WGAL’s film preservation project with Millersville University rediscovered the footage of that homecoming. While digitizing film that once aired on WGAL, Adam Omar learned the story of Donald Glen Smith.
Smith was declared missing in action, then killed in action before he’d finally been found as a prisoner of war. He was held in a Vietnam jungle for eight months.
When he returned to Akron, the entire town greeted him and even named a day after him.
Fifty-two years later, WGAL found Smith living in Lebanon County.
“I have PTSD, so I think of that every day,” he said.
We showed him some of the newly digitized film from his homecoming, which included an interview with his parents after they found out their son was coming home.
It was his wife’s first time seeing the video and Smith’s first time seeing his parents in a long time.
His parents have since died, but his mother gave him a book full of newspaper articles the Christmas before she died
