SGT Brian Gregory Hughes (KIA)

 

Photo courtesy of Neal Salsbery

Date of Birth: 5/23/48
Tour began: 12/14/67
Date of Casualty: 5/3/68
Age at time of death: 19
Race: Caucasian
Religion: Protestant
Marital Status: Single
Home of Record: WHITTIER CA
Branch of Service: ARMY
Rank: SGT E-5
Casualty Country: SOUTH VIETNAM
Casualty Province: THUA THIEN
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE
Body was recovered

Brian is honored on Panel 54E, Row 25 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

 

“Brian Hughes was my roommate at the barracks along with Mike Lewellen; we were very close.”
~Chuck Maguire

 

“It seems like I searched so long for someone who served with Brian, I’m not sure why….I was so young during that time, I was only 7 years old when Brian died but I remember not just his time in Vietnam and exactly what my Mom was wearing when we got the call that Brian was gone (oh, and the guns at the funeral; I was confused why they would shoot guns when he had been killed by one???), but how much fun he was and how much he loved my Mom’s chocolate chip cookies. I remember packing them up to send to him in Vietnam. He loved my Mom’s cooking and our family. He always told my older sister that when she grew up he would marry her! My Dad and Brian loved to fish together, in fact in a letter he wrote us days before he died he said he only had, (I think it was) 89 days left before he came home and he said to get his fishing pole ready and to have chocolate chip cookies ready for him. The last letter I ever wrote to him came back marked “deceased”. We didn’t open it, I buried it in the back yard of our house hoping it would go to heaven with Brian. Luckily, my Mom saw me do it and saved it for me. We were going to open it when our son Brian was born (Brian’s namesake), but in all the excitement, we forgot. When I got home and was unpacking my bag I found the letter and we decided to leave it for our Brian to open someday. On his 18th birthday he opened the letter. We hold it dear to us even though Brian never actually got it. It was a sweet letter from a young girl who loved him like brother. Gosh, I’ve gone on and on….I’m still surprised at how much I miss him and I don’t think a special event in our lives go by without us thinking how much Brian would have loved to be with us.”

~Pam Funk, childhood friend

 

This photo was taken when he was a sophomore in high school at Sierra High School in Whittier CA

 

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