Finding Answers through the Fragments

Jean Dut­ton, sis­ter of Danville’s only sol­dier killed in action in Viet­nam, Bruce L. Bad­ger, made a deci­sion. She would send the album she cre­at­ed detail­ing the events sur­round­ing her baby brother’s death. “I think it should be in Danville,” she said over the phone. Before seal­ing the box, she added his Ver­mont Patriot’s Medal and the last two let­ters he wrote to his moth­er before his death on April 2, 1968.

When the box arrived at His­tor­i­cal House, we unpacked it, set it on the table and rev­er­ent­ly turned the pages. It exudes a cer­tain sol­id silence. The cov­er is a deep brown col­or with an embossed man­dala on the front, and every piece the album is cov­ered in pro­tec­tive plas­tic, smooth to the touch. Even the glues she used on the con­tents are of archival qual­i­ty; it is meant to be han­dled and read and be acces­si­ble for many years to come.

Perus­ing the book, it seems stark at first. The con­tent is straight­for­ward, unem­bell­ished.  But when you take time to read each page, skim­ming over the rep­e­ti­tious ele­ments of news­pa­per clip­pings, each cho­sen frag­ment adds a lit­tle more depth to the mind-numb­ing loss the fam­i­ly must have expe­ri­enced at his death. 

It opens with a senior pho­to of Bruce, a black and white 5 x 7. The pho­to is of a clear-eyed, seri­ous young man, dressed in a suit, a white ker­chief peek­ing out of the lapel pock­et. It is this pho­to the fam­i­ly gave to the media, and it is repeat­ed time and again in the suc­ceed­ing news­pa­per clip­pings. Page two opens with a 5 x 7 col­or pho­to of Bruce in his army uni­form. He wears the same seri­ous look, but there is a hint of pride the young man felt in wear­ing the uniform. 

On the army pho­to page, Bruce’s senior pho­to is repeat­ed, head­ing two news­pa­per clip­pings. The first is the small­est col­umn: “IN VIETNAM—Sp/4 Bruce L. Bad­ger, son of Mr. and Mrs. Philip M. Bad­ger Sr., Danville, arrived in Viet­nam March 3…” Right next to it is a slight­ly larg­er col­umn with the same pho­to: “Danville Man Killed in Vietnam—A 21-year-old Danville man has been report­ed killed in action in Vietnam…April 2…”

Bruce was a shy, intel­li­gent youth, renowned local­ly as a ster­ling base­ball pitch­er and avid out­doors­man. At uni­ver­si­ty in Logan, Utah, for two years, he enjoyed hik­ing the wild coun­try there. But, as the war raged, he felt the call to enlist. 

Most of us in Danville know his name because of the Bruce Bad­ger Memo­r­i­al High­way that con­nects Danville from Hill Street to North Danville.  The high­way nam­ing was the result of efforts by Louise Lessard. Her broth­er, Roger, was Bruce’s class­mate, and she had been haunt­ed for years about some­thing that took place on Bruce’s last leave before leav­ing for Viet­nam. She remem­bers a Feb­ru­ary day in 1968 when Bruce stood in the Danville Gen­er­al Store greet­ing those who entered. In this mem­o­ry he is shak­ing hands with all who came through the door, telling them good­bye. His message—“I won’t be com­ing back.”

“I just couldn’t get this out of my mind,” said Louise. “I didn’t want him to be for­got­ten.” She took it on her­self to ask the Select Board to change the name of the high­way, and it was grant­ed in 1983. There is a pho­to of this cel­e­bra­tion in the album, the fam­i­ly gath­ered under the sign. Gene­va, his moth­er, is in front, dressed all in white, hold­ing a black purse.

She was an ele­men­tary school teacher in Danville and Walden. Bruce was her sur­prise child, she told Louise in an inter­view for a North Star arti­cle in 1991 , com­ing when she was 42-years-old. “Bruce was the eas­i­est of my five kids. He was such a good boy and nev­er gave me any trouble.” 

Though all fam­i­ly mem­bers were deeply affect­ed by Bruce’s death, it is Gene­va that emerges in the album as the most sto­ic of fig­ures. Both of his let­ters, now includ­ed at the end of the album, begin with “Dear Mom…” Page four of the album begins with a news­pa­per pho­to of the hon­or guard pre­sent­ing the Amer­i­can flag to her. She stands straight, hand raised to receive the fold­ed flag, head tilt­ed upward to look at the tall man before her.

Toward the end of the album, Jean has includ­ed a piece writ­ten by Gene­va. Jean enti­tled it “A Mother’s Remem­brance,” but the strange­ness of the writ­ing is that there is lit­er­al­ly no emo­tion in it; it is an exact­ing list of facts:  “Bruce left Danville Feb. 13, 1967 by bus for Man­ches­ter, N.H. He was sent to the U.S. Army Recep­tion Cen­ter Sta­tion, Fort Jack­son, S.C. Feb. 14, 1967…”

It ends with: “March 17 [1968], he was sent out on armored assault vehi­cle. He was injured by an ene­my mine April 2, at Tam Ky at 8:35 a.m. He was tak­en to 2^nd Sur­gi­cal Hos­pi­tal by heli­copter and died at 11:50 a.m. We were noti­fied by Sgt. Webb April 3, 9:50 a.m. He arrived in Mary­land April 8 and met by Dun­can McNaughton. He was brought to Desrochers & Sayles funer­al Home April 9 where he remained until April 13. His funer­al was held April 13 at Con­go Church. Mil­i­tary Hon­or Guards came from Camp Devens. His per­son­al pos­ses­sions came May 24. Stone was set May 25. Mark­er arrived June 28. Mon­ey came July 25. Lt. Gold­ing pre­sent­ed his awards Mon. Nov. 3, 1968. He helped us with mil­i­tary affairs. His­to­ry of 1^st Cav. and sec­ond lot of patch­es came from Col Tread­well Jan. 3, 1969.”

