Who was Ulysses G. Buzzard?
While filming an episode of “Kabilin” at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in barangay Labangon, Cebu City in 2011, I could not help but notice one tombstone cemented on the sides but still clearly like those given by the United States government to its fallen soldiers. Near this tomb was another plot with the name of a woman also bearing his family name. These two were clearly a couple. The man was Ulysses G. Buzzard and the woman was Enrica O. Buzzard.
Being an archaeologist, I have always loved cemeteries-—in daytime of course. While I was studying in Germany, I would spend hours visiting cemeteries there. The grandest of them all, I believe, was the huge Hamburg cemetery at Ohlsdorf with acres and acres of different sections devoted to different periods of German history. Alas, one cannot say the same of our cemeteries. And the Veterans Memorial Cemetery was, like all the others, unkempt. Still, one cannot help but be curious at whether indeed Cebuano veterans of the Philippine Revolution against Spain are still buried there.
Unfortunately, time was of the essence and our Kabilin television crew still had other sites to shoot. I was therefore left with an unquenched curiosity about the Buzzards and three or four other plots near them with American-sounding names.
Fast forward to 2013 and I get an e-mail from a Terry Davenport. Terry, it turned out—and whom I have yet to personally meet because I have a topsy-turvy schedule—is a Vietnam War veteran now based in Liloan town with a Cebuana wife. He is a member of the strangely named Americal Division, the same army division that landed in Talisay in March 1945. Americal stands for America and the tiny Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia, where troops prepared to reclaim all the outlying islands in the Pacific on the way to the Leyte landing of MacArthur in October 1944. The division was also involved in the Korean and Vietnam wars and, if I’m not mistaken, it is still part of the United States Armed Forces today.
In February 2013, 49 veterans now living in Cebu were finally given their own veterans memorial post (Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 12130), which was named after Ulysses G. Buzzard. And so on inauguration day, the veterans went to Buzzard’s grave to offer flowers to him and his wife. So who was Ulysses G. Buzzard?
From the information available on the Internet and from US veterans records, Sgt. Ulysses G. Buzzard was a recipient of the prestigious American Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism in the midst of heavy enemy fire in Cuba on July 1, 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The medal citation given to him reads, “Private Buzzard gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire from the enemy.” He was then a private when he and a bunch of other fellow soldiers were informed by their quartermaster that their commander, Lt. Col. Haskins, had been wounded while doing reconnaissance prior to an attack at El Caney, Cuba. Upon hearing this, Buzzard and four others immediately stood up and ran to where the colonel lay and dragged him to safety. The colonel eventually died of his wounds but the heroism of Buzzard lived on. In fact it will live on now that his name is forever etched on a US veterans of foreign wars (VFW) post right here in Cebu.
But what brought Buzzard to Cebu was not the war. It was a woman named Enrica (the O escapes us now unfortunately, although I have a feeling it stands for “Ouano”) whom Ulysses married. Born on Jan. 31, 1865, Ulysses died at the age of 74 on Aug. 2, 1939. Enrica, born in 1902, lived many more years and passed away on March 30, 1962 at the age of 60.
The VFW Post 12130 is currently raising funds to spruce up sections of the Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Labangon, to give it the respect it rightly deserves. There are 150 or so Filipino war veterans also resting there and it is quite a sad commentary on the way we treat the dead that, like all other cemeteries all over the country, gets cleaned up only on Nov. 1 and 2.
I wish the Ulysses G. Buzzard veterans post all the best as they help retrace the history of the American veterans in Cebu. There are so many World War II sites in Cebu that are worth reclaiming, resurrecting and restoring. With the VFW post around, heritage advocates now have another ally that can help them research and study these sites with records that can be facilitated hopefully by the post which has members in the United States and elsewhere.
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Let me congratulate my colleague in the archaeology profession, Dr. Ame M. Garong, on the successful launch of her book, “Ancient Filipino Diet” at the University of San Carlos (USC) Museum last Saturday. This groundbreaking work, a product of her doctoral dissertation at Kyushu University in Japan, is a must for those interested in knowing what our ancestors ate especially since among the burials she sampled were about 29 from our excavations in Boljoon town, southern Cebu.
Copies of the book can be obtained for now at USC Museum (2531000 loc. 191) and at USC Press (230100 local 290) at the price of P700. Manila residents can soon obtain copies through Solidaridad Bookshop on Padre Faura.
