Brian Barden of Dublin is grateful for all he has: his wife of 57 years, Jean, and their children, Jason and Melissa; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He loves his family, his work and his community.
Others who served in Vietnam weren’t so lucky. Their names are engraved on the black walls of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Those who came back with physical and psychological wounds were also robbed of their dreams. When Barden returned home from the war, he pledged to remember all who served.
Since 1972, Barden has placed American flags at the graves of hundreds of veterans buried in Dublin’s beautiful lakeside cemetery. That’s 54 years of keeping his word to “never forget.”
For more than five decades, on the Friday evening before Memorial Day, Barden and his fellow Memorial Day Committee members honored each veteran’s gravesite with a flag.
WHEN: Monday, May 25
TIME: 11 a.m.
WHERE: Yankee Publishing parking lot
WHO: The public is invited to march to the cemetery behind the Veterans.
With Dublin Lake shimmering below and Mount Monadnock rising beyond, Barden and friends fanned out across the cemetery. Each carrying a bundle of flags, they covered the same section they tended the year before — and the year before that. After the last flag was placed, they checked and double-checked each other’s work, stone by stone, row by row.
The brigade of friends that plants the nearly 300 flags has gotten smaller and a little older. And each year, they need more flags.
“I am the old guy now,” Barden said. “The last of the old ones. I’m putting flags on the graves of all those I used to march with.”
This year, the Memorial Day Committee members will meet on Thursday morning before Memorial Day instead of Friday afternoon so that Dublin Elementary School students can help place the hundreds of flags during school hours. Committee members Diddie Staples, Hank and Nancy Campbell, Dee and Wayne Thomas, and Barden look forward to the youthful help.
Up until last year, once the last flags were checked, Barden felt lucky if he didn’t then have to go to a night meeting or get called out on an emergency. This is his 58th year as a Dublin volunteer firefighter, and his 50th year as Forest Fire Warden.
Until a decade or so ago, after finishing at the cemetery, Barden drove back to town and lowered the flag that stands between Town Hall and Yankee Publishing. Since 1973, Barden had faithfully raised and lowered the Dublin center stars and stripes daily. Every morning at 6:30, he ran the flag up the pole and, before dark, lowered it and stored it in his truck.
Since 1968, Memorial Day has looked like this:
By 7 a.m., Barden takes his uniform from the closet, where it has hung since the last parade. Next, he shines the brass buttons on his Army tunic, and then shines his belt buckle. Finally, he spit-polishes his shoes, just as he was taught in basic training.
Barden served in the Army 87th Engineer Battalion (Construction) from 1963 to 1966. He spent those last two years building airstrips, bridges and roads in the jungles of Vietnam. He chose the 87th Engineer Battalion because he loved machines. As a young boy growing up in Keene, he sought out construction sites where he’d spend hours watching men dig cellar holes with heavy equipment.
Credit: Courtesy
His father was a factory machinist for decades and helped foster his son’s interest in mechanics.
Barden treasures his father’s old tools, including gauges and wrenches he still uses today to restore and maintain his collection of Model T Fords. The boy learned a great deal from his father, but he didn’t want to be a machinist, spending his life in a factory. He chose instead to work with machines outdoors.
At 10 years old, Barden was taking apart lawn mowers and putting them back together. By 12, he was operating a bulldozer at work sites and running farm equipment at a dairy farm. There, he worked from age 12 until he graduated from Keene High School. He milked cows every day after school and sweated his way through many hay seasons — cutting, baling and stacking hay in the barn.
After Vietnam, Barden returned to Keene, where he worked construction for a year. In 1968, he went to work as a mechanic at Worcester’s Garage in the center of Dublin, where AVA Restoration Services is now located.
Barden was good. He and Dan Walsh, who owned Worcester’s, took care of the whole town and beyond. Employees at Yankee Publishing and the town offices could drop their cars off in the morning, walk to work and pick up their rides at the end of the day.
It was the kind of place where you could get a tire plugged for $2.
When cars became more electronic, Barden made his exit. The Town of Dublin offered him the position of Road Agent, and he took it. From 1988 until his retirement in 2017, he and his crew maintained the roads year-round — clearing snow, repairing washouts and damaged culverts, and filling potholes.
He loved the work, though he said it was never done.
“The winters were toughest,” he said. “We stayed out there as long as needed, sometimes up to 100 hours a week.”
But he was happy working with machines, working outdoors, still doing what he loved as a 10-year-old.
“When I first started, there were about 60 of us who marched every year,” Barden said, reflecting on his first Memorial Day parades after returning from Vietnam. “But we aren’t half of that now.”
His message to veterans:
“Join us, whether your uniform fits or not. It’s your day. Come out and be proud of what you’ve done, and help us remember those who are no longer with us.”