Hypolite Filhiol "Buddy" Breard Jr.

SGT in 3132nd Signal Service Co : 4th Platoon

ASN#14193029

Born 1923 in LA, Died 1991

County of residence at enlistment: Ouachita Parish, LA

Other residence(s): Monroe, LA; Geneva, Switzerland; Manila, Philippines; Berlin, Germany; Dhaka, Bangladesh (formerly E. Pakistan); Calcutta, India; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Athens, Greece; Sofia, Bulgaria; Tokyo, Japan; Washington DC

United States Army, European Theatre of Operations

Occupation before the war: student

College education before the war: Spring Hill College

College education after the war: LSU; Univ. of Geneva

Source: W. Anderson Notes; 3132 Caption List; Sonic 4th Platoon, 1944; 3132 Pine Camp Photo Names; photo courtesy of Monroe Morning World, 19 Jan 1964

Buddy Breard was born on August 28, 1923 in Monroe, LA, the second of two children. His father worked as a gas company field supervisor. Buddy was descended from two French officers who had fought in the American Revolution and settled in Louisiana. Jean Louis Bréard led his fleet into the Battle of the Virginia Capes, assuring victory at Yorktown during the American Revolution. And Don Juan Filhiol assisted Don Bernardo de Galvez’s military ventures in West Florida and Baton Rouge against the English during the same war. Filhiol first planted the Spanish flag on the site that is now Monroe, LA, where the family had lived for generations prior to Buddy's birth.

Buddy's mother had left the family when he was quite young and his father died in a car accident when he was eight years old, so he grew up in Monroe with his uncle's family. He attended St. Matthew's High School in Monroe, and graduated from Marmion Military Academy in Aurora, IL. He then attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL for a year or so, but his education was interrupted by the war. He registered for the draft on June 30, 1942, and enlisted on December 15, 1942.

Buddy was assigned to the 3132 Signal Service Company, and saw service in Europe with his unit. After returning to the states at the end of the war, he finished his undergraduate studies at LSU, graduating in 1947. He then attended the University of Geneva, before joining the US Foreign Service in 1949. While he was stationed in Geneva, he met a young Swiss woman named Cosette Genton, and they married and had a daughter, Winifred, named for his mother and sister. (His sister died in a car accident the following year, sadly echoing their father's death.) Winifred was born in Switzerland, and she and her mother joined Buddy in Manila where he had been transferred.

Buddy was then stationed in Berlin/Bonn, Germany, and Dhaka, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan). Somewhere along the line his marriage with Cosette broke up, and in Dhaka he met the woman who would become his second wife, Patricia DeMay. Pat was also a Foreign Service Officer who had been stationed in Havana at the time of the Cuban Revolution before being assigned to Dhaka.

In 1960, Buddy was named the Vice Consul in Calcutta, and Pat then worked briefly in the Kennedy White House. But in 1961 Pat and Buddy married, and she flew to join him in Calcutta. While there, she met and helped Mother Theresa gather medicine, clothes, and food for the poor. Buddy and Pat's first child, HF, was born there, and their second and third children, Anne and John, were born in their father's later duty stations of Ceylon and Tokyo. Buddy also served in Sri Lanka, Greece, and Bulgaria.

Buddy stayed with the Foreign Service until his retirement in 1976, serving his last four years in Washington DC at the Department of State HQ.

After retirement, the Breards settled back in Monroe with their three young children.

Buddy died on August 22, 1991 in Monroe, LA and is buried at St. Matthew's Cemetery in Monroe, the resting place of over 50 members of the Breard family. Pat lived 30 more years, dying in 2021.