After their advanced training, they came home on leave for the holidays right before Christmas 1969 with a follow-on assignment to Vietnam. When it was time to report for duty in January 1970, Duane was distracted with his girlfriend and the holidays and missed reporting in on time. This caused Duane and Mike's Buddy contract to be broken and Mike went on to Vietnam without him for duty on a post as one of the sentry guards.

Duane's assignment was changed and he was sent to a field unit in the Quảng Ngãi Province, whose mission was to go on regular patrols in the jungles. During the ensuing months of countless patrols, they often were confronted with having to navigate through fields of land mines, mostly our own but sometimes the enemies. The course of travel was a hit and miss of enemy fire and finding the untripped mines. Duane wrote home about one of his instances when he stepped on a mine, stopping him in his tracks and being able to prevent it from going off so they could continue the patrol and of course the opportunity to write about it. In late July, July 28th to be exact, his team faced another field of mines, carefully zigzagging through, Duane stepped on one, discharging it. His team went to work to save him and the medics were called in. He needed advanced care and surgeries and was flown to Tokyo, Japan for the emergency care.

Of course his family was notified and the Army flew his mom to Japan to be with him. He endured long enough to see his mom and let her know he loved her. On August 14th, 1970, he passed into the eternities.

Among his possessions was a bible and a Book of Mormon, along with pamphlets. Duane had been seeking and studying about Jesus Christ. Although it was not determined if he had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, his example and the possession they gave his mom led her and his brother, Ron (Class of 1970), to also look into the gospel of Jesus Christ and found solice in the eternal truths they found within the teachings and doctrines of Jesus Christ and were baptized. They all have lived faithful in the gospel of Jesus Christ since.