His parents had urged him to enlist in the Navy, but Donovan chose the Army and volunteered for Vietnam. The 1968 Northeast Catholic High School graduate loved sports of every kind, especially baseball and basketball. He played basketball in High School and for the championship 1967 Northeast Boys Club team, and was a "most valuable player" for the Wissinoming Athletic Association team. A former choir boy at St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church he went to work as a clerk at the circulation department at the Bulletin and planned to return there after he got back home. The 21- year-old private first class an ammunition bearer and rifleman assigned to Company D of the First Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, died on April 12, 1971 five months after arriving from Vietnam. He was survived by his parents a brother and a sister.