The Days Forward

West Point Class of 1969

Suzanne Rice

10th Anniversary Benefit – Our Place in History

I have been reflecting on what the days forward has meant to all of us. Not only has the website given everyone in our class the chance to read and enjoy memories of the experiences we have shared, but it has developed into an important archive of the collective experiences of our class during our unique point in history. Many people have written of the West Point experience and have had to do significant research to support their work. You are putting it all in one place, not only for our benefit but also for anyone who comes after us and wants to know what it was like and all the places we went. At the 55th reunion I just happened to be sitting with a classmate for dinner and realized that we had a common experience with the same general officer in two separate places, halfway around the world from each other. Those experiences should not be forgotten. Some of us made big contributions to history, others of us made small ones. All of them should be remembered. I appreciate your efforts to draw them out and memorialize them.

10th Anniversary Musings – Military Families

When I first heard about the concept for “The Days Forward”, I could actually feel the potential. I was raised in a Military family, one surrounded by relocations, separations, and the risks of flying. I knew my life was different from most kids and the feelings that came with it were different. I expected to be reintroduced to some of those feelings through “The Days Forward”, and I was not disappointed.

Not surprising for me, it was the classmate’s wife who talked about the beauty and importance of her friendships with other class wives, especially when their husbands were TDY or out in the field for days. Or worse. The wives knew there was danger, and we could feel it in the house. The bonds created by the wives were so important for all of us, regardless of our age. The friendships that carried over through the classmates, their spouses, and their children were real. They had our backs. We had theirs. It was real and it was a gift.

So, what seemed like the most tepid story was actually the memory that meant the most to me in my “Days Forward” readings.”

10th Anniversary Chronicle – West Point to the Air Force

“The Days Forward” has been a great way to understand what my Army classmates experienced in their military journey.  I went into the Air Force and saw only one classmate, who also went into the Air Force, during my military journey. I did not have the opportunity to re-connect directly with my classmates until I moved to Maryland in 1978. The Days Forward was a welcome journal of my classmates’ experiences once it was opened.  It has also provided a vehicle for me to share with my classmates’ snippets of my Air Force Journey.    We have a great class, and The Days Forward is an excellent vehicle to chronicle our accomplishments and experiences for classmates and our loved ones now and into the future.

Nardotti – Some Sadness, Some Surprises, Many Smiles – 2024

Reflections on a Trip to Cambodia and Vietnam – 50 Years After the War

     Cambodia and Vietnam are beautiful countries.  Both are fascinating.  Both are well worth the visit. 

     For me, though, there was a unique sadness in the visit to Cambodia.  The Cambodians we met were wonderful – without exception warm and friendly.  All the more reason to be shocked and saddened by the experience of the people of that country almost fifty years ago after the US left Vietnam.  Those gentle souls were subjected to the worst genocide of the second half of the Twentieth Century – through the unspeakable evil of the Communist government of Pol Pot – the Khmer Rouge – which took control of the country in 1975.  We saw the evidence of that tragedy when we visited the “Genocidal Center” near Phnom Penh – one of the better known of the approximately three hundred “Killing Fields” in Cambodia.

The bodies of almost 9,000 victims were exhumed at this site – a fraction of the estimated one and one-half to three million Cambodians who died at the hands of Pol Pot’s regime. 

Memorial to Those Who Died in the Killing Fields

That was about twenty-five percent of the population at the time.   One of our local guides was personally touched by that tragedy.  He never knew his grandparents who were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.

Local Guide who Lost His Grandparents

     The sadness of that visit, however, did not overtake our trip.  When we traveled north, we visited several extraordinary historical sites.  The most impressive of these to me was Angkor Wat – the astonishing Hindu-Buddhist temple complex.  I still have difficulty conceiving how – eight hundred years ago – well before the age of machines – those Cambodian ancestors were able to lift, move, and assemble millions of tons of sandstone blocks (from 25 miles away) into such remarkable structures.  We were told it took six thousand slaves and three thousand elephants.  Even that doesn’t seem enough!  The walls include meticulously carved reliefs illustrating scenes for Indian literature.  Truly extraordinary – well beyond a surprise!

Angkor Wat

     Cambodia today, though, is “on the way” to thriving.  I say “on the way” because its neighbor, Vietnam, is clearly thriving.  Cambodia is working hard to catch up.  The population today is close to 17 million.  They are clearly on the upswing. 

