Local Vietnam veteran to receive Honor Flight in May
Published 1:30 am Monday, April 27, 2026
Local Vietnam War veteran Donald Petty, 82, will receive an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. May 9, where he and other veterans will be commemorated for their service to our country.
The flights are put together by The Honor Flight Network, a non-profit organization with many local chapters and subgroups, in conjunction with the United States military. They are dedicated to transporting as many U.S. military veterans as possible to D.C. to visit the memorials for the wars they fought in, as well as taking the time to honor our veterans.
Petty, a resident of Eglon, is one of those veterans being honored. He joined the Navy in 1962, the same year he graduated from high school. “I joined the Navy to get a hot shower,” Petty joked, explaining that the home he grew up in in Kentucky did not have hot running water. Then he explained that his grandmother, who raised him after the deaths of his parents, “could see I was going a bad way in high school. She said to me, ‘best thing for you to do is join the military.’ So I did.” During his time in the Navy, he sailed on 21 different submarines and was stationed on 5, including the USS Andrew Jackson, USS Simon Bolivar, and USS Silversides. Petty specialized in communications and later worked for 4 different admirals as a submarine communications specialist. He was a Senior Chief Petty Officer when he retired from the Navy.
Before ever setting foot on a submarine, Petty served as a communications specialist during the Vietnam War, fixing communication equipment. The first thing Petty said when talking about his experience in Vietnam was, “I was issued an M14 with 300 rounds and never had to fire it once.” He went on to explain that he used to not tell people that he served in Vietnam, including the people he served on submarines with. Then, a few years ago, something shifted, and people would see him wearing his veteran hat or vest and would thank him for his service. “That was not something that would happen when we came back from Vietnam.”
Petty moved to Washington in 1984 and said that he already knew all of the admirals, back when they were junior officers. He said that was one of the things about the community that made it special. “There is such camaraderie. No matter where we are… another vet comes up and there’s a connection.” He is involved with the VA, the VFW, the American Legion, and the Moose Lodge.
In addition to working in communications and his submarine service, Petty was also stationed in Spain and became a member of a rodeo club there, traveled across the U.S. 4 times on his Harley Davidson motorcycle, and went on to work as a farrier after retiring from the Navy.
