Suzanne Rice

Jan 09 2019

The Girl I Married (And How I Got There) – 1969

When the gates at West Point opened to let us out on June 4^th, 1969 there was a mass exodus of the Best of the Line punctuated by a cacophony of revving engines and screeching tires. Before the dust could settle on Highland Falls, it seemed like all of the Class of ’69 had fled. But not entirely. A stay-behind formation of romantics lingered a while longer (some for a few hours, some for a few days) to do what had been denied them up to that point – get married and, furthermore, to do it at our rockbound highland home.

**Interior of the Old Cadet Chapel**

I was among that group, a likelihood I had fully discounted a bare 12 months earlier when I was yet determined to be a young warrior bachelor. Now, along with scores of my classmates, I had entered the marriage lottery for day, time, and chapel ending up with 1 pm, June 8^th at the Old Cadet Chapel, then the designated house of worship for Jewish cadets.

No matter that my bride was Protestant and I was Catholic; this is the way West Point did things and I was about to marry the most beautiful girl in the world. How could I be so lucky? And how did it happen? Well, that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

[caption id="attachment_2294" align="alignleft" width="300"] Entrance to Ft. Belvoir

It (almost) begins with the First Class Trip – that wonderful boondoggle where in two halves the entire class in the summer of 1968 was flown to the home of select Army branches so that we could be familiarized (and wooed) with what they had to offer us upon graduation. At each place, we would train on the equipment, try out branch-specific tactics, and get dazzled by the professionalism on display – all this capped by a formal dinner-dance where young women would be present. The latter were involved by direct invitation of a cadet or by a blind-dating pool kindly engineered by the locals (we were matched by height). Only in one place – Fort Belvoir, then the home of the engineers – did I think I knew a local girl.

As it turns out, as a young boy and ‘Army brat’ I had lived in Damascus, Syria where my father was assigned to the embassy. After being there a year or so, we sponsored an incoming Air Force family, which happened to have three little girls (and at that time, no boys). Being very young (this was the early 1950s) I was annoyed with the invasion of the girls (I had one sister as well then), and reluctantly put up with them.

West Point 1969 Family — I’m Outnumbered

Despite my ill humor, our families became good friends and in subsequent military tours over the years we would see each other from time to time as our travels brought us across common paths. They had settled, I knew, in northern Virginia. So here I took a chance.

Securing a phone was difficult in these pre-cell phone days. A single pay phone accepting only nickels, dimes, and quarters would be available in some selected ‘sinks’ (the basements of the old barracks), usually blocked by a long queue of cadets. I awaited my turn, finally placed a call, and when the mother answered, asked to speak with Sandy, so I could invite her to the dance. The answer was that I could not, since Sandy had recently been married and moved on. Flustered (I lacked worldliness back then, as now) I excused myself and got off the phone. Only then did I remember there were two other girls. A few days later, I screwed up my courage once more and this time wrote a letter inviting Jeannie to the dance. A week or more passed before I received a response – again from the mother – stating that Jeannie could not possibly go out with me since she was only 15 years old. (Note, no name was offered either time). I was now shattered.

Two weeks later, however, with the trip coming desperately close I made one final try (again by letter) and this time got the right name – Pat. She accepted, but by now I was clearly on the defensive. The night of the dance, I stood outside the Belvoir officers club in the company of approximately 400 classmates, all of us eagerly anticipating the arrival of the ladies. Pat’s mother would be driving, but I figured I would recognize the car (they always owned a station wagon) before either of them. At last I saw it, and as I wondered how this date might turn out they pulled up and a stunning young woman in a white evening gown stepped out. My heart leaped, freezing me in place for a moment even as my classmates surged forward (or so I perceived) en masse. Recovering just in the nick of time, I elbowed my way to the front and greeted both mother and daughter, the former soon departing and the latter charming me the entire evening and for the rest of my life.

I never recovered, but henceforth got her name right even as my thoughts of bachelorhood faded into oblivion.

We were married four days after graduation in that Old Cadet Chapel, returned to West Point much time later to live nearby it for three years (behind the old PX in what was then known as Dunover Court), and had our third son baptized there. It pays, you see, to be persistent, even as you bumble through life.

