Suzanne Rice

Nov 16 2021

Country – My Friend Ed – 2010

I, like my WP ’69 classmates, have had the good fortune during my military and civilian careers to have met some really remarkable individuals along the way. For me, one of the most memorable was Edward M. Feldman, Lt. Commander, USNR, DO, USN Medical Corps.

I met Ed through my wife who was one of his patients when we lived in Westlake Village, CA. During her initial visit with Ed, when he was taking her medical history, she mentioned that I was former military and West Point grad. Ed stated that he was also former military and that we should get together some time. My wife and I both thought that he was just being polite. Some months later I had occasion to accompany my wife on a routine visit to Ed. While I was sitting in the waiting room, a side door opened and out walked a slight gnome-like man in surgical greens. He glanced around the waiting room and when his eyes settled on me, he walked over and introduced himself. He then invited me back into his private office where we proceeded to tell Vietnam war stories. Finally, as the patient load began to back up, his head nurse came in and ran me out so Ed could get back to his medical practice!

We both enjoyed the bittersweet memories and discussion as former military are wont to do. Some of the stories we told may have even been true! At that time, I had no idea of Ed’s Vietnam history and valor.

I mentioned Ed to another of my former local military friends and he was surprised that I was not aware of Ed’s Vietnam experiences. I started to so do some research on Ed and was surprised to learn of his heroism, initiative and decorations. A truly remarkable individual. His humble demeaner had kept all of this hidden during our first meetings.

To me Ed seemed like an unlikely hero. He was a feisty small statue individual from Brooklyn, NY. Raised in the Jewish faith, he was the caricature model of brash cockiness. His stories of early life in Brooklyn were classic tough life stories. Ed decided that he would pursue medicine as a career. He earned a BS from Columbia University and obtained his DO degree from Kansas City University of Medicine, College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Like most in the late ‘50s – early ‘60s, Ed was very patriotic. His love of country led him to volunteer for the US Navy Medical Corps and to eventually volunteer for VN.

In country for only a short while, Ed volunteered to serve with the Marines at Khe Sanh. He served as one of the surgeons at Charlie Med (Khe Sanh, Marine medical facility) for the entire siege.

**Khe Sanh Marine Medical Facility, 1968**

During one of the frequent assaults a young Marine casualty was brought to Charlie Med with an 81mm mortar round imbedded in his abdomen. As the protocol at that time was to minimize the potential for more casualties, the standard practice would have been to isolate the young Marine as far as possible from other troops in case the 81mm mortar round detonated. Ed decided that this was not the way to proceed. Ed and a volunteer corpsman set up a waist high sandbag bunker around the Marine, put on flak jackets and helmets and lay over the edge of the bunker with flashlights to operate and remove the unexploded mortar round. The round was successfully removed and given to ordinance techs who took the round to the defense perimeter for detonation. No casualties.

Ed was awarded the Silver Star for this action. The young Marine recovered and lived a normal life. To my knowledge he is still alive. He remained in contact with Ed for his entire life. This selfless act by Ed caused him to become somewhat of a legend to Marine grunts, particularly Khe Sanh survivors. I had occasion to see just how much Ed was revered by Marines when I was his guest at several Marine Corps functions.

Ed’s pugnacious medical support (usually disregarding medical SOPs) of troops on the ground continued.

In Sept. ’68 (as we were enjoying football in the Fall of our First Class year) Company A, 1/61^st. Mechanized Infantry, US Army was engaged in a desperate action in VN. The company was deployed on a ridge line and about to be overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. There was a steady stream of casualty evacuations by helicopter. The casualties were taken to a Marine aid station where Ed was on duty as surgeon. As the battle continued into the evening with bad weather approaching, the Medivac missions would have to cease due to lack of visibility. One of the pilots asked for a corpsman to volunteer to return to the battle site and remain overnight as the besieged company no longer had any functional medics. Ed decided that his presence at the battle site would be more effective than a corpsman so he volunteered to fly out to the site and remain as long as he was needed. A very rare occurrence for a doctor to undertake such a mission.

