A broken heart, and a strong backbone

This story by Danielle M. Crosier was first published in the Bennington Banner on Nov. 9, 2026. PAWLET — In 1968, Garry DuFour was drafted into a war that he strongly opposed. More than half a century later, he has found that he never stopped serving. Disillusioned from the start, DuFour’s service became a private life dedicated to investigation, public action, and revealing the truth behind lies and cover ups. And, in the process, he has devoted himself to preserving the accounts of veterans who, he believes, were ignored and mistreated at the hands of his government. Now, after many years of heart and back trouble, DuFour is confronting a question that worries him deeply — his own looming mortality, and who will care for the archives and the truths that he has amassed when he is gone? The skeptical soldier Before Garry DuFour became a keeper of other veterans’ stories, he was a young man who did not want to go to war.

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