Francis W. O'Donnell

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com

It's common to see Army vet Frank O'Donnell attending meetings as a member of the Northampton Township Veterans Committee. Or doing personnel work as an adjutant for American Legion Post 79, of which he was formerly post commander for two years. Or volunteering at St. Bede's church in Holland. Or playing father to his four children and grandfather to his 10 grandchildren, nearly all of whom live in the Bucks County area. What one isn't likely to find this spry 65-year-old doing is sitting down. However, he did take a moment to sit and reflect on his time served in the military which, albeit brief, taught him how to be an effective team player, a skill he's continued to augment throughout his life.

"I learned a lot about leadership in the service," says O'Donnell, who lives in Holland with Cathy, his wife of 43 years. "You're given responsibilities, like looking after and taking care of the men in your command. The military taught me a lot about the chain of command; not only the people below you, but above you as well. You learn how to deal with people - even the ones you may not like."

O'Donnell was born to parents Frank and Rita in Port Richmond, Philadelphia in 1943, but he grew up in Mayfair. The eldest of four children, he's big brother to Michael and future fellow soldiers Bob and Barbara. He attended high school at Philadelphia's St. Joseph's Prep before moving on to college at La Salle University in 1961. It was at La Salle that O'Donnell became involved with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which, back then, was mandatory for all college sophomores. He opted to continue with the program through his junior and senior years, immersing himself in rigorous training sessions and emerging from his higher education as a Second Lieutenant, a title that came with some strings attached.

"If you were in the ROTC program in your senior year, you were automatically committed to two years of military service and at least six years in the Reserves," says O'Donnell. "It was an eight-year contract."

With the basic training under his belt, O'Donnell was commissioned for the Army in 1965, the year he graduated from La Salle. He was given about five months off and then reported to Fort Bliss, Texas, for officer's training and air defense systems classes - his first true taste of leadership education. Along for the ride was new wife Cathy, who was pregnant with twins at the time. The babies, Tim and Kate, were born not far from the base in a hospital that, luckily, specialized in obstetrics and pediatrics. Since Cathy couldn't travel, the momentous occasion delayed O'Donnell's scheduled deployment to Germany by two months. Courtesy of the USNS Patch, a WWII-era transport ship, he and the family arrived in Bremerhaven on June 20, 1966 and then headed to Ansbach, a Bavarian town about 25 miles west of Nuremberg.

O'Donnell was assigned to a missile unit that was responsible for guarding a portion of the Czech border. The unit grew increasingly smaller as the escalation of the Vietnam War called on more and more soldiers. Eventually, it would usually be just O'Donnell and a captain at the post, where he spent up to 100 hours per week and often slept. Still, it was better than the alternative.


"By that time, the buildup of Vietnam was dramatic," says O'Donnell. "A lot of my friends were going over there. But I just didn't get that assignment - I won that lottery."

In the winter of 1967, O'Donnell was back in the U.S., assigned to a now-defunct NIKE-Hercules nuclear missile site near Philadelphia as part of the 3rd Batallion - 43rd Artillery (a similar site was once located at what is now Northampton Township's Civic Center). He left active duty the following November, but remained in the Army Reserves for another 20 years. In 1974, while he, Cathy, Tim, Kate and two more children, Maureen and Patricia, were back living in Mayfair, he obtained a job with the City of Philadelphia as Deputy Personnel Director. He spent his nights earning a master's degree in public administration at Temple University (he got in 1979). All the while, he remained active in the Reserves, attending conferences and the like as a member of a civil affairs unit, but he was never called to battle.

"You're kind of in a gray zone," O'Donnell says of the Reserves. "You're not really working for them anymore but you're not retired either. But the Reserves is more than just meetings. People have the idea that it's a weekend a month and a few weekends a summer - it doesn't work that way. In a given year, I'd have up to 100 days of duty."

O'Donnell is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College and the National Defense University - schooled in logistics and emergency training. His directorial position with the City of Philadelphia changed to Deputy Health Commissioner and he retired as such in 1998. He's spent time with Philadelphia's SPCA, overseeing the sheltering of stray cats, dogs - even horses. One of his final assignments with the Reserves was ensuring that military academies were providing optimum training for Reserve soldiers. O'Donnell says that in all of his endeavors and accomplishments, he put to use the leadership lessons and interpersonal skills he learned from his time served, which was short overseas but lengthy at home. He officially retired from the Reserves in 2003 at 60, the earliest age at which a Reserve soldier can do so. By then, he and Cathy had been living in Holland for about five years.

These days, O'Donnell doesn't travel much, but he's still on the move, hopping back and forth to various community and family engagements. He says he also enjoys reading, perhaps his only activity that requires a seat.