Upon disembarking at the battle site, Ed learned that all of the company officers and senior NCOs were hors de combat. Entrenched in an M113 APC Ed decided that his own and the company’s survival depended upon obtaining effective leadership. In desperation he took tactical command of the company. He backed the remaining M113s up the ridge line, and formed a defensive perimeter. In addition to tactical command of the company he also provided medical assistance where he could. The company was relieved 2 days later.

For his actions Ed was nominated for the Medal of Honor. An excerpt of his MOH submission follows:

This is a very unusual case in which a Navy Doctor performed with conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, by voluntarily responding to a call for help from an Army Mechanized Infantry Company that was under the command of a Marine General.

On 4 September 1968, Army Company A, 1/61^st Mechanized Infantry was about to be overrun by a larger North Vietnamese Army force. Navy Lieutenant (0-3) Edward M. Feldman, Medical Corps was under no obligation by orders or command relationships to do so, risked his life by volunteering to fly through a typhoon that had grounded most aircraft to jump into a “hot” Landing Zone that was receiving heavy artillery, mortar, RPG and direct weapons fire to selflessly and repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire as he moved throughout our dispersed company to save the lives of our wounded, at times having to return fire in self-defense. Feldman eventually took operational control of A Company, when he realized most of our officers were casualties, and guided us to a better defensive position, all while under enemy fire. He then arranged and executed, while still under fire, a daring nighttime medical evacuation of the severely wounded and some of the dead. Feldman refused to be evacuated; he chose to remain with us for two more days to provide both leadership and medical support to the wounded that could not be evacuated.

By the end of this battle, when our unit and Dr. Feldman returned to our respective home bases, we learned that about 60% of our company had been killed or wounded and about 25% of our unit received decorations for valor. Unfortunately, we did not learn until some 30 years later that Dr. Feldman – whose Medical Battalion had no command relationship with our unit – was never recognized for his extraordinary heroism. That is when we started our efforts to recommend him for a Medal of Honor.

For reasons unconscionable to me, Ed was denied the MOH even after 3 resubmissions. He received the Bronze Star with Combat V.

My own conclusion was that his MOH submission was an orphan among the services. Ed was a Navy doctor, assigned to the Marines who rescued an Army unit. Neither the Navy nor Marines had any skin in the game and the Army was somewhat embarrassed. None of the politics seemed to matter to the troops whom Ed saved. They continued to resubmit the application for Ed’s MOH, the most recent resubmission being in 2017.

I became a good friend of Ed’s and was privileged to remain so until his death. I even had occasion to introduce Ed to John Feagin ’55 (whom we all knew as the head orthopedic surgeon when we were cadets) https://thedaysforward.com/tribute-to-army-docs/. They got along famously sharing a surgical scalpel project.

Poor health caused Ed to retire from his medical practice in 2016. Ed and his lovely wife, Patti, moved to a very nice retirement community near San Diego. As it was bit far for me to drive, I knew that Ed still needed the constant interservice “insults and rivalry” common to our generation. Therefore, I recruited my WP classmate, Dutch Harmeling (a San Diego resident), to fill in for me. Needless to say, Dutch and Ed immediately became friends and sharers of the military heritage (and subsequent insults).

ED’s education was a reflection of the times and he was not immersed in military lore with McAuthur’s “Duty, Honor, Country” speech thundering in his ears and thoughts-as we were. Ed’s intense love of country was born of personal, religious and family pride based on the opportunities offered in America. His love of country and its soldiers, sailors and marines was always on display. When I think of the definition of patriot – I think of Ed Feldman.

Ed passed away from complications of Agent Orange and was buried at Miramar National Cemetery on 17 Oct. 2017. Dutch and I were able to attend his military funeral. While Ed was not a grad, I have not met anyone along the way who lived and practiced the West Point motto of Duty, Honor, Country more than Ed. Of all the remarkable individuals who walk the halls of my memory, Ed is one of the best and deserving of a toast when next you reminisce about Viet Nam.

Nov 16 2021

Honor – Honesty – 1973

While I may think I have always been scrupulously honest, I must admit that I have a mischievous streak in me. That might have come from a record my parents and us kids listened to in the 1950s. Tom Lehrer was a Harvard math professor, but on the side, he composed and sang songs about people who did, let us say, strange things.

