to his grandfather Martin McDuffy.

Phillips story, like that of many veterans who served, some having paid the ultimate price, is almost forgotten except by a few. David Vasek, a Viet Nam-era veteran and Smithville native, thinks people should know more about the men and women who gave all.

“I would like for people to remember,” Vasek said. “It seems like so many of these soldiers have been forgotten.”

Vasek saw Phillip’s name on the Wall of Honor at City Hall and he wanted the story told.

Vasek recently searched for Phillip’s grave to place an American flag on it.

“I think we should bring awareness to the man because he gave his life for our freedom,” Webster said. “Maybe the story will inspire one person, to know that that family paid the ultimate price.”

Two other Smithville residents died in the war: Richard Earl Dabney Jr. and Donald John Matocha. The names of all three men are on the Wall of Honor in front of city hall and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.