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Veteran’s Final Wish Granted

Donald Vaughan, was a high school aged boy when he made the decision to join the Navy. The Vietnam War had just started and the United States needed men to serve. He bravely approached his parents and shared with them his desire to go fight for our country, and although the thought of their son going off to war terrified them, they gave him their blessing.

At just 17 years old, Vaughan joined the United States Navy and was soon deployed to the Gulf of Tonkin, the waters off the coast of northern Vietnam. He was in combat there for a few months when one day, a Skipper approached him to inform him of a significant problem. Because of his age, Vaughan’s parents had to officially give permission for him to be there fighting in the war. In the day and age before high speed internet and the ability to scan documents, the best they could do was use the ship to shore radio to try to contact his parents. Upon finally reaching Vaughn’s father, the Skipper explained that Vaughan needed a verbal okay to remain on the ship and in the war. Vaughn spoke to his father for several minutes, reassuring his dad that being in the Navy was what he wanted to do and that he did in fact sincerely want to stay. After a meaningful dialogue between father and son, Vaughan’s father addressed the Skipper and gave his permission for his son to remain on the ship.

Fast forward to January 1969. Vaughan once again found himself out on the sea on another mission. This time he was on the aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise, which was heading back to Vietnam on its fourth deployment to the region. On the way, the ship stopped in Pearl Harbor to conduct a final battle drill and operational readiness inspection.

The morning of January 14, 1969, as the ship’s crew was preparing for the drills to take place later in the day, the ship was suddenly rocked by a huge explosion as a warhead attached to one of the aircrafts detonated. The massive explosion caused a fire, which then rapidly spread and set off more bombs. Fifteen planes were destroyed, and as shrapnel violently flew about, jet fuel spilled over the deck and caused the fire to grow. Injured sailors crawled out of the flames, many of them helping to carry their wounded shipmates. One of those heroic sailors was young Donald Vaughan. With severe burns covering parts of his body, Vaughan continued running back into the fire to rescue his comrades.

“I didn’t even pay attention to my own burns,” says Vaughan. “I don’t know how many times I went back and forth to pull other men out of the wreckage. I just knew I had to help them.”

When called a hero, Vaughan humbly responds, “I don’t see myself as a hero. That day I was just a person helping my crew members.”

In total, 28 sailors were killed and 314 injured that day aboard the USS Enterprise. Many more would have died had it not been for honorable men like Donald Vaughan.

More than 46 years later, he has traded his uniform for a comfortable gray t-shirt, but Vaughn still proudly wears his nation’s broad stripes and bright stars, which are screen printed across the chest of the shirt he wears. In his bed at home, breathing with the help of oxygen, Vaughan talks about his memories of the Navy and shows his family and the Covenant Hospice team members who are caring for him a book written about the incident aboard the ship. He points out a small figure in a grainy black and white photo – it is him, coming out of the blazing fire, clouds of smoke billowing far overhead.

Vaughan is now spending his last months with his family under the care of Covenant’s hospice program. More than just the traditional medical services most people think of when hospice is mentioned, the philosophy of care treats the patient and family as a unit, and seeks to holistically address all of their needs – mind, body and spirit – as they face a terminal diagnosis.

When asked about his final wishes, as all of Covenant’s patients are, Vaughan told his Covenant team of his love of fishing and of the ocean, a place that for many veterans like Vaughan, has been filled with both terror and triumph. But it was a place he wanted to see one last time.

Covenant made that dream come true for Donald Vaughan and recently took him out on a deep sea fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. Accompanied by his grandsons, as well as a nurse and social worker from his hospice team, Vaughan felt at peace.

“To smell the fresh air and feel the salt water on my face and see the ocean all around me for as far as I could see reminded me of my time in the Navy,” he says, reflecting on his recent adventure. “To be able to get back out on the ocean and to be able to share that with my grandsons was priceless to me.”

The fishing trip was funded through one of Covenant’s special programs: “A Hero’s Wish,” The Dale O. Knee Veterans Support Fund. Named after and established in honor of Covenant’s former president and CEO, who also is a Navy veteran, the fund allows Covenant to fulfill dreams and last wishes of patients who valiantly served in our armed forces. Generous contributions from community donors sustain the fund and ensure veterans like Donald Vaughan receive the respect, dignity and compassionate care that they deserve at the end of life.

Pictured top:  Covenant Hospice caregivers, including social worker Tamara Hudson (left), coordinated a fishing trip for patient Donald Vaughan (center) and his family with funds from the organization’s “A Hero’s Wish” Veterans Support Fund. Pictured top: Vaughan with his nurse, Tommy Wood, RN. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.