I think my father must have told my mother about my refusal to submit a false Morning Report when I commanded an Engineer Construction Company at Fort Benning, Georgia. That is the subject of another story https://thedaysforward.com/defining-moment-1972/ For a few months after I left command, I was farmed out to the Post Engineers while I finished an M.B.A. program before reporting to the Engineer Advanced Course. Home on leave at West Point that Easter, I brought my mail with me as I left the post. I had a bill from BankAmericard—now VISA. My bill was probably less than $100. When I opened it, there was also another bill in the envelope, for some other person. Obviously, it was a mistake. The bill was for just over $3,000. So, I asked my mother if I could borrow $3,000, and showed her the bill, but I covered up the name on the bill. When she asked why I had run up such a debt, I made up an on-the-fly a story about how as a Company Commander I had purchased a TV, a stereo and sound equipment and furniture for my Company’s Day Room, writing a check for zero dollars but saying I had enclosed the full amount each month. Now I had been found out. My younger sisters were hearing this, too. They all were aghast.

I was horrified that they seemed to actually believe this ridiculous story. In a way, I was also annoyed. Then, I showed them the name and address on the invoice, and then wrote to BankAmericard telling them that they had sent someone else’s bill along with mine, and that they shouldn’t penalize him because he didn’t have his bill to pay.

Some years later I hurriedly wrote a check for $300 to a mutual fund account. I wrote it on a Saturday and put it in our mailbox, and it was picked up a few minutes later. The next Saturday, the mutual fund responded that they had credited my account $10,000. I called them immediately, but the person on duty on a Saturday said I had to talk to someone during the regular workweek for something like that. So, I did, and I called again a month later, and again a month after that. When I got my checking account statement and cancelled checks, I found that I had not signed the check, but it was cashed for the $300. Finally, I got a notice that the mutual fund had taken the extra $9,700 plus earnings out of the account.

Not long after that, I deposited a check in an ATM machine after business hours. Out came the receipt and two twenty-dollar bills. I called the bank the next morning, told them what happened and asked them to deduct that money from my checking account. I got a very nice letter from the bank, which I still have, thanking me for my honesty.

My young daughter found a watch one time when we were swimming in Lake Ontario. She wanted to keep it, but I told her that it belonged to someone else, so we should turn it in to the lost-and-found. Unfortunately, after a week, one of the lifeguards took it for himself. When I complained about that, it was returned to the lost-and-found box, but it was never given to my daughter. No one but the person who lost it will ever know where it was lost, but my daughter knows my stand on the issue.

Then, there’s the Internal Revenue Service. I had to file an amended return for 2015 because my military retired pay for November and December of that year, all of 2016 and eight months of 2017 had just been declared non-taxable because I had contracted prostate cancer from exposure to Agent Orange in Viet Nam. I was getting Veterans Administration compensation, which is also non-taxable, starting in November of 2015. It took a long time, but the Army confirmed that it was combat related. So, my Army Retirement pay had been converted to Combat Related Special Compensation, which is not taxed, based on the same date of my VA compensation. I kept getting that until December of 2018. Since my pay is based on mostly Army Reserve service, it was less than VA compensation, so all of it was now non-taxable. Knowing that the money I paid each month into a Survivor Benefit Plan for my wife was already not taxed, I asked for a refund on taxes paid on the balance for those two months. The IRS gave me back money based on the full amount of my pay for those two months. I’m sure it’s not often that a taxpayer wants to give back some money to the IRS. It is also somewhat complicated, as it was only in the first year that this was an issue. I wrote them explaining that they had given me back money that had never been taxed in the first place. After more than two years of back and forth letters with them, I finally spoke to someone from the IRS, who claimed he understood, but said that the amount of money was within their tolerance, so thanks for the honesty, I’ll put a note in your file, but you can forget about it. The IRS was not going to want the money back.

But once again, the whole truth had been won.**

**Guiding principles from the The West Point Cadet Prayer

O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural. Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of All. Amen.

Oct 24 2021

Combat Related Special Compensation – 2021

A number of my classmates and I have diseases related to exposure to Agent Orange* in Viet Nam. I urge those who were wounded and those have those diseases to pay special attention, because most of them are missing out on a great benefit.

