05/28/2026
For all the the people who enjoyed or missed the Memorial Day speech by Stephen Saunders at the Greenwood Cemetery, we are pleased to provide the transcript for you to read.
Memorial Day Address May 25, 2026
Greenwood Cemetery, Brodhead, WI
Stephen Saunders
Thank you for the invitation to join you on this beautiful morning. Sixty years ago this day I left for Vietnam as an 18-year-old infantry private. Today we honor and remember those who died while in the service of the United States. The word “service” is old-fashioned, but I like it. “Service” in my mind refers to duty to country in the armed forces. It explains the true undertaking, closer to the mark than the bland label used today—"the military.”
The spirits of those who perished in service beckon to us for recognition. Our duty is to commemorate the utmost sacrifice of these noble citizens; but how? Only emotionally can we express our gratitude for them. Really stare at the utter pain and gravity of their supreme sacrifice. Fill your heart and engage your passion with the magnitude of their fidelity.
Many die from war’s afflictions long after peace is restored. War is brutal. It is horrifying. It is heartache. It offends all human senses. Its stench is never purged. The screams of the wounded and the silence of the dead forever sound in memory. It was worse than I know how to say.
Many return from battle bearing a cruel irony. Survival itself inflicts bloodless wounds not tallied in the cost of war. Grim scenes and memories of combat invade memory throughout life. The distant past upstages the present. Angst remains raw. My body is in one piece while good men are maimed. I live while good men are dead. The disquiet never resolves.
How can we meaningfully inspect and appreciate thousands upon thousands of America’s war dead this day? What we must NOT do is bury the severity and perception of individual solitary deaths within a mass grave of passive collective remembrance. To do so obscures the bona fide burden of loss. Massive casualty arithmetic somehow evades the gut-wrenching price of war namely: hundreds of thousands in the Civil War and World Wars l and II, tens of thousands in Korea and Vietnam, and thousands more in the Cold War, Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Iran. Mere totals evoke only a barren tally, empty of befitting emotional impact. Plain death tolls blunt the razor-sharp flesh and blood loss into dull anonymity. Cold-hearted numbers belittle the real scope of war’s death and anguish which rip into families.
Let’s figure otherwise. Let’s sharpen that horde of death into focus through one fallen soldier to look just one iota of any war’s personal cost straight in the eye. Clue in on a gut level to a workable image of the communal indebtedness that brings us here. Let this one young man stand for hundreds of thousands—actually over a million—of American war dead whose dreams were stillborn, their promise unfulfilled, their families shattered. We, the living beneficiaries of this one soldier’s service, hold his violent death in trust.
That man was my best buddy; a steadfast friend. He was Thomas E. Dougher—D-O-U-G-H-E-R. The memory of him is a treasure to all who knew him. I bear a duty and the privilege to introduce him to you and sketch out his nobility.
Tom was born 81 years ago and grew up in Buffalo, NY. In 1964 after a solo hitchhike across America, he joined the army and volunteered for the paratroops. He was in action with a rifle company when I joined it in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1966. Tom Dougher and I soon became as brothers.
Weeks and months of brutal ground combat pare men down to their core. Living rough and hard under constant strain exposes one’s true nature. You learn whom to depend upon, whom to trust. Tom Dougher, nicknamed “Dog”, was a stand-up guy. Several nights he and I sat on ambush back-to-back without ponchos under downpours of chilling monsoon rain staring into the darkness and danger. I recall a wet and windy night as we craved the dawn, shivering so harshly that Dog contorted with dry heaves. We laughed about it. We literally had each other’s back. Shared hardship under death’s cold stare forged a brotherhood that few understand.
As our casualties climbed and seasoned veterans rotated home, Dog’s know-how became essential. Our platoon needed his fieldcraft, his outlook, his savvy. He found purpose. He could fix things, such as a water-logged complex night vision scope. Always eager to help others, Dog cared nothing for physical comfort and little for his own well-being. His kindness compelled Dog to save a puppy. He rescued it from a burning hut and revived it with mouth-to-snout resuscitation. The pup rode in his backpack side pocket peeking out like a bobble-head.
During the aftermath of a savage firefight our unit combed the field for weapons and stragglers. Dog volunteered to enter an enemy bunker—high-risk, but most of us did it at some point. Another man and I each held an ankle and lowered Dog’s scrawny frame through the firing port headfirst into the dark. One hand clutched a flashlight, the other a cocked .45 pistol. Immediately, a gunshot exploded. Two enemy soldiers huddled inside. As one reached for a rifle, Dog shot him point-blank. We je**ed Dog out and prepared to gr***de the bunker, the usual resolution—fatal to the occupants. Dog would not have it. He begged and pressed us to hold off and demanded to creep back inside to somehow get the two North Vietnamese out alive.