     Vietnam was a different story economically – and a surprise.  The socialist/communist government tried collectivization for a number of years following the end of the war with the US.  Ultimately, they jettisoned that approach in favor of a market economy.  Saigon (I still can’t bring myself to say “Ho Chi Minh City”) and Hanoi are booming! 

Hanoi (HO Chi Min City) Today

     Given the regional challenges posed by a bullying China, Vietnam has wisely sought to develop better relations with the US.  That is certainly evident in their approach to tourism.  It seemed to me that our Vietnamese tour guides were exceptionally attentive to US sensibilities.   When we toured war museums, we were politely cautioned that the displays were from the Vietnamese perspectives on the “American” War – just one of a number that the Vietnamese have fought against outsiders.  Even during our visit to the “Hanoi Hilton”, where the late Senator and Presidential Candidate John McCain was imprisoned, we saw evident changes.  Previously, his cell as a prisoner had been preserved as an exhibit.  Although there are photos of then-Lieutenant Commander McCain as a POW, the cell exhibit is gone.  Perhaps, Vietnamese officials felt that the photos alone were sufficient.   There was no reason – given the improving relations with the US – to “put a finger in the eye of the US” with the cell exhibit. 

     Two other surprises to note.  I expected to see at least some subtle government effort to suppress religion – particularly Catholicism.  While there are clearly limits, it appears that the Church in Vietnam is healthy and perhaps even growing.  The Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, established by French colonists in the nineteenth century – now officially known as the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception – is currently undergoing renovations unimpeded.  That was an unexpected surprise.

Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception
Statue of Our Lady, Queen of Peace

     One final unexpected surprise was a humorous and honest observation about politics by one of our guides.  He said, “We have elections every five years – just for laughs – forty candidates – no choices”! 

     Finally – the smiles – there were plenty of them!  While the Cambodians seemed to be a bit shy about being photographed, the Vietnamese seemed to enjoy the opportunities, especially when we asked to be photographed with them.  My only regret is not getting some email or other addresses to send the photos to them.  I’m sure they would produce even more smiles!

Smiles of the Vietnamese People

      In all respects, it is was a truly worthwhile experience.

Morelock – 9-11 – Rising from the Ashes – 2001

The venue from which I learned of the attack on the Twin Towers and then watched it unfold on TV is haunted by an eerie coincidence of shared fiery destruction and subsequent Phoenix-like rising from the ashes.

         Like our parents and grandparents who remembered exactly where they were and precisely what they were doing when they first heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 (killing 2,403 US military, mostly US Navy sailors, and civilians while wounding 1,178 others), we members of the Long Gray Line surely vividly recall where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001 when we learned of the deadliest terrorist attack in history. The coordinated hijacking of four commercial airlines by 19 Islamist terrorist destroyed all four aircraft, both World Trade Towers and a large section of the Pentagon’s west wall, while killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more. Modern communications technology and today’s 24/7 saturation news coverage of breaking events stimulate our recollections through vivid images as those of us who learned early of the initial attack watched the horrific events unfold in near real time on live television – feeling shocked, frustrated and helpless at not being able to shoot back.

Yet, my own recollections of the attacks are further haunted by an eerie historical coincidence that links the 9-11-01 attacks to the venue from which I watched it unfold that morning: like the Trade Towers and the Pentagon, the historic building I watched the attacks from had earlier been totally destroyed through fiery inferno and a rain of flaming destruction falling from the sky – twice! – but each time it had been destroyed by flames and explosions, it had risen, Phoenix-like, from its ashes. But it was only after the September 11 twin towers (resurrected as One World Trade Center) and the damaged Pentagon targets also “arose Phoenix-like from their ashes” years later that the ironic coincidence between the 9-11-01 attacks and the venue from which I watched it unfold, the twice-destroyed-twice-arisen Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury struck an eerie, haunting chord with me.

On September 11, 2001, I was working in my office just over one year into my first post-retirement job as the Executive Director of the Winston Churchill Memorial & Library (today its title is The National Churchill Museum) located on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (population 12,000).

Jerry at the Entrance of the Churchill Memorial and Library1

The Churchill Memorial, officially opened in 1969, was established to memorialize the site of Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech (he titled it then, “Sinews of Peace”) which he (accompanied by US President Harry S. Truman) delivered at Westminster College on March 5, 1946 warning that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe separating the western democracies from the Soviet Union’s totalitarian communist dictatorship and its puppet states.