Like my father, all three of his sons were in the military. Dad, USMA ’38, served 35 years on active duty. A World War II veteran of the Pacific Theater, he was on the second plane into Japan after the surrender. He was in Viet Nam for only a few days, touring the South Vietnamese Military Academy when he was the Dean of the Academic Board. When a sniper fired at those in his jeep, Major Dave Palmer, who accompanied him, fired at the sniper. Dad credits him with saving his life. Palmer wrote the Military Art pamphlet, “Revolution in America” that we used as cadets. Palmer later became the Superintendent. Dad died at the VA Hospital in Montrose, NY. My mother could not take care of him any longer, as Alzheimer’s Disease took its toll. I’m not aware that he had any VA compensation, but they were there for him at the end.

**Jannarone Family (from left: Dick, GEN Jannarone, Jack and Bob) with mother and sisters**

My older brother Jack, USMA ’65, served 22 years in the Air Force. He was in Viet Nam around the same time I was, ’70 to ’71. Near the time of his retirement, Hodgkin’s lymphoma was first detected, but not treated. Since he was still on active duty at the time, after a lot of effort on his part, the Air Force took responsibility. The VA declared him 100% disabled for a time, but then downgraded him to below 50% after a while. When he applied, he had to agree that the amount of his military retired pay up to the amount of VA compensation had to be waived. So, in those days, the late 1980s, some of his paychecks were taxable, and some (VA) were not. I’m not sure of the numbers, but, for example, if he were getting $2500 a month retired pay from the Air Force, and the VA compensation were $1500, he was still getting $2500 a month, but only $1000 was taxed. Over time, the treatments he received for Hodgkin’s disease caused other problems, so he has been evaluated numerous times by the VA, and his rating has been changed several times. Still, he like many others, is not very happy with the VA because it seems like they are always trying to downgrade his application, often defying their own rules for achieving a particular rating.

The laws relating to Concurrent Receipt of Disability Pay (CRDP), which is taxable, and a newer Combat Related Special Compensation (CRSC) which is not taxed, and the amounts that are tax free have changed several times in the past fifteen or so years. Those who were able to have CRDP (taxable) were very happy because they could now get all of their retired pay plus the non-taxable VA compensation.

Several years later when CRSC came into being, Jack found out and applied for CRSC through the Air Force. It took the Air Force fewer than two months to approve his request. They notified Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). So now, as he describes it, he gets Military Retired Pay (taxable) and CRSC (non-taxable), both from DFAS, and VA compensation (non-taxable). The CRSC amount is the same as his VA amount.

I am the second son, but I’m going to treat my younger brother next. Dick turned down his appointment to USMA, opting instead for an ROTC Scholarship to Princeton. He served over six years, mostly in Germany, before embarking on a career in sales, mostly jet aircraft to other countries. He was never in a combat zone, so when he got prostate cancer, and ultimately died from it, there was never a question of VA compensation.

I had a stroke the day my brother died. I have aphasia. For a while, I couldn’t write, do math, figure anything out. I’m still not right, and that is my most serious health problem, but it has nothing to do with my military career. But since my brother died from prostate cancer, my urologist kept a close eye on me. When I had symptoms, he was right on it, and a surgeon removed my prostate.

I had 5 years active duty and 28 years in the Army Reserve. So, I got military retirement pay at age 60, based on 11 equivalent years of active duty. I went to the Pennsylvania Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) to apply for VA compensation. One thing they asked was what my military retired pay amount was. I’m not sure why. They filled out the paperwork, and after a few months I got a lot of (to my mind, confusing) letters, ultimately saying I got VA compensation starting the first of the month after I submitted paperwork and I didn’t owe anything to DFAS. My only complaint with VA is they didn’t notify me about downgrading my rating several years later, so I had no chance to respond.

I met my older brother almost a year to the day after I filed for VA compensation. He was coming from Highland Falls to visit his son who lives near me, in Lancaster, PA. I was going to rendezvous with my daughter and grandkids in the Poconos. So, we met at a diner halfway. He asked if I got CRSC. I didn’t know. When I got home, I saw that I had CRDP, which is the first step. Looking at what I got from Pennsylvania DVA, I saw that I should have applied for CRSC after the first series of letters. They gave me the number for DFAS. So, I called DFAS. They told me I needed to contact my service—in my case, the Army.