Then followed an oddball scenario, the most daring of his escapades. It typified Dog’s character aspects—gutsy and merciful. I cannot now imagine why the other leg-holder and I collaborated to help Dog in this wild scheme, but the toxic buildup of months at war and the nervy combat of the moment had skewed us haywire, too, so again we lowered Dog into that black hole on his forlorn quest. Surely, they would kill him. The enemy likely assumed that they were dead men, anyway. And how could they miss? We slowly lowered Dog until he was all the way inside the bunker. Then a pregnant pause—no gunshots. Finally, an arm appeared. Dog handed up his pistol, then the enemy rifle. He boosted out the wounded North Vietnamese soldier, shot sideways through the breast. The other enemy followed. Dog had risked his neck to save the lives of two mortal enemies. Dog was the last man out, flashlight in hand and a triumphant madcap grin on his dirty unshaven face.
Dog sensed his value to our understrength 25-man platoon and its dire need for seasoned veterans like him. We were his proxy family. When his one-year tour of duty ended, he volunteered to extend it for another six months—a BIG deal because the law of averages was brutal in our rifle platoon. Luck had a limited shelf life. Of the six men I knew who extended, two were killed, the other four suffered serious wounds. Dog went home for a 30-day leave.
Three months after his return to Vietnam, a premonition of impending death beset Dog. He privately disclosed his ominous gut feeling to me. Every man lived on edge under death’s shadow. Our coarse combat ways allowed no delicate sensitivity. After 11 months in-country my sensibilities were as cold and hard as gravestone granite; so I scoffed at his dire hunch, blew it off, failing to grasp his grave intuition. Three days later on April 30,1967 Dog shared the fate of the fallen American servicemen and women we remember today. An enemy bullet found its mark. Dog was killed in action at 22.
This tragedy, Dog’s sublime sacrifice, is immortalized in black granite. His name is chiseled into Panel 18E Row 120 of the Wall, America’s open grave cut into our nation’s heart in Washington DC. His death carved a deep life-long groove through me. Each day my soul honors him and several others who died. Still after six decades my heart beholds the look and prizes the laughter of those skinny, footsore, stinking, profane young troopers, wild with horse play and wisecracks; brimming with grit and guts. Every day is Memorial Day to me.
Thus, to memorialize, to commemorate, we must grasp the singularity of war death and, through such solitary acknowledgement, more usefully comprehend the enormity of America’s full loss. Do not only mourn that they died. Give thanks that these Americans lived—that America, that this community, produced such people. Each of those who fell were as special and unique as a snowflake, as admired and beloved as Thomas Dougher. We affix our gratitude and affirm our humanity as we mindfully reach into the impersonal statistical legions of dead and grasp the precious individuality of each one, personal to us, one-by-one.
Please, honor with your remembrance such great countrymen as Tom Dougher—and may I also mention my stepcousin and boyhood idol, a local boy, Myles Zimmerman, MIA in Korea in July 1953, 14 days before the armistice, body still unrecovered. An impressive stone stands here commemorating his life. Our local AmVets Post 1181 bears his name. History becomes personal; the personal becomes history. And permit me to champion the spirits and sound the names of a few special friends from my war: Richard Rogers—to whom I owe my life—Bennie Holbrook, Travis Walden, and Preston Polk. Many hearts have ached over the last 60 years for these and other high-spirited young paratroopers, my buddies, who did not return from Vietnam. Their attitude, their very human fear, their heroism and their sacrifice; and the way they offered up their health, their youth and their lives hold me in awe.
I’ll conclude with a poem written by, PFC Charles Fink, who served in the Infantry in Vietnam titled:
BURY ME WITH SOLDIERS
I’ve played a lot of roles in life,
I’ve met a lot of men
I’ve done some things I’d like to think
I wouldn’t do again.
And though I’m young, I’m old enough,
To know someday I’ll die,
And think about what lies ahead,
Beside whom I would lie.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter much,
Still, if I had my choice,
I’d want a grave `mongst soldiers when
At last death quells my voice.
I’m sick of the hypocrisy,
Of lectures by the wise,
I’ll take the man with all his flaws,
Who goes, though scared, and dies.
The troops I knew were commonplace,
They didn’t want the war,
They fought because their fathers and
Their fathers had before.
They cursed and killed and wept,
God knows, they’re easy to deride,
But bury me with men like these,
They faced the guns and died.
It’s funny when you think of it,
The way we got along,
We’d come from different worlds
To live in one no one belongs.
I didn’t even like them all,
I’m sure they’d all agree,
Yet I would give my life for them,
I know some did for me.
So bury me with soldiers please,
Though much maligned they be,
Yes, bury me with soldiers, for,
I miss their company.
We’ll not soon see their likes again,
We’ve had our fill of war,
But bury me with men like these,
Till someone else does more