She was a moth­er look­ing for answers, and facts were as close as she could get. In a let­ter dat­ed May 15, 1968, from a Cap­tain of the Armor Com­man­der, she received the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion: “In the mid-morn­ing hours at approx­i­mate­ly 8:35 a.m., your son was on a search and clear mis­sion three miles north of Tam Ky, Quang Tin Province, Repub­lic of South Viet­nam. Bruce was assigned as the machine gun­ner when his Armored Cav­al­ry Assault Vehi­cle ran over an ene­my mine, severe­ly wound­ing Bruce and two fel­low crewmem­bers. With­in sec­onds the pla­toon medic was admin­is­ter­ing aid to Bruce and with­in min­utes he was evac­u­at­ed by heli­copter to a hos­pi­tal. Despite the best pos­si­ble med­ical care, Bruce died at 11:50 a.m. at the 2^nd Sur­gi­cal Hos­pi­tal in Chu Lai, Repub­lic of South Vietnam…Bruce’s per­son­al prop­er­ty is being col­lect­ed and will be shipped to you imme­di­ate­ly. I know you will trea­sure his per­son­al prop­er­ty, and I hope that it will reach you with­out delay.”

Evi­dent­ly, she pushed for more infor­ma­tion as the fol­low­ing let­ter shows. In a response to Geneva’s ques­tions, the Squadron Chap­lain writes: “Dear Mrs. Bad­ger, Your let­ter has been referred to me. Since I have just recent­ly joined the squadron, I did not have the priv­i­lege of know­ing your son, Bruce.

“I have checked with his troop and the men who knew him. They thought very high­ly of Bruce and were very sad­dened by his loss. 

“Bruce was a side gun­ner on an Armored Cav­al­ry vehi­cle which struck a mine dur­ing a mine sweep­ing oper­a­tion. Two oth­er men from C Troop were killed with Bruce along with three Marines.

“All Cav­al­ry men wear flak vests when on oper­a­tions. How­ev­er, the nature of Bruce’s wounds was such that his vest could not save him. He did not regain con­scious­ness after the inci­dent and so was grant­ed a pain­less death…”  With this infor­ma­tion, she would have to be sat­is­fied. To find spir­i­tu­al peace, she had to look else­where, and Jean reports that she made dai­ly vis­its to Danville Green ceme­tery for many months after his burial. 

Glued into the album are five Polaroid pho­tos that are from an unknown source.  Jean has no remem­brance of where they came from, but there they are, rem­i­nis­cent of pho­tos we have all seen from Vietnam–a brown land­scape with young men, war machines and vil­lage ham­lets. They illus­trate the type of mil­i­tary vehi­cle and activ­i­ty that Bruce and his squadron were under­tak­ing. In the upper left cor­ner on the page is a par­tic­u­lar­ly odd image; it is of an armored vehi­cle that is all out of align­ment, dis­joint­ed, pieces of it lying on the ground. Is it Bruce’s vehicle?

As an old woman, Gene­va vis­it­ed the Wash­ing­ton D.C. Viet­nam Vet­er­ans Memo­r­i­al. One of the fam­i­ly mem­bers snapped a pho­to of her reflect­ed in the glossy gran­ite where Bruce’s name is engraved. It is titled by Jean as “Gene­va Bad­ger at the Viet­nam Memo­r­i­al.” She is seat­ed in a wheel­chair in a red dress, look­ing at her sons name among all the rest.  On that same page is a pho­to of bronze figures–three sol­diers, dressed for the heat of Viet­nam and wear­ing their flak vests.

Like many before and after him, gen­tle Bruce was lost for a cause that was stat­ed sim­ply in a let­ter from the White House to Mr. and Mrs. Bad­ger, dat­ed April 12, 1968: “Amer­i­cans through­out our great coun­try are eter­nal­ly indebt­ed and humbly grate­ful to your son for his self­less courage in fight­ing to pre­serve the ide­al of free­dom for all men…Lyndon John­son.” In the album are many such let­ters of con­do­lence from high sources as well as list­ings of medals and com­men­da­tions giv­en to him posthu­mous­ly. On one of the pages is a news­pa­per col­umn list­ing Ver­mon­ters who were killed in Viet­nam: 114, includ­ing two that Gene­va added in her own hand­writ­ing after the col­umn was pub­lished.    

Glenn, Bruce’s old­er broth­er, spoke at the funer­al: “Bruce…We remem­ber your love for the pic­turesque hills of Ver­mont and Utah and your appre­ci­a­tion of the love­ly things of life. The sun streams in gold­en shafts on the moun­tains and streams that you loved. You were close to nature, because you under­stood the beau­ty of life’s pre­cious gifts which we take for granted…You were tol­er­ant and under­stood that these were times of few con­vic­tions, but days of great caus­es and passions.”

This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the Novem­ber, 2010, issue of The North Star Month­ly.

For more pho­tos relat­ed to this arti­cle, click here.