FAIRMONT — Even if it’s just a glance, Bevelyn Greene looks at the bridge that bears her son’s name every day.
“It’s just something I have to do,” the 92-year-old Fairmont woman said last week.
The bridge is part of the Gateway Connector, the sleek, $150 million highway that links Interstate 79 to Merchant Street, on the city’s East Side.
She lives on a hilly boulevard in a compact neighborhood that was spared when the connector went in.
Bevelyn’s house has a view of the bridge, and on nice days, she’ll sit on her porch and look off in the direction of the span, with its shimmer of cars and concrete in the sun.
Sixty years ago, their block was full of whooping youngsters, and one of them was her son, Lloyd Greene Jr., though no one called him that — even if he was named for his dad.
Both instead answered to sound-alike, father-son nicknames: “Bud” and “Buddy Jr.”
Bud Greene was a disciplinarian-type dad (when he wasn’t being a pushover) who saw combat in the South Pacific in World War II.
Looking just like his pop, Buddy Jr. was fun-loving and serious: An honor student and a star athlete at East Fairmont High School.
When he got his draft notice in 1967, Buddy Jr. didn’t blink, even though he was newly married with a gnaw he’d probably end up in Vietnam.
His big brother, Danny, who enlisted in the Marines, was already there. Another sibling, Jeff, a Navy man, would follow.
A tough dad blinked tears as he hugged his boys and shook their hands. Bud told them to by God watch out for themselves — as he knew exactly what they were getting into.
Meanwhile, life in that house on that hilly boulevard was bustling.
Bud and Bevelyn also had a set of 7-year-old twins (a son and daughter) to attend to, and whenever Bevelyn would try to watch the television accounts of the war, the twins, sensing her worry, would snap off the set.
The official correspondence chronicling the fates of two of the trio was every mother’s wartime nightmare.
First, Danny: He was on patrol, when flashes of light pocked from the tree line. Ambush. Guys died. He didn’t — but he was critically wounded.
Then, word came about Buddy Jr., who had been in-country for a year, as an Army helicopter crew chief. The chopper went down, and just like that … he was gone.
“And I became a Gold Star mother.”
The Daughters step in
The Gold Star Mothers is an official organization with a grim requirement for admittance. It was formed in 1928 for the benefit of mothers who lost sons in World War I.
It has since expanded to include sons and daughters who have fallen on any battlefield, from any U.S. war. The name signifies the gold star hanging in the window of a childhood home, forever gone, which turned out to be an enduring symbol of World War II.
The Daughters of the American Revolution in West Virginia, with its members who can trace their lineage back to that Revolutionary War for independence, decided last June to launch a project that would honor Gold Star mothers in the Mountain State.
After all, the DAR said, West Virginians traditionally march off to defend the Republic in numbers that are greater than the national average.
State DAR Regent Malinda Davis came up with the idea. Brenda Shinkovich, a Monongalia County resident who is also a regent in the organization, decided to carry the water for the work here.
West Virginia, as Shinkovich said, had an abundance of Gold Star mothers before there was any such organization. Before West Virginia was a state, even.
“We’ve sent soldiers to every war since the Revolutionary War,” she said.
“A lot of them don’t get to come back. That’s why we need to honor those mothers who had to endure horrible, horrible losses.”
A total of 36,578 West Virginians served in Vietnam.
Buddy Jr. was among the 1,182 who didn’t make it back.
Elegy in art
The DAR in West Virginia earlier commissioned Morgantown sculptor Jamie Lester to create a bronze plaque in bas relief honoring the legacy of the state’s Gold Star mothers.
Lester, whose work includes the West Virginia commemorative quarter and statues of Morgantown found Zackquill Morgan and WVU basketball legend Jerry West, did two identical plaques, in fact.
One will placed at the Marion County Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial at 3 p.m. Monday for Memorial Day, at Fairmont’s East Marion Park.
The other will debut at the Mason County Public Library in Point Pleasant on June 20, West Virginia Day.
Point Pleasant was selected because the Ohio River town associated with the outer-worldly visitor Mothman is also believed to be the site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War.
East Fairmont was tapped because its memorial carries the names of the 27 Marion residents killed in Vietnam on a striking marble panel.
It also features a Vietnam-vintage UH-1 “Huey” helicopter, much like the ones Buddy Jr. flew during the war.
Lester’s plaque will be affixed to a base and pole of polished concrete created by March-Westin Co. — “It’s beautiful,” Shinkovich said.
The bridging of precious memories
Bevelyn, meanwhile, will be a guest of honor at the dedication Monday.
“Jeff said, ‘You know we’re going, right?’ and I said, ‘We sure are.’ ”
She was touched by the advocacy of local officials which led to the State Legislature naming the connector span the “SP5 Lloyd ‘Buddy’ Greene Jr. Memorial Bridge,” in 2011.
Bud didn’t get to see it. He died in 2005. He and Bevelyn had 60 years together.
Jeff Greene, meanwhile, drives the Buddy Greene Jr. Bridge pretty much daily. Without fail, he confesses, he focuses on the sign as it unspools on the other side of his windshield.
“It’s hard not to,” he said recently in Fairmont. “That’s Buddy on that sign.”
Bevelyn, meanwhile, added another poignant note for today’s ceremony.
“They’re doing this on Buddy Jr.’s birthday,” she said.
“He was born on May 27, 1948.”
JBissett@DominionPost.com
TWITTER @DominionPostWV
