Army Sgt Walters was assigned to 507th Maintenance Company, Fort Bliss, Texas, as a cook. His unit was ambushed near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. Walters' whereabouts were unknown until an Iraqi lawyer saw one of the missing soldiers, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, being slapped by a security guard in a Nasiriyah hospital. He alerted U.S. forces. On April 1, a team of Navy SEALs, Marine commandos, Air Force pilots and Army Rangers rescued Lynch and unearthed nine bodies nearby - one was Walters. According to a report, Walters' truck became disabled after a series of wrong turns caused the unit to make its second U-turn along Highway 16 in Iraq. While Pvt. Brandon Sloan, the other soldier in Walters' truck, was picked up by another vehicle, it is unclear whether Sgt. Walters was picked up by others in the convoy or remained in the area of the disabled tractor-trailer. Donald grew up in Oregon and joined the US Army after he graduated from high school in 1988. He guarded captured Iraqi soldiers in the first Gulf War. After going through a divorce and remarrying, he re-enlisted, hoping to build a more stable life for his second wife and their 9-month-old daughter. He couldn't wait for the war in Iraq to begin because the sooner this war got started, the sooner he could come home and see his family. Donald was deployed Feb. 17 to Kuwait and was assigned to a unit that trucked water and supplies to front-line troops. He was honored with the Silver Star, Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for the actions in Iraq that cost him his life.

NOTE: The Army released a detailed report of the incident, which made it clear that a lone American fighter did hold out against the Iraqis — but that the soldier was not Pfc. Jessica Lynch. It said that following the ambush; Sgt. Walters might have been left behind, taking cover beside a disabled tractor-trailer, as Iraqi troops closed in. The report confirmed that he died of wounds identical to those first attributed to Pfc. Lynch.