I got a number from DFAS for US Army Human Resources Command (HRC). The person answering said to do it online. There was a problem with the software, so I couldn’t download it. A software engineer here was finally able to give me a form that I could write on. I filled it out, and nine months later got the approval. Get that – nine months later.

So, the next month, DFAS gave me a new Retiree Account Statement that said I had no taxable income. My Gross Pay was less that VA compensation, so all of it was now non-taxable. Until that time, monthly payments to the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) were taken from Gross Pay, (and therefore were not taxed) along with Income Tax Withholding, to result in Net Pay. There was no provision for DFAS to take money from CRSC to pay for SBP, so I was billed monthly for SBP. But after about six months there was a new provision signed into law that said DFAS could do so, and they did. But they gave me a form to show how much of my income should be adjusted for those payments.

So, you folks who are in this situation, that is, those who have a Military Pension and have a wound or a condition caused by exposure to Agent Orange in Viet Nam, should apply to HRC online. In the search box next to the login box in the upper right, type in “Apply for CRSC.” It will tell you what to do. Fill out DD Form 2860 (the download problem is now fixed) and wait. Hopefully that wait is not as long as mine.

**Aerial herbicide spray missions in South Vietnam 1965-1971**

But there’s more. Again, laws keep changing. When my brother first filed amended IRS returns because some of his income that had been taxed was declared non-taxable, he referred to an IRS Ruling 78-161, known as the Strickland Decision. He was not aware of CRDP, so he was very concerned that I was getting both VA compensation and my whole military gross pay. He searched for more than a month, so did I, about what paperwork was required to file an amended return for me. Online search was not helpful. The VA didn’t know. Neither did American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association, or Military Officers Association of America. The Pennsylvania DVA told me I definitely could not do it.

But you can. Finally, my brother found it. I told the Pennsylvania DVA, and they responded with thanks, and said all their service officers would have this information to pass on to those who applied for VA benefits with them. I also wrote the American Legion, telling them that their service officers should get that training, but got no response.

Once you get your approval from HRC, which will say that you get CRSC from the date of your VA compensation, you can amend your returns for the last five years, if you need to. You can just go the IRS website and in the search box type in “Special Tax Considerations for Veterans” and you will see the two situations involved. My brother had the first situation as his VA compensation kept changing. Mine, and probably yours, will be the second, where you have CRDP and have now been approved for CRSC.

In my case, I was approved for CRSC in August of 2017, based on my VA approval date of 1 November 2015. I filled out 1040Xs for 2015 and 2016 right away. I had to wait until 2017 taxes were submitted the usual way before I was allowed to file an amended return for that year. In each case, it took another nine months or more to collect my refund. I got back around $15,000 altogether.

For 2015, the IRS gave me back more than they were supposed to. There’s more about that in another story about honesty. It’s so sad that people know just one little part of the whole, and when confronted with a pretty unique situation, can’t reason it out.

*Agent Orange was a tactical herbicide the U.S. military used to clear leaves and vegetation for military operations mainly during the Vietnam War.

Oct 11 2021

Dinner with Friends – 1970’s

Many American military posts might be considered remote to some who live in the large metropolitan areas of the U.S. Those who have been assigned to foreign countries often can feel isolated from familiar scenes, foods and language. Military families learn to take advantage of the special opportunities in remote areas to make their own fun. Though I would not consider Ft. Sill, Oklahoma a remote area, it is about an hour away from the next larger city (Oklahoma City) and two hours away from Dallas, TX. In 1974, there were some, but not many fast-food restaurants, department stores or specialty shops. For anything very exotic, the big cities were the place to go. For many of us at the time, those excursions were few and far between because most families had only one car and that one car was in use for work each weekday.