Jim McDonough Family — Finally, the boys outnumber the girls

Dec 03 2018

Pigs and Corn – 1972

In the aviation unit I flew with in Vietnam, our own stupidity and bad judgment usually posed more serious risks for us than those from the bad guys. My assault helicopter company supported the Republic of Korea [ROK] Army troops of the White Horse and Tiger Divisions.
Early in 1972 our ROKs captured a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Rest and Recuperation center in a mountainous valley of central South Vietnam, complete with a treasure trove of live pigs and corn. To “win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people,” the Koreans decided to donate the captured corn and pigs to their adopted local orphanage forty miles away in Nha Trang.

The only way to get the livestock and produce out was for us to fly them out in our helicopter. The Korean troops chopped a tiny clearing in the jungle canopy on the side of the valley, what we called a “hoverhole,” just big enough to fit a Huey helicopter. I was still a “new guy” in country and was flying copilot, known as “Charlie Pop,” that day when our bird got the mission. It was our first sortie of the afternoon, so the bird was heavy with full fuel, and it was starting to get really hot when we arrived in the valley and wormed our way down through the hoverhole.

There were about two loads worth to haul out, but somehow my Aircraft Commander, the battle-hardened pilot in charge of the helicopter, let the Koreans talk him into trying to fly it all out in a single lift. So, the troops packed bags of corn about two feet deep across the entire floor of the Huey, and then threw the five hogtied pigs on top of the pile and told us to go. I was later to learn that these Vietnamese “potbellied” pigs are considered as high-fashion pets by Yuppies, because they are so cute, but I sure didn’t think so that day.

We were severely overloaded as it was, and air temperature was killing our lift, so naturally as the “Charlie Pop,” I was given the honors of being on the controls to bring the bird out. As I pulled in power and started to climb up through the hole in the canopy, the overloaded rotor was already losing speed dangerously, and the controls were starting to get mushy. Understand, our assault Hueys had no doors.

One thing I should mention is that pigs do not like to ride in helicopters. What I mean to say is, pigs really don’t like to ride in helicopters! So about twenty feet up, half a ton of tied-up pigs started squealing and thrashing around in the helicopter, making control almost impossible. As the rotor blades wallowed around in the hoverhole, the blade tips started chopping leaves and branches, swirling loose debris through the cabin, which really pissed those pigs off.

By this time the entire platoon of Korean troops on the ground were standing directly beneath the helicopter, staring up at this incredible sight. There was no way I could let the bird down without squashing a dozen or so of them.

**Huey Open For Pigs and Corn (Guy’s Didn’t Have Doors)**

Fortunately, I guess, the pigs got so agitated that they started knocking bags of corn loose from the pile on the floor. Despite the lurching gyrations of the Huey, as loose corn joined leaves and brush flying everywhere, raining down on the troops, the aircraft lost enough cargo weight that the rotor quit bleeding RPM.

As the rotors finally cleared the canopy, I actually thought we were going to make it out alive, and I started to ease the control stick forward, desperate to pick up some airspeed. Too soon. The front ends of the skids caught in the branches and I thought we were going to nose it in right there.

The Aircraft Commander grabbed the controls away from me and yanked the power control up. This succeeded in breaking the skids free of the trees, but also put an excessive load on the already dangerously slow rotor. Turned out, though, it was the tail rotor that was really trying to kill us, because by this time it had also slowed so much that it was impossible to counteract the overtorque on the main rotor.

I never knew until that day that a helicopter could whirl around after running out of tail rotor control and still remain flying. The books say it can’t. But I guess I wouldn’t be telling you this story if it the books were right.

We spun a pair of clockwise gyrating rotations as the Huey plunged down the valley side, skimming the canopy and slinging bags of corn and two of those damn pigs far and wide. As the aircraft fell sideways, the rotor slid into undisturbed air and the bird began to get enough airspeed to re-establish directional control. Even still, it took about four more hairy minutes to nurse enough airspeed and altitude to finally climb out of that valley and start back to Nha Trang.

