Drunk ideas, while entertaining, rarely end well. But there are exceptions. Like that time in New York in the late 1960s when a conversation about anti-war protesters led one veteran to set off on the greatest beer run in history.
It was November 1967, and a 26-year-old former Marine named John “Chick” Donohue was hanging out at Doc Fiddler’s — one of the many bars and pubs that dotted the neighborhood of Inwood, then an Irish-American enclave near Manhattan’s northern tip. The bartender, George Lynch, began complaining about the anti-war movement that had taken flight across the country.
For a lot of vets like Donohue, the marches and picket signs must have felt like a snub. So when Lynch suggested that someone go out there — to Vietnam — and bring those boys some beers to let them know they’re not forgotten, Donohue volunteered to go. And he went.
What followed was an 8,000 mile, four-month odyssey. Donohue trekked across a war-torn country, talked his way onto transport trucks and military aircraft, all so he could meet up with local guys from his neighborhood and bring them a cold — okay, lukewarm — brew.
“A lot of my friends were serving in Vietnam, and I just wanted to go over there and buy them a beer,” he candidly explained in a 2015 video short, in which Donohue met up with three of the servicemen he’d provided with beer in Vietnam: Bobby Pappas, Tom Collins, and Ricky Duggan.
Something of a local neighborhood legend, the story has often been met with eager but disbelieving nods of approval. To set the record straight earlier this month, Donohue, now 73, self-published “The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A True Story of Friendship Stronger Than War,” a book about his beer-hocking trek across Vietnam. Here’s how he got from a bar in New York to a warzone with beers in hand.
