Lance Corporal Roger Huard / United States Marines

Roger Huard came into the world in Manchester, NH, on October 11, 1951, one of 11 children, and the second set of three sets of twins in the same family. He attended parochial grammar school, moving on to Manchester’s West High School. Huard remembers, “I left high school in my junior year. I wanted to go into the Marines, but I was too young and needed my father’s signature. My father agreed to sign for me – if I went into the Marine reserves… so that’s where I went.”

Huard’s unit did their normal two weeks of training in the summer and one weekend a month during the year. He remembered, “Sometimes we would spend our summer training in Virgina, sometimes in North Carolina.”

Their North Carolina training was held at Camp Lejeune, a base infamous for its contaminated water. Huard’s time at Camp Lejeune would come back to haunt him years later. He noted, “In 2021, I thought I was losing my hearing, so I went to a VA hospital. I found out it was a brain tumor causing the hearing loss. The tumor was caused by the bad water at Camp Lejeune. Doctors were able to remove the tumor, but it did not restore my hearing. Plus, it has affected my equilibrium. I’m always a bit dizzy. Due to those conditions, I am now 80% disabled.”

During his time in the Marines, Huard spent about six months in active duty on Parris Island, SC, including two months of basic training and four months of advanced infantry training. He notes, “My MOS was 0311 – a grunt.”

Asked if he thought his unit might be shipped off to Vietnam, Huard replied, “That thought was always in the back of our minds. Some time later, I ran across a school friend from Manchester who was in another Marine unit. He found out that if the US had openly gone into Laos, my unit was slated to be a back-up unit for his group. We might have had to go overseas.”

Roger Huard left the Marines in March 1975 as a Lance Corporal. He is now retired and continues to live in Manchester, NH