Bruce F. Anello

"Buddy" Anello was a combat-seasoned team leader with Company D of the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, but he was a poet first and foremost. The 1965 graduate of Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pa, was interested in wrestling and music, and after graduation worked for a year with Philadelphia Electric Co. Anello was drafted in October 1966 and sent to Vietnam. He wrote home often, and his bitter-sweet poetry and prose reflected his deep feelings about the war. He wrote a long poem during the 1967 Christmas truce which included the lines: I gaze on glistening spider webs that decorate my tree. Arid instead of baits and blinking lights, scars from bombs are what I see. Audio went on R&R in Taiwan in early 1968, later confiding to a friend about three identical dreams be experienced during the three nights he vacationed there. "In the dream, Buddy said, he was walking up a long hill," the friend recalled. "There was thick elephant grass. �I was trying to walk out of Vietnam,� Buddy said. �I kept walking and I couldn�t get out. I knew I�d be in Vietnam the rest of my life.� "The 20- year-old sergeant died in firelight with a Viet Cong unit near Hol An, Quang Nam Province, on May 31, 1968. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Survivors include his father and three brothers.