Donald Malarkey - Later Years

Later Years

Malarkey returned to the University of Oregon in 1946. He is a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity (Gamma Zeta). While attending the university, he met and became engaged to Irene Moor of Portland. They were married on June 19, 1948. Don graduated in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in business. The couple lived in Astoria, Oregon, where Don became the sales manager for Lovell Auto Company. During this time, Don ran for the position of County Commissioner of Clatsop County, Oregon and was elected in 1954. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Don worked as an insurance and real estate agent. The couple had four children. Irene died in April 2006 of breast cancer.

In 1987, Malarkey was introduced to author and University of New Orleans Professor of History Stephen Ambrose at an Easy Company reunion in New Orleans. In 1989, Don traveled with Ambrose and other members of Easy Company, including Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton, to various sites where they had fought in Europe following the D-Day invasion. The oral history and first-person recollections that Malarkey and the others provided became the basis for Ambrose's book Band of Brothers, which was published in 1992. During Ambrose's collection of anecdotal information for the book, Malarkey told of the saga of the Niland brothers of Tonawanda, New York, how two had died on D-Day and another was presumed killed. Fritz, one of the four Niland brothers, was close friends with Malarkey. This episode was the impetus for the screenplay of Saving Private Ryan.

Malarkey lives in Salem, Oregon and travels and speaks extensively to high school and college students and other groups on his Easy Company experiences. He has traveled to Army posts and hospitals in the United States and Europe, where he has met with soldiers wounded in the Iraq War. In 2005, he appeared in an advertisement urging repeal of the estate tax. For many years Malarkey has also extensively traveled with his friend Vance Day, who is a trial attorney and former chairman for the Oregon Republican Party, and together have done many leadership seminars through Day's Frontline Leadership by On-Point Strategies. Since its premiere in August 2010, the two have also had events around a new documentary titled The Battle at Brecourt Manor (Brecourt Manor Assault) executive produced by Day according to the group's promotional manager Justin Alderman at www.brecourtmanor.net