Class Note 1964
Bud “Francis” McGrath, Ph.D., accepted a regular Army commission in the artillery after completing ROTC. After tours in Germany and Arizona he spent 1967-68 at Bear Cat near Saigon. While proud of his service (he received a Bronze Star and an Army Commendation Medal), Bud found war necessarily dehumanizing and after leaving the military he joined antiwar activities at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. in English.
Since then he has taught at Penn, Rutgers and the University of Southern Maine, where he is currently a professor of English. Bud and his wife, Gena, also own a horse boarding and riding instruction facility and are visited often by a daughter, stepson and two grandchildren.
A high school recruiter persuaded Charles Williams to consider Dartmouth. He attended with full NROTC scholarship. Post graduation he and Ned Miller attended flight training school as Marines, where he became an F-4 Phantom pilot. He flew 125 bombing missions over North Vietnam, which required challenging nighttime mid-air refueling. Several months into his tour he was injured by a rocket while holed up in a bunker at Chu Lai. Half of his buddies were killed and he suffered serious injuries. He recovered, received an M.B.A. and had three successful business careers. Retired since 1994, he has two sons and a daughter. He’s a skilled duplicate bridge player and recently relocated to La Quinta, California, with his wife, Jerrilynn.
Jim Laughlin finished law school before entering the Army to complete his ROTC commitment. For three months through the Tet offensive he interrogated prisoners in Bien Hoa, which he felt produced little valuable information. Transferred to Can Tho, he was responsible for planning, implementing and executing aerial reconnaissance in the Mekong Delta—he participated in 77 missions.
On return he developed a private law practice in business, real estate and tax planning. He’s quite proud of a low-income senior citizen housing project he developed with some partners. His wife, Pam, is a retired teacher. They have sons James ’94, Andrew and Mark and three grandchildren. He’s active in the Dartmouth Club of Central Florida and has taken two Dartmouth tours.
As an immigrant Ivars Bemberis expressed his patriotism by joining the Army ROTC program, completing degrees in environmental and chemical engineering, then ultimately serving in Vietnam in a civil affairs unit trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals. He saw no progress during eight months of “protecting” nomadic Montanards by interning them in “Tin City.” On another assignment he found that the local government wanted soldiers to do everything, but did nothing itself. Ivars successfully established bridges with immigrant Chinese and Indians.
He didn’t expect a ticker-tape parade on return, but remembers that it took 40 years before anyone said thank you. His wife, Jeannette, a retired science teacher, noted that it took eight years for Ivars to recover. They have son Scott and daughter Kimberly ’91.
To all who served, a belated thank you.
—Phil Schaefer, Box 1278, Grantham, NH 03753; (603) 863-1178; philschaefer42@gmail.com
