Remembering Don Steinbrunner

Monday is Memorial Day, a day not really to remember all veterans, but simply those who have died in service.
For Browns fans, then, it is a day to recall the life and times of Don Steinbrunner.
Steinbrunner, a backup offensive tackle who played one season in the NFL, spending the final nine games overall of 1953 with the Eastern Conference champion Browns, was the first, and one of only two, pro football players to have died in the Vietnam War.
The story of the other one, Bob Kalsu, is well known. A guard for the Buffalo Bills, he was killed on July 21, 1970 at the age of 25, His death made all the headlines. Just two years before, in 1968, he started for the Bills and was named their rookie of the year before enlisting in the Army.
For more than three decades, he was believed to have been the only NFL player killed in Vietnam. Then in 2003, Steinbrunner’s service record came to light via a tip passed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was killed three years and four days before Kalsu, on July 17, 1967, when the C-123 Provider plane he was piloting as a major with the U.S. Air Force was shot down over Kon Tum, South Vietnam. He was 35. The other four crewmen aboard also died.
Steinbrunner, who refused a safer assignment following an injury so as to be able to continue flying missions, was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Probably because he had played so long ago — 15 years before Kalsu — his story was overlooked. It faded into history.
The Browns formally honored Steinbrunner on Nov. 14, 2004 in a touching ceremony at their headquarters in Berea that included his widow, Diane Steinbrunner-Barron.
Steinbrunner, who was an all-state athlete in both football and basketball at Mount Baker (WA) High School before going on to play at Washington State, was selected by the Browns in the sixth round, at No. 71 overall, in the 1953 NFL Draft. He was cut in training camp by the talent-laden club but then was re-signed by head coach Paul Brown after four regular-season games. He was with the Browns throughout the remainder of the year as they went 11-1, winning 11 straight after an opening loss, to tie for their best regular-season percentage ever in the NFL (.917), and then were edged 17-16 by the Detroit Lions in the league championship game.
Steinbrunner had been in the ROTC in college and began fulfilling his two-year active duty requirement in 1954. He thought about returning to the Browns when that was up, but instead continued to serve. He was sent to Vietnam in 1966.
Steinbrunner wore No. 74 with the Browns. I talked in my previous post about retiring the number of all Browns players who perished while with the team. Even though he had long since left pro football, perhaps Don Steinbrunner’s 74 should be retired with that group because of his special place in history. He could share the retired number with Mike McCormack, the Pro Football Hall of Fame right tackle who wore 74 during his nine-year career with the Browns, starting in 1954, the year after Steinbrunner played.
Especially on a day like Memorial Day, it’s certainly something to think about.