“In Search of Bud” has breakthrough

November 12, 2024

Last week my 81-year-old cousin Blaine Ackley told me he discovered a box of information about our uncle Bud (Carl Ralph Bonde, Jr.) when he found some papers of his late mother’s in Hillsboro, Oregon.  Corinne Bonde was Carl’s sister. My mother, Helen Bonde, was another. My aunt Carol was a third. Helen told me that everyone loved Bud.

Bud left behind a grieving mother and dad, three sisters just mentioned, and seven nephews and one niece. My sister is the only one old enough to remember him when he came home on leave from the army.

As you may know, I have spent the past 20 years traveling to France, to Florida, Nebraska, Kalispell,  Glacier Park, and Missoula in quest of information about Bud and his short life. Penny and I traveled to France twice, once to Cherbourg, once to St. Nazaire, in search of documentation.

In 2006 I traveled to Florida, where I spent a week with six WWII veterans who served with Buddy.  Many of them shared stories of their time in the 66th Division, especially Company E of the 262nd Infantry Regiment.  I learned the names of many others who would have remembered Buddy, but had died.  One of the six wrote two books about the 66th Army Division.

My book, “How I Improved the USMC,” was mainly about Bud, especially how profoundly he’d influenced me, and last year I thought my research reached a dead end. Carl’s military records were destroyed in a fire in the 1970s in St. Louis. I felt I had exhausted every avenue available to me in Kalispell and Missoula. My sister in Nebraska and I drove to visit Bill Moomey, one of the last of Carl’s buddies during infantry training.

But then Blaine called.  He said in looking through a box in his garage attic he found eight letters Carl mailed to his family in 1943 from Camp Rucker, Alabama.  He found other mementos:  a Purple Heart medal, with certificates.  Other things too, but Blaine didn’t list them.

This breaks the case wide open!  Blaine said Carl included some of the names of his buddies!  (I have a copy of long letter from Jack Loughborough, a fellow Company E soldier, who described some of the training and traveling they experienced.  Loughborough also named names!  He twice mentioned my uncle Carl Bonde.) I envision a better, truer portrayal of our uncle, his humor, his humanity.

Unfortunately, Blaine said I must travel to Hillsboro, Oregon if I am to view these letters and other memorabilia, so I don’t know how long I must wait. We have obligations in Billings through the coming winter months.

I also feel a sadness. I wish I could have shared the letters Blaine discovered with Carl’s buddies, but they are all dead now.

Stay tuned. I’ll share more when I learn more.