       To entertain ourselves and to enjoy the company of old and new friends, we started a monthly Supper Club. Initially, it was six couples also attending the Field Artillery Advanced Course – all of whom happened to have been classmates at West Point in the Class of 1969. As we began the club, we decided to make it an international dinner club. Each month, the couple hosting the dinner at their home would tell those attending what the theme would be and each couple would bring a complimentary dish to add to the meal. It could be quite a puzzle finding the ingredients to some of the international dishes, since there were few options for ingredients besides the commissary on post or a couple of small grocery stores – there were no internet purchases available or international groceries in which to shop. Substitutions were often required.
     We had an Oriental dinner one month for which we chose a recipe called “Spring Soup”. It was odd to read the recipe and maybe, even odder to eat – made of peas and lettuce! Never made that recipe again. We had to find a special butcher to prepare the meat needed for the entrée, but we had a fun evening tasting the delicacies.
     When dinner was over, we played some games. We made up a game we called the “Dictionary Game” that we loved and made us laugh ourselves silly. One couple once had a scavenger hunt around their house, clues and all, and we spent a lot of time looking under the furniture and behind the curtains for our prizes. Weren’t they brave to let us look everywhere – didn’t find any dust or anything out of place. They must have spent a busy week cleaning the house besides preparing our dinner.
     The dinner parties were so successful that several years later, after most of the men had gone to graduate school, we arrived at West Point to teach in various departments and the Supper Club was resumed. It was a slightly different set of six couples, but most of the same old crowd. For most of the dinners, the wives and husbands worked together to determine the menu and to prepare and serve the food at their home each month. At one dinner, the men decided that at the next get-together, they would do the preparations without help from their wives. Sounds great!!

By this time, the dinners had lost their international flair. Surrounded by the mountains of the Hudson Highlands, West Point was more isolated than Ft. Sill.

Fort Sill Location — **West Point Environs – The Hudson Highlands**

The “guys” dinner was to take place at the Rice home, so Bill took the lead with the entrée. He asked for my cookbooks and proceeded to look through them to find just the recipe he wanted to make – with no help from me. He, eventually, found just what he was looking for. He liked the photo of the entrée and picked…Beef Wellington. I read the recipe and innocently asked if he was sure he would like to make that recipe. “Of course.” was the immediate response. I did the shopping, but he was in charge of the rest of the preparations.

beef Wellington — **Elegant Beef Wellington**

On the day of the dinner, I was to spruce up the house while Bill spent his time in the kitchen. Our 18th-month-old daughter was, for the first time in her life, propped up on the couch to watch Sesame Street and whatever else followed on the public television station. It worked well; she loved it! It was soon clear that Bill needed some help in the kitchen. It was a small kitchen, more like a short hallway with no room for even a table, so trying to roll out the crust for the large beef tenderloin turned out to be quite a task; the rolled-out crust was so large that there was no room in the refrigerator to keep the crust cool until it was needed. Since it was November and a cold day, we finally hit upon a great idea – cover the crust and place it on the picnic table in the fenced-in backyard until it was needed. First, the beef and the duxelles had to be cooked and then those small stuffed tomatoes in the photo in the cookbook. There was no recipe for the tomatoes, but they were pretty so Bill made up a recipe. By the time of the dinner, we had both been in the kitchen for eight hours and could barely keep awake to serve and eat dinner. Our guests said it was delicious.

I don’t remember what all the other men brought to complement the Beef Wellington. Dessert did stand out – all these years later. It was Bananas Foster – flaming bananas. Fancy!

It was tasty but had just a little glitch… when it flamed up, the fire went so high that it scorched our dining room ceiling. We lived in the Gray Ghost quarters on West Point and were quite concerned that we would be fined when we left for our next assignment. Luckily, the inspector didn’t notice!

Remembering Marianne 1945-2021

Oct 08 2021

Pro Deo et Patria – Country – 2021

Of the three hallowed words that comprise our beloved motto, I would in this article like to write about “Country” and what that word means to me.

I have always thought that I lived one of the most blessed childhoods that any kid could ever want. Though to me I was simply living the only life I knew, yet it was in many ways magical and surreal. That’s because I was born into and raised in the Army. I was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, and raised mostly in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with overseas stints in Panama and Okinawa. From 1954 to 1957, we lived in Fort Gulick in the Canal Zone in Panama … and for an eight-, nine- and ten-year-old, it was a fantastic place to live. We lived in a nice house on a corner lot and across the street in front of my house was a jungle with wild banana trees and vines to swing on and iguanas to chase.

**Jungle with Banana Trees** (photo by Kelley Rees CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com)

**An Iguana to Chase** (Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com)

And across the street next to my house was the post theater with free cartoons every Saturday morning. And then a block away behind our house was the post swimming pool. Oh, and beyond the jungle was Gatun Lake, which at the time was purported to be the largest man-made lake in the world. It was, simply put, a glorious place to live.

