This story by Jim Therrien was first published in the Bennington Banner on July 31, 2026.
BENNINGTON — The long journey of Bennington native Bernard Sweet, who died in the Philippines during World War II, came full circle on Thursday evening when his remains were escorted back to his hometown.
Army Pfc. Sweet was 21 when he died in 1942 in a notorious Japanese prisoner of war camp, and his remains were only positively identified through a DNA match last year.
He will be laid to rest after a graveside memorial on Aug. 8 in Park Lawn Cemetery.
Casket escorted
After Sweet's casket was flown into Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, arriving from Hawaii, a large procession and escort formed up — including police agencies from Vermont and other states, veterans motorcycle groups and others — and proceeded north to Brattleboro and then west on Route 9 into Bennington.
Participants said that all along the route, especially in Vermont, people turned out, many with flags, to salute Sweet as the long procession passed.
Sweet's official military escort was Brig. Gen. Sarah K. Albrycht, a Bennington native and provost marshal general of the Army.
“It's an incredible honor; it is a sacred duty,†Albrycht said. “When I heard that we were bringing home Pfc. Sweet to Bennington, I thought, if there is ever anything I can do as a general officer, this is something to use my good for, to ask if I could bring him home.â€
The process “felt full circle,†she said. “Pfc. Sweet's life has ended, but his story didn't. It's continuing to now, and that's incredible.â€
Another aspect for her family, Albrycht said, “is that my mother's cousin, First Lieutenant John Lahey, also from Bennington, is also MIA from World War II. Just another connection to why it is so important that we honor this family, and I got to do this duty. It's incredibly special.â€
Albrycht said she was “born and raised here,†and her mother, Mary Dermody, still lives in Bennington.
Speaking after the procession arrived in Bennington, Albrycht said, “We drove Pfc. Sweet across Vermont for the last hour and a half or so. We saw people coming out and honoring him, waving their flags — from all walks of life, all different backgrounds; and I think that's the second part of Pfc. Sweet's story. You know he was a hero. You know he endured the Bataan Death March; he was a prisoner of war; but his story continues, because now he represents what we never forget, which is we don't leave our soldiers behind, and we continue to try to bring them home to their families.â€
She added, “That is what the military does for its families, but it is also what we do as Americans in honoring people for the sacrifices that they make.â€
Norm LeBlanc, commander of VFW Post 1332 in Bennington, who rode with the post's motorcycle group, said, “I cannot say enough about the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont law enforcement agencies, down to the state police, the county sheriffs and the local departments. We were with an escort from the minute we brought Mr. Sweet off the plane till we got here. … The coordination was really beautiful. There had to be a hundred people behind the scenes that helped this.â€
He added that the procession continually passed people who saluted Sweet along the route, beginning on Interstate 91, but especially when they reached Vermont.
“People in cars would go by and hold their hand over their heart; truckers would salute and pull over,†he said. “And as soon as we got to Brattleboro, I don't think we went three miles without someone standing on the side of the road the whole way back.â€
Members of the Bennington VFW and American Legion Post 13 Riders groups were among those participating.
The procession reached Bennington and Devlin Funeral Home shortly after 8 p.m.
‘Touched the heart'
State Rep. Mary Morrissey of Bennington, who rode during the procession in a car with family members, said, “The day truly just touched the heart.â€
The family car was behind the hearse, Morrissey said, “and we would drive through towns and people would be standing on the side of the road, sometimes at their businesses or their homes, or sometimes they would just pull off on the road, holding flags. Children and families; it was just all walks of life of people who stopped to honor this person who had endured so much in his service to our country.â€
Sweet's niece, Shirley McLenithan of Bennington, “almost couldn't believe it, the outpouring of support and love and admiration,†Morrissey said. “It was just so touching.â€
At the funeral home, McLenithan said she was “just overwhelmed†by the response of people she saw and felt unable to speak further at that moment.
It was McLenithan who answered a telephone call in August 2025 that informed her there had been a DNA match from a family member that positively identified Bernard Sweet after more than eight decades.
He initially was buried by the Japanese in a grave with other prisoners in the POW camp in the Philippines. After the war ended in 1945, the remains of U.S. personnel were taken to Manila, where initial attempts were made to make identifications.
In Sweet's case, that proved impossible, his family was informed in a letter from the Army in 1950. But investigations by the Defense Department continued, and in recent decades DNA matches became available and the process has seen continual advances.
Sweet was identified through the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which has a large facility in Honolulu.
Welcomed in Bennington
In Bennington, Sweet's casket was transported to Devlin Funeral Home, the procession passing dozens of citizens and police, fire and emergency services personnel and vehicles lined along North Street where the funeral home is located.
According to a notification of his death published in July 1943 in the Bennington Banner, Sweet, 21, the son of Carl and Hazel (Ford) Sweet, was the town's first reported death during the Second World War.
The Bennington High School graduate was said to have enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1939 and had been sent to the Philippines to receive training in aviation mechanics.
He was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for bravery in defending the American military air base during the initial Japanese attack in December 1941, when, despite great personal risk, he maintained communications with other U.S. bases.
Following the surrender of the Philippines to the Japanese military in 1942, an estimated 12,000 American and 66,000 Filipino prisoners were force-marched about 65 miles as they were being transferred to prison camps. Thousands died or were killed and it became known as the Bataan Death March.
Bernard Sweet survived the march but died of dysentery in October 1942 at the Cabanatuan prison camp.
