Bud Carter died last week, just two months short of his eighty-second birthday. For more than a year, Bud had waged a losing battle against time and a growing list of infirmities.

As I read the death notice in our local paper, I was reminded what puny tools are words to try to reconstruct a long and useful life. Any life. Oh, the basic statistics were there: when and where Bud was born and to whom; when and who he married; the names of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But the obituary writer tried to sum up Bud's life in two short sentences: "Mr. Carter served in the U.S. Army during World War II. For the remainder of his life, he was a dairy farmer in the county."

Bud served in World War II, that's correct. He fought in the battle for Sicily, and he was a member of Gen. Omar Bradley's unit that pushed up from the Mediterranean Sea to liberate Rome.

Only Bud never got to Rome. On a steep Italian hillside south of there, shrapnel from a Nazi mortar ripped off his right heel. Bud had to wear a specially made shoe on his right foot for the rest of his life.

Bud didn't talk much about his Army service and didn't talk at all about his wartime experiences. Although badly wounded under fire, he did not consider himself a hero. He was simply one of nearly a half-million Missourians who answered their country's call during that war. To Bud Carter, the heroes were the men who never came back.

After he recovered, Bud re-joined his father on the family dairy farm.

He married his high-school sweetheart and fathered four useful, responsible children. In the late 1950s, Bud assumed management of the operation. He added land to the farm and added cows to the milking herd.

Along the way, he served on the school board and was a deacon in his church. He sat on the county extension council and the board of the rural electric cooperative. He helped establish a rural volunteer fire department. And Bud never hesitated to quietly help a neighbor who needed it, and just as quietly accepted help when he needed it.

Bud Carter was a man who mostly kept his own counsel. He didn't seek publicity and the press didn't rush to publicize much that Bud did. In fact, his obituary was probably one of only a few times that Bud had his name in the newspaper.

But to my way of measuring worth, Bud was a more valuable citizen than most of the sports figures, movie stars and gold-record musicians who get gallons of ink and hours of broadcast time.

Bud Carter was my friend. I miss him.