We had nearly lost four American aircrew members and a million-dollar aircraft, costing about $1,000 per hour to operate, trying to rescue maybe $50 worth of corn and pigs. All of this so the little orphans could appreciate the humanitarianism of our war effort. As it was, we only got about half of the total loot to its final destination.

I figured it would have been cheaper and far more sensible if the Koreans had just shot the pigs, burned the corn, and gone into town to buy some presents for the orphans. Hell, knowing what I do now, I would have paid for them myself. If only to have been spared the memorable experience that evening of scrubing overheated pig feces out of the helicopter cabin.

Note: As with all war stories, I swear that every word of this is the exact honest truth, because you just can’t make this stuff up.

Oct 22 2018

Someone To Listen, Part 3 – 2010

Previously, I began telling stories of some of the military veteran hospice patients I was privileged to serve as a patient volunteer. Their stories continue ….

My next patient, Mr. Glenn, was a terminal cancer patient who lived with his grandson in a small house perched on a mountainside, two counties distant from my home.

**A Mountain-side House Similar to Mr. Glenn’s Home**

Glenn was articulate and ambulatory, though in considerable pain, and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. His was my introduction to the heart-breaking family dynamics so often involved in end-of-life situations.

Glenn was divorced, living in his remote house alone when his cancer was diagnosed. Since his two grown daughters each lived at considerable distance, and couldn’t be troubled to assist their dying father, the caregiving role landed squarely on his grandson. Butch was a bachelor who ran a home-improvement business in the county, but he gave up his business and moved in with his grandfather to tend him in his final days. To be able to stay at home, Butch converted his trade into making wooden wishing wells, play houses and lawn ornaments to support himself and his grandfather from home.

**A Wishing Well Similar to Butch’s Handiwork**

The maturity and good spirits of this young man always impressed me enormously. Whenever I arrived for my weekly visit with Glenn, Butch would cheerfully greet me in the driveway, standing beside his truck, ready to go down the mountain for his weekly grocery shopping trip. He never gave any indication that he felt imposed upon by the situation, the burdens of caring for his grandfather, or the abandonment of responsibility by the rest of his family. Our time together was limited to his departure and return from his weekly supplies run, but I always saw in him a degree of love and caring rare for someone so young.

My visits with Glenn were always enjoyable. Even in his pain, his sharp mind clearly showed through. He had been a chemical engineer who joined the Navy in 1940. His first project was to perfect a process to stabilize red phosphorous, so it could finally be used as a primer for explosives.

He turned his patent over to the US government and was rewarded with a commission in the US Navy. Following Pearl Harbor, he was rushed to the Aleutian Islands as a brand-new Lieutenant Commander to command a tiny outpost “defending” his microscopic island from Japanese invasion.

**The Aleutian Islands Where Mr. Glenn Did His War Service**

Glenn always spoke of the Aleutians in derogatory terms, declaring that the worst thing we could have done to the Japanese Empire was to let them have the useless islands, and spend their resources defending them from invasion. He seemed disappointed that the attack never came, so he could have abandoned his rock to their hapless troops. In his wry wit, he told me the Japanese were way smarter than the US Government when it came to defending islands from invasion, in the far north at least.

I remembered enough inorganic chemistry to be able to ask occasional intelligent questions, and Glenn delighted in telling me more than I ever thought I would want to know about phosphorous and the remarkable phosphate ion. Following the war, he had spent a career as a research chemist with Kodak, earning numerous patents, and he was a wealth of information about photochemistry. Every week I found myself looking forward with great anticipation to my sessions with this marvelous veteran.

**Logo of Eastman-Kodak While Mr. Glenn Was a Scientist There**

I never did learn much about the family dynamics that led to his dying of cancer on a remote mountainside with only his grandson attending him, beyond the basics. But he never showed any sort of bitterness or resentment. The mutual love between Glenn and Butch was clear in everything I saw.

Every visit, Glenn needed to rise from his recliner and use his walker to get to the bathroom. As a patient volunteer, my job was to assist him up and down, and with his walker, but nothing else. But when somebody needs more help than that, you do what needs to be done without regard to the rules. As time went by, he needed more and more help with this procedure, and I could tell that his energy was slipping away.

