Vietnam soldier’s widow holds onto her undying love
MILLERSPORT — They were married for just two months, but Teresa Confer of Millersport has mourned the loss of her husband, Marion “Buddy” Wilson, for 53 years. Buddy was reported as missing in action while serving in Vietnam.
She tries to hold onto the hope that he will someday come home to her, as she participates in an annual ceremony to honor him.
“I cry almost every day. I miss him,” Teresa said. “I stand back there in my bedroom and talk to his pictures.”
The couple met when they were were 16 and 17 at the Muskingum County Fair. She was in high school and he was cutting hair at Wilson’s Barber Shop on Seventh Street, just across from her home on Fountain Square in Zanesville.
They dated for several years before they were married during the sliver of time between boot camp and deployment on Dec. 2, 1968.
“He left 16 days later. That’s the last time I saw him,” Teresa said.
Like many other young men during that time, he was shipped off to Vietnam.
On Feb. 3, 1968, Buddy was operating one of four armored personnel carriers participating in a search and destroy mission in the northwest region of Saigon, in an area referred to by Americans
as Hobo Woods.
When they reached an open field through jungle, the convoy was met by Viet Cong forces.
The carrier Buddy was driving was hit with gunfire as it simultaneously struck an enemy anti-tank mine.
The vehicle caught fire and ammunition inside began to explode.
Buddy’s two comrades inside the carrier
were able to escape, but as they exited, they saw him inside the driver’s hatch as it caught fire.
His body was never recovered. The trauma surrounding his death still haunts his wife to this day.
“I still have nightmares at night. I wake up hollering for him,” she said. “I talk to him in my sleep. It’s just terrible.”
She never had the opportunity for a goodbye, for a funeral, for closure.
Because of that, Teresa isn’t fully convinced of her husband’s fate that day in Vietnam.
“I will probably never know now,” she said.
The loss of her first love left her with a void that’s lasted her entire life.
“When he died, part of me died,” she said. “He was the only person I ever really loved. People don’t understand unless they’ve been through this.”
While she did remarry, Teresa said she never experienced love like she did with Buddy.
“I know I was remarried, but it’s not the same as being happy without Buddy,” she said. “I guess you could say that I went through life content, not happy.”
As a way of honoring her true love, Teresa places a wreath at the memorial site for military members who are missing in action or prisoners of war each year during Zanesville’s Wreaths Across America service at Greenwood Cemetery.
“I just want to be there for him. That’s one way I can do that,” she said.
Wreaths Across America, in partnership with Snouffer Funeral Home, honors veterans by decorating their gravesites with wreaths at cemeteries all over country every year on at the same time.
This year’s ceremony will take place at noon Saturday.
To sponsor a wreath, visit link: wreathsacrossamerica.org.