After attending the Airborne Course in August 1943, Dunaway remained at Fort Benning, Georgia, as an Airborne School Instructor until January 1945 when he joined the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team in France as a platoon sergeant.

He returned to Fort Benning in December 1945 with assignment to the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion, where he served as first sergeant of Company A.

)[1] In March 1948, Dunaway was reassigned to the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

He continued in that position for seven years, during which he saw the lineage of the unit reorganized and redesignated as the 187th Infantry, when the 101st Airborne Division was reactivated on September 21, 1956, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which included the 2d Airborne Battle Group, 187th Infantry as one of the division's five battle groups.

In February 1968, he moved to Camp Eagle in the I Corps Tactical Zone with the division, where he remained until July 1968 when he was selected as the second Sergeant Major of the Army.