So, it was not really a surprise when the hospice organization called to say that he had finally passed. I never knew how well his funeral was attended, or whether any of his family besides his devoted grandson Butch were there, or even whether he received the military honors that he had earned in his wartime service. But I wrote a card of several pages to Butch, and hoped, perhaps, that a part of it was shared with at least someone who would have cared.

*********************
These World War II veterans are a national treasure that has almost completely expired now. Take every opportunity you can to warmly greet any old veterans you encounter. Spend a while with them, listen to their stories and let them know that there is someone who understands and appreciates their military service. That is really all they ask of us.

Jul 12 2018

The Beautiful Game – 2003

Truth be told, I shouldn’t be a West Point grad looking forward to his 50th reunion in 2019. My freshman year of high school was horrible, though I did rebound and end up with three years on the honor roll to follow. And my freshman year at the University of North Carolina was also pretty bad by USMA standards. And as it turned out, I barely got in on my second try earning a qualified alternate appointment. I recently served on an interview board for one of our Connecticut Congresswomen, and every candidate we interviewed was far better qualified for West Point than I ever was. So, I have always looked back on the opportunity I had to attend the Academy as a gift from God.

That’s why many of the things that mean the most to me in life almost 50 years later I attribute to either West Point or to my wife, whom I met at West Point. One of those things is my love for “The Beautiful Game” or football as the world knows it or soccer as it is called in the U.S. It all began in early September of our Plebe year when I was assigned to the D-3 intramural soccer team. As I remember it, we were gathered together on one of the playing fields down at the North Athletic Fields along the Hudson River. The Firstie in charge asked the 15 or so Plebes standing around if anyone had ever played soccer before and I think three said they had. So, they were automatically assigned to whatever position they said they were good at. When he asked if anyone wanted to play goalie I raised my hand.

I had been a baseball catcher so I thought maybe I could be a goalie, and that was it. It turns out I was actually pretty good at it! I seem to recollect that our Yearling year we made it to the Brigade championship but lost when one of our defenders accidentally deflected the ball into our own goal.

I didn’t have much opportunity to watch or play soccer once we left our Highland home, but I never lost my love for the game. After leaving active duty we moved to Vermont where I played in an adult Saturday morning summer league. I wasn’t as good as most of the younger college players, but I had fun none-the-less. And when we moved to Dallas to attend seminary I played in another league on our seminary team. I had to give up playing goalie in those leagues and played defender instead. At 5 ft. 8 in. I was never destined to be a true goalie in any case. Even while we were in Dallas I never attended a Cowboys game, but I do recall watching the U.S. National Soccer Team play Russia (I think) in the Cowboys’ stadium.

I suppose it goes without saying that my two kids, Jeremy and Lindsay, never had a choice when it came to what they were going to play growing up. They were both introduced to soccer before either of them even knew there were other options; and as it turned out they were both fairly good. They played travel soccer quite a bit and started every game of their high school careers, though they didn’t end up doing anything with it after that. But to this day my son, who’s now 40 still enjoys watching it when he can. At one point in his younger days he even imagined that he wanted to work in the brand new Major League Soccer that was just getting started in the U.S. in the mid-1990’s. He had the opportunity to spend the summer of 1997 as an intern working in the media office of the Tampa Bay Mutiny, which was one of the original teams that no longer exists now. I remember how excited I was for him when that opportunity presented itself … not knowing that one day I would have the opportunity for a similar experience myself.

The story of how that all came about is too long to tell here but suffice it to say that in all my wildest imaginings, I could never have predicted that beginning in late 2003 I would get the chance to work for three years in professional soccer in England! SCORE, which is now Sports Chaplaincy UK, consisted of two people. John, my boss, had started the organization almost 25 years earlier; and besides his full-time work as the director of SCORE, he was also the volunteer chaplain for Manchester United (ManU) Football Club. He oversaw the work of SCORE and represented the ministry in the northern half of England and to the sporting world beyond. I represented SCORE in the southern half of England and primarily worked in soccer, but we also sought to expand the concept of sports chaplaincy into other sports like rugby, cricket, tennis, motor sports, the Olympics, etc. John was the chaplain of ManU; I was the chaplain of Watford Football Club which now plays in the Premier League but was in the next lower league back then.

