The career Marine Corps noncommissioned officer enlisted in 1956 after leaving Olney High School. He later obtained a high school diploma in the service. Bauer, 28, died on April 30, 1967, as he led a platoon of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division, at Khe Satin, Quang Tri Province. The staff sergeant was one of six Philadelphia veterans to die in Vietnam on that date, the most on any day during the war. Bauer's wife was a former Woman Marine; other survivors included a daughter, parents, brother and sister.