GREENFIELD — Tom Harper knew William Brees Jr. in high school before the latter shipped out to Vietnam.
Brees was the kind of man, the kind of friend, you always wanted at your side, Harper said. He was dependable. Caring. Selfless.
So, really, it’s no surprise that Brees died on a mission to help others, running into a battlefield, a medic’s bag slung over his shoulder, ready to save lives.
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The 23-year-old Brees was killed in action in Vietnam 50 years ago. This week, a cluster of community members, many of them veterans, gathered at the Hancock County Vietnam Veterans Memorial to pay their respects to the man’s memory.
It was the latest in the Greenfield American Legion Post’s ongoing series of ceremonies to honor local casualties of the Vietnam War.
More than 58,000 men and women were killed in battle between February 1961, when the United States’ military involvement in the war began, and May 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Among the dead were 11 Hancock County men; one more was missing in action.
Local veterans began hosting memorial services a year ago, and they say they’ll continue to come together over the next few years to honor the other local servicemen who died in the war.
Harper and his wife, Sharon, were among the little crowd who came out to pay their respects to Brees.
They graduated from Greenfield High School with him in 1963, the couple said, and recall him as a fiercely loyal friend, always willing to go the extra mile for those who needed him.
He was protective of the ones he loved, even — fittingly, Harper joked — played guard for the football team.
“He was the kind of guy you always wanted with you,” Harper said.
During the gathering on Monday, Harper heard for the first time the story of exactly how his old friend died. It sounded like something Harper would do, he said.
Brees — “Bill” to his friends at home, and “Doc” to the men he served with — was a Navy corpsman assigned to a Marine Corp regiment stationed in central Vietnam, Kurt Vetters, the vice-commander of the local American Legion, told the crowd.
The day he died, Brees and his fellows were embedded in an intense firefight, Vetter said. A call for a medic went out, and Brees fled from the spot where he’d taken cover, rushing out to help.
He only made it a few steps before he was killed by an enemy grenade, Vetters told the crowd.
Back home in Greenfield, Brees had a young daughter, Sunny, and a wife, Ellen, whom he was surely thinking about in those moments of terror, Vetters said.
Discussions at Monday’s gathering about Brees’ short life were somber ones, veiled with wondering of what the man’s life could have been had he returned safely from war.
Brees’ daughter, now in her 50s, wrote a letter to Vetters, which he then read aloud during the service.
In the piece Sunny Brees-Martinez discussed what she misses most about her father, who she can hardly remember because she was so young when he died.
Her story isn’t unique, she knows. So many suffered losses during that tragic war.
“I miss never hearing his voice, his arms around me when I needed a hug, his smile when he laughed,” Sunny Brees-Martinez wrote. “I know I’m not alone in these feelings, as too many children of veterans grew up missing a parent that was taken from them.”
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Eleven Hancock County men died during the Vietnam War, and one was missing in action. They were:
John Modglin on July 18, 1967
Rodger Haste on December 22, 1967
Frank W. Marks on March 9, 1968
Elvin Gose on March 18, 1968
Michael Ebert on March 21, 1968
Vaughn Brown on July 1, 1968
William Brees Jr. on Oct. 8, 1968
Huger Phelps on Feb. 10, 1969
Michael Terry on Oct. 12, 1969
Norris Borgman on Jan. 6, 1970
Mark Draper on July 22, 1970
Robert Harlan II, missing in action on Oct. 25, 1965
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