Basically, we helped local pastors become officially recognized as volunteer chaplains to professional sports teams throughout England. Those three years were an interesting and enjoyable time.

It began in late September of 2003 when I travelled over to England about two months ahead of Avril. This gave me time to shadow my boss for a while, and to begin getting some of our personal affairs in order over there. Two memorable things occurred during those first two months. The first was during a visit with John to the Manchester United training grounds. While waiting in line for lunch in the cafeteria, one of the players came up and followed me down the lunch line. A quick glance over and I discovered that he was none other than Ronaldo.

As a longtime soccer fan, it was all I could do to simply go through the line without gushing all over him and asking for his autograph. The second event occurred in Greece where John and I attended a world-wide sports ministry conference with over 750 people in attendance. During one seminar we were told to turn around and pray with whoever was behind us. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Ben Peterson, a wrestling gold medalist at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

**Ben Peterson, USA, 1972 Olympic Wrestler**

I had worked out with the wrestling team at UNC, and done intramural wrestling at West Point, so I knew immediately who he was.

In addition to my regular SCORE duties, I also had the opportunity to attend the 24 Hours of Le Mans road race in France. I have been an avid sports car fan for many years, so this was truly a dream come true. I’ve subsequently had the opportunity to attend two more times with the some of my guy friends from England.

As far as regular duties are concerned I had a blast. I probably attended over 75 professional soccer games during our time in England, and I think I only had to pay for one of them. In addition, in my travels around the country I was able to visit dozens of stadiums from the fantastic Anfield of Liverpool Football Club to some smaller venues like Rushdon & Diamonds made famous because the owner was the founder of the once-famous Doc Martens boot
company. I even got to visit Honda’s Formula 1 factory, which was quite fascinating.

One last humorous part of my regular duties was all the soccer that I got to watch on tv at home. Avril is not an avid sports fan, but whenever there was an important game on television all I had to do was tell her there was a game on and she would defer to me and let me watch it. That has only ever been true in all our married life during those three years in England!

Perhaps the most surreal thing that ever occurred was when Avril and I were invited to attend the British National Prayer Breakfast in Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament.

It was in the Fall of 2004 and the theme that year was ministry in business and sports. As SCORE’s representative in the South of England, I was asked to help organize the order of service for the event. One perk of that effort was that I was also invited to a formal reception in the residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons the night before the prayer breakfast. All of that was something I never saw coming.

The most poignant event that I was tangentially associated with though, was the London bombings in July of 2005. During my time in the Maine National Guard, I had become a trainer of trainers, and I had recently been doing some seminars around the country on trauma and crisis response ministry. So, it was sort of known that I had some knowledge of the subject. The afternoon of the bombings I received a phone call asking if I could meet with one of the men who attended our church. I was told that he had been on one of the subway trains that had been bombed. In helping him to talk through what had happened I discovered that he was a true hero. Because of his previous work for the railroad industry, he had helped people from the wreckage out to safety, and then gone back and aided rescue workers when they arrived by doing some triage prior to their arrival. He eventually received some formal recognition from the government for his heroism. In addition, one of the people who was killed was a young man who was an avid motor sports fan with some interesting connections. As it happened, I ended up attending his funeral the day we were supposed to have lunch to discuss some future ministry plans.

One of my favorite Bible verses for many years comes from Ephesians 3:20-21 which says, “To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!” God has truly done that for me. He has given me a life far more interesting than I could ever have imagined when I left North Carolina to head up to West Point back in July of 1965.

Jul 11 2018

Caring for Army Families – 2001

When I arrived in the Pentagon in June 2001, one of our biggest challenges was dealing with the Army’s old, deteriorating and insufficient number of on-post family housing units. One of the ugliest secrets in the Army was that married junior enlisted soldiers could not get housing on post. The neediest were moved to the back of the line. They were forced to live in trailer parks long distances from post often in unsavory neighborhoods–with drive-by shootings and lousy schools. This big quality of life issue was magnified when we began deploying our Soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan every other year—leaving their families in jeopardy.

