Donald W. Duncan

Master Sergeant Donald Walter Duncan (March 18, 1930 – March 25, 2009) was a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who served during the Vietnam War, helping to establish the guerrilla infiltration force Project DELTA there. Following his return to the United States, Duncan became one of the earliest military opponents of the war and one of the antiwar movement's leading public figures. Duncan is best remembered as the cover image on the February 1966 issue of Ramparts where he announced "I quit!", as well as for his 1967 book The New Legions and his testimony to the 1967 Russell Tribunal, both of which detailed American war crimes in Vietnam.

Early life Donald Walter Duncan was born to Walter Cameron Duncan and Norma Duncan (née Brooker) in Toronto on March 18, 1930, later becoming a U.S. citizen. Duncan's father died when he was young, and his mother married Henry de Czanyi von Gerber, a naturalized American, cellist and orchestra conductor. Through the marriage Duncan gained a stepsister, Frances (later known as actress Mitzi Gaynor).

Military career Duncan, with his wife and daughter, moved to Rochester, NY in 1954. Subsequently, Duncan was drafted into the U.S. Army and first served as a non-commissioned officer in Germany in the field of operations and intelligence. He was told, "if the prisoner is not disposed to talk voluntarily, it is hardly the time or place to be concerned with the Geneva Conventions."

Duncan was deployed in Vietnam in March 1964, serving in a variety of capacities with the 5th Special Forces Group and Project DELTA, which he helped to organize.

He expanded on this in the Ramparts article mentioned above:

Little by little...I had to accept the fact that, Communist or not, the vast majority of the people were pro-Viet Cong and anti-Saigon. I had to accept also that the position, 'We are in Vietnam because we are in sympathy with the aspirations and desires of the Vietnamese people,' was a lie. There he detailed a de facto class in torture techniques conducted for members of the Special Forces entitled "Counter-Measures to Hostile Interrogation."

In 1971 Duncan delivered the closing statement to the Winter Soldier Investigation conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Later life and death

Duncan settled in Indiana around 1980. In 1990, he founded a nonprofit group that provided services for the poor. He died at a nursing home in Madison, Indiana on March 25, 2009, aged 79. His death was not reported in connection with his anti-war activism until 2016, when The New York Times published an obituary. Editor William McDonald explained that the death became known to the newspaper during research on what was planned to be Duncan's advance obituary, written by Robert D. McFadden. Regarding the decision to complete and publish the article seven years after the subject's death, McDonald said:

Works The New Legions. New York: Random House, 1967. Originally published in Ramparts, February 1966. Vietnam Full Disclosure