**Arrow marks where Ray Lived** (courtesy of Bill Roddy)

You might at this point in my story wonder what any of that has to do with the subject of Country; to me it had everything to do with it. How it happened I don’t really know but for as long as I can remember I always seemed to understand that the life that I was blessed to live was a result of the simple fact that my dad was a soldier in the United States Army. I understood that he was serving our country and I had this sense that what he was doing was a wonderful thing.

I think that one of the things that helped to instill these kinds of thoughts in me were the periodic trips that our family would make back to my father’s hometown in Connecticut. Plainfield was a small little mill town in Eastern Connecticut that simply was no match for some of the sights that I saw growing up. And although I absolutely loved our visits with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, I knew that I was blessed that my dad had chosen to stay in the Army after World War II rather than return to Plainfield. I loved my life, and I loved the United States of America for making my life possible.

One of my most poignant memories as a child occurred at 5:30pm when the evening cannon would go off signifying that it was time to bring the flag down at the end of the day. We did not always live close enough to hear it routinely, but sometimes we were nearby when it happened and the impression of what would happen then has stayed with me for a lifetime. Wherever you were and whatever you were doing you had to stand at attention with your hand over your heart and wait until the last note of the bugle faded away. Even if you were riding in a car, the car would stop and everyone would get out and face the direction of the flag and pay your respects. My fondest memory of such times was when we would be playing Little League games at the ball fields on the huge parade ground in the center of Fort Bragg. All the games would stop and everyone … players, coaches, umpires and spectators would all pay their proper respects to our flag. As a child I think these memories did more to instill a sense of patriotism in me then perhaps anything else.

The culmination of my childhood sense of patriotism probably occurred at the end of our first day at West Point on July 1, 1965. My decision to attend West Point was embedded in me sometime around the age of ten or eleven or twelve. From that time on, I made it my goal to pursue being an Army officer like my dad. He had not gone to the Academy, but he had told me that if I truly wanted to be an Army officer than that was the only way to go. No other way was better as far as he was concerned. So, when we raised our right hands out on Trophy Point and swore our allegiance to the Constitution and to our Country, it was for me the culmination of a childhood dream. A dream that the United States of America had made possible.

It was probably through reading the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn which impressed me with the concept of the Mississippi River as being something special. Or maybe it was one of the many movies that I went to in the post theater across the street from my house in Panama. How ever it happened as a child growing up, to me the Mississippi River meant something very special. It was sort of the dividing line in the middle of our great country which divided the East from the West. And I remember how entranced I was when I realized at the age of 29 that I was going to actually literally be crossing the Mississippi for the very first time. It was in the Spring of 1975 when I was traveling with my wife from Vermont to Texas to visit Dallas where I would be attending seminary in the Fall to study for the ministry. Since that first time I have probably crossed it a half a dozen times since, but every time I am thrilled at the prospect. The thrill I get is not just because it is so immense, but also because to me the Mississippi is that long thread from North to South that binds our Country together.

**The Mississippi River and its Tributaries Bind the Country Together** (courtesy of the National Park Service)

The final vignette which speaks of Country to me flows out of my trip that I made in July 2018 to honor our classmates who fell in Vietnam. It occurred while I was doing a recon of the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in South Minneapolis, Minnesota. The cemetery is quite large and quite beautiful with well over 200,000 graves in it. You would think that being as large as it was that it has have some rough spots here and there … but it was in fact meticulously maintained. I was so struck by its size that I drove around and took pictures from several different vantage points. Each picture that I took contains row upon row of graves as far as the eye can see, and none of the graves are duplicates in any of the pictures. Each picture is a completely separate scene.

**Views of Fort Snelling, MN** (courtesy of Ray Dupere)

I remember at one point in my tour I was quite moved to be in the presence of so many veterans’ graves. I also felt a great sense of patriotic pride as I looked around at the wonderful effort that we as a country put into remembering our fallen heroes.

“Country” to me is not just one thing but many things. It is our flag and it is our land. It is our history and it is our people. It is our founding fathers, and it is our future. It is our hopes and our dreams and our sense of being. It is simply put, the United States of America, the greatest country that has ever been thus far in the history of mankind upon this earth.