Churchill Statue, Church Tower and Bell Cupola in 2001

In 1964, College officials and other supporters located what they considered an appropriate venue within which to house the Churchill Memorial – the Blitz-bombed, roofless remains of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, which then sat in London about a quarter-mile northeast of world-famed St. Paul’s Cathedral. London city officials and the British government granted permission for the remains of the church to be moved to Fulton, where the church was meticulously reassembled and carefully restored to its pre-Blitz-bombing design.

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury dates back to a parish church originally built in the 12th century but which was destroyed by a fiery inferno in the September 1666 Great Fire of London which gutted the old medieval City of London.

London in Flames 1666 (Artist unknown, 1675)

The church’s first “Phoenix-like” rising from those ashes occurred in the 1670s when it was redesigned and rebuilt by the famed English astronomer, mathematician, physicist and architectural genius, Sir Christopher Wren as one of the 52 London churches he undertook in the rebuilding of post-Great Fire London. Wren’s redesigned, rebuilt, rededicated Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, which also incorporated foundation stones and crypt steps from the original 12th century parish church, was completed in 1677. There it stood for nearly 300 years — until the night of December 29-30, 1940.

In accordance with Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler’s directive to concentrate the Luftwaffe’s ongoing Blitz bombings of England on area/terror bombing, 136 German bombers dropped 100,000 incendiary bombs on London that night, targeting mainly non-residential areas containing mostly public buildings such as churches and government offices. Although that targeting meant civilian casualties were uncharacteristically light (160 killed, 500 wounded), the December 29-30, 1940 Luftwaffe raid destroyed or heavily damaged hundreds of buildings, burning out a larger area than the 1666 Great Fire, causing it to be deemed “The Second Great Fire of London.” This is the same Blitz raid that damaged St. Paul’s Cathedral which is famously seen burning in Herbert Mason’s iconic photo that’s been described as “a symbol of togetherness, survival and suffering.”

St Paul’s Survives: Herbert Mason’s photograph of St. Paul’s Cathedral taken on 29/30 December 1940

But St. Paul’s was more fortunate than the Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury which was completely gutted and left roofless by the incendiary bomb’s conflagration. From that night in 1940 until the remains and all usable stones of St. Mary’s were shipped to Fulton in 1965 to be rebuilt and restored, the church was left a smoke-blackened ruin consisting of little else but a foundation and four walls.

The Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury’s second Phoenix-like rising from its ashes took place from 1965 to 1969 when its stones – including some of the foundation stones and crypt steps of the original 12th century parish church – were shipped to Fulton and meticulously rebuilt to Wren’s original design as an active church and to house the Winston Churchill Memorial & Library. It was dedicated in 1969. Noted Wren biographer, Lisa Jardine (On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren, Harper, 2003), calls this rebuilt church in Fulton the most “authentic” Wren church standing today since it was rebuilt exactly to Wren’s 1677 specifications (i.e. none of the unnecessary changes the well-meaning but self-absorbed and esthetically-ignorant Victorians had made, such as the kitschy stained-glass windows they added to replace Wren’s original, characteristic clear-glass windows, were included in the restored church).

Reconstructed Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury in Fulton, MO2

Therefore, in an ironic historical coincidence with the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks, the church twice arose from its ashes just as One World Trade Center and the damaged Pentagon did out of the rubble of the terrorist attack. Yet, that eerie “connection” to the September 11 attacks occurred to me some years later and was not my initial reaction when my Churchill Memorial Curator and Assistant Director breathlessly pushed through the door into my office located in the church’s undercroft (a fancy name for “church basement” which contains the Memorial offices, the Churchill Museum, the Library collection of books and Churchill papers and the Clementine Churchill Reading Room) around 8 a.m. (Central Time) that day exclaiming, “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!” He then quickly raced back out, heading to the staff offices’ TV set to watch more of the unfolding coverage.

I was just then putting finishing touches on a Power-Point slide show for a presentation I was to make to the RAF Eagle Squadron Association, the group of WWII American fighter pilot veterans who’d volunteered in 1940-1941 before the US entered WWII and flew for the RAF in the Battle of Britain in 1940-1942, then were amalgamated into the US Army Air Forces in September 1942.

