Donald Joseph Kusie left high school in Dickinson in southwest North Dakota after three years to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program.

The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families. He served in California and Minnesota, rising to the rank of assistant leader before his enlistment expired. In Minnesota he was in Co. 2711, which worked at Jay Cooke State Park.

He also served in the North Dakota National Guard, Co. K of the 164th Infantry at Dickinson. He said he also worked as a transit man for a survey crew in Minnesota.

He joined the Navy, on May 21, 1940.

Mr. Kusie was a radioman and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,  Dec. 7, 1941.

He was born New Year’s Day 1919 in Dickinson. His father, Anton Kusie, was a meat cutter and his mother, Mary Janisch Kusie, a homemaker.

Donald’s death was the first of three losses his mother suffered in quick succession. Another son, Myron, was 18 when he died in April 1942 following a surgery. The father, Anton, shot himself in the head and died in December 1943. An inquest did not determine whether it was accidental or a suicide.

An uncle, Joseph William Kusie, a Marine, was killed in France during World War I. Donald’s middle name was in honor of the uncle.

Sources: The Dickinson Press; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; Minnesota marriage index. The Defense Department and a news article at the time of his death said Mr. Kusie was born in 1919. When he applied to the Navy he listed 1919 as his birth year. However, a cenotaph at the Dickinson Cemetery lists the year as 1921. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.