The sad history of poor, scarce enlisted Army on-post housing was punctuated with the suicide of 13-year-old Danny Holley in Marina, CA outside the gates of Fort Ord in 1984. Danny’s father was serving an unaccompanied tour of duty in Korea following a transfer from Germany. He left his wife and four children at Fort Ord. They could not get housing on post and were forced to live off-post in a tiny home at an exorbitant rent. The danger signals came when Danny was found collecting bottles for tiny refunds and visiting the Army Community Services Food Pantry seeking to obtain food for himself, his sister and two brothers. When he hung himself, his suicide note read: “If there is one less to feed, maybe things can be better”.
When the Army considered the situation further, it was learned that there were 37 Army families living in tents on camp grounds at Fort Ord. This tragic incident was one spark that motivated Congress ultimately to pass legislation authorizing the Department of Defense (DOD) to privatize military housing via the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996. The leadership of former Congressman Leon Panetta (Ft. Ord was in his CA District) was critical to getting this legislation passed. (Note: Secretary of Defense from 2011-2013, Leon Panetta was the 2015 Association of the U.S. Army Marshall Award Winner.)

Leon Panetta caring for army — **Congressman Leon Panetta (D, CA**)

Each uniformed service created a new or augmented an existing organization to implement the MHPI legislation. The Army’s approach was to create the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) to manage this process. When I arrived at the Pentagon, the RCI program was just beginning to take root.
RCI champions came from both sides of the aisle — but most notable was former Congressman Chet Edwards (D, TX), with the Army’s RCI Pilot Project at Ft. Hood in his district. Because it was a new program that did not quite fit the mold of established real estate projects, there was uncertainty on Wall Street and the banks were skeptical of providing debt funding to the Ft. Hood RCI Project. Chet Edwards weighed in, and lent his support both inside and outside government. As a former real estate executive, Congressmen Edwards had a unique perspective and understanding of both the governmental and the private sector requirements associated with this program. In essence, he became an important “Rosetta Stone” for governmental and commercial entities.

Chet Edwards CEO — **Congressman Chet Edwards (D, TX)**

The beauty of RCI funding is that the income stream comes from the Soldiers’ Basic Allowance for Housing. In this sense the revenue that would be available to the various projects was an entitlement as opposed to annual discretionary funding such as military construction budgets. The Army was able to select world class industry housing development partners and hired Jones Lang LaSalle (led by Dr/COL retired Barry Scribner USMA 1974) to augment the Army RCI team. We created a privatized housing acquisition center of excellence at the Baltimore District of the Corps of Engineers with outstanding attorneys and financial analysts.

A key ingredient to our success was the financial genius of my USMA 1969 classmate Tom Fagan. After over 20 years active duty and a very successful career in finance, Tom, following 9/11, agreed to lend his expertise to the Army as a civilian consultant for the program under Jones Lang LaSalle. Tom’s financial and development acumen were key to the success of the RCI program. In fact, one of the projects that he led for the Army in Hawaii was named Wall Street magazine, Project Finance’s – “Deal of the Year” in 2005.

RCI enabled the total recapitalization and expansion of the Army’s family housing inventory via a collaborative process called the Community Development Management Plan (CDMP). The CDMP took a holistic view of the residential portion of a military installation and added quality of life improvements such as neighborhood community centers, jogging trails, and new/improved schools. This could never have been accomplished under the old Corps of Engineers military construction (MILCON) method.

The next time you are on an Army post, check out the Family Housing neighborhoods…I believe you will find quality homes, in friendly neighborhoods, where you would be proud to have your children and grandchildren live.

Privatizing the Army’s family housing inventory was my proudest accomplishment as a President George W. Bush appointee in the Pentagon leading the Army’s Installations and Environment team.
Examples of Residential Communities Initiative Military Housing

Ft. Drum, NY

Ft. Stewart, GA

Ft. Lewis, WA

Ft. Rucker, AL