American Pilots of No. 71 Eagle Squadron Rush to Hawker Hurricane, 17 March 1941

Given the RAF Eagle Squadron’s and the Churchill Memorial’s Church of St. Mary’s obvious connection to the Blitz, the church earlier had been designated the squadron association’s “official chapel.” I was scheduled to fly to Reno, Nevada the next day to address their reunion at Lake Tahoe and, especially, get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to interview these heroic veterans, so I was working against the clock to get my slide show done. Needless to say, with all commercial flights soon grounded, my trip to Lake Tahoe and attendance at the Eagle Squadron reunion and a chance to get historic interviews never took place.

My immediate reaction to my Curator’s breathless announcement about “a plane crashed into the World Trade Center” was, typically, the historian in me quickly thinking of historical precedents (I’d managed to get a Master’s and a PhD in history while on active duty, spent my last five years active duty tour, 1994-1999, as head of the history department at Ft. Leavenworth’s Command & General Staff College, and was then also teaching history courses at Westminster as an adjunct professor in addition to my Executive Director “day job”). So, being naturally history-minded, my first reaction was to mutter “Not again!” as I recalled the July 28, 1945 aircraft crash accident in New York City in which a US Army Air Forces B-25D-20 Mitchell medium bomber with a crew of 3 flying in heavy fog crashed at 9:40 a.m. that day into the north side of the Empire State Building – then the world’s tallest building until, ironically, the World Trade Center’s first tower was topped out in 1970 – embedding itself into the building in the 18-by-20-foot hole the crash had created between the 78th and 80th floors.

B-25 BOMBER CRASHES INTO EMPIRE STATE BUILDING [9:40 a.m. JULY 28, 1945]

 The crash killed 14 people, including all 3 crewmen, and injured two-dozen more. That was the only “historical precedent” that came to my mind  but that “another accident” thought vanished when my Curator raced back into my office a few minutes later crying out, “Another plane just crashed into the World Trade Center’s other tower!” It then became obvious that these two plane crashes were definitely not accidents – clearly, the Twin Towers had been the targets of a planned, coordinated attack, presumably the work of some as-yet-unidentified terrorist organization.

         Immediately ending my speculation on “accidental plane crashes” historical precedents, I dropped everything I was working on for the Eagle Squadron speech and raced to the staff offices’ TV set to watch the minute-by-minute news coverage. We watched in disbelief as the deadly attacks’ time-line was repeatedly recounted by stunned TV anchors and on-scene reporters, then looked on in shock and horror as the attacks continued to play out: 8:46 (Eastern time) – North Tower crash (American flight 11); 9:03 – South Tower crash (United flight 175); 9:37 – Pentagon crash (American flight 77); 10:03 — Flt 93, Stonycreek Township, PA crash (United flight 93). Later, the tally of casualties was determined to be 2,977 victims killed (plus 19 dead Al-Qaeda jihadist terrorist hijackers – 15 of them Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese, and two UAE citizens) and thousands of victims injured (representing 102 countries).

I later found out that among the 125 victims killed while working in the Pentagon that day (in addition to the 64 passengers, crew and hijackers on flight 77 of course) was Lt. Col. ret. Gary F. Smith, a 55-year-old DA civilian in the Army staff’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (ODCSPER) who was attending a meeting with his boss in an office unfortunately located at flight 77’s point of initial impact along the Pentagon’s west wall. Gary was my friend and officemate for three years during a previous Pentagon tour in ODCSPER’s Leadership Division when both of us were still on active duty.

My friend Gary features in a final, unexplainable September 11 coincidence I experienced on the attack’s one-year anniversary. As an ex officio member of the Westminster College cabinet, I regularly attended the weekly cabinet meetings in the college president’s conference room. Since that week’s meeting occurred on September 11, 2002, it coincided with an ongoing ceremony of remembrance, organized by the college students, which was taking place on campus grounds, consisting of shifts of students reading aloud over a loudspeaker the long list of names of all 2,977 9-11-01 fatality victims, listed alphabetically. After the cabinet meeting had adjourned and at just the exact moment I happened to walk outside, I heard read over the loudspeaker, “…Gary F. Smith, the Pentagon…”

Rest In Peace, Gary, and all victims of the 9-11 attacks

1 The undercroft of the Christopher Wren-designed Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury houses

the National Churchill Museum, staff offices, and a gift shop.

2 In 1965-1969, the London church was moved to Fulton, Missouri’s Westminster College campus, rebuilt with original foundation stones and restored to its 1677 Christopher Wren design to house the Winston Churchill Memorial & Library.