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West Point Class of 1969

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By James McDonough

Apr 28 2022

Honor: When Honor is Absent – 2006

                        The call from Governor Jeb Bush’s Chief of Staff came at 9 o’clock at night.  “Can you take over the Florida Correction’s Department at 6 am in the morning?”

            “What?” I said.  “Let me think about that.”

            “No time.  Give me an answer.  The Governor wants to know. Yes or no.”

            A few more words, than this from me.  “Well, at least let me talk with my wife, Pat, about it.  She’s right here.  I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

            “You can’t talk about it.  Not with her, not with anybody.  Yes or no.  What is it?”

            “Okay.  I’ll do it.”

            When I showed up at my new office in the morning, I couldn’t go in.  It was blocked with “Crime Scene” tape.  Later, I got the explanation for the cryptic phone call.  The former-Secretary of Corrections at the time of the call to me was talking to his corrupt deputy, who had flipped under duress from the FBI.  Wearing a wire under his shirt, he was trying to get the Secretary to say the words that would reduce his own later sentence (he got 3 years).  But the FBI was getting anxious that the Secretary was onto the treachery (but not the wire) and was about to whack him (he had invited him to go out on a rowboat with him on a remote prison-grounds lake).  They then gave the Governor the courtesy of a quick call (before they moved in) to line up a replacement – under the condition he would not share what was going on.  The Secretary didn’t whack anybody that night, but he did get eight years.

            So began my introduction to a large organization (28,000 cadre, 95,000 inmates, 155,000 probationers and parolees, 60+ prisons, and another 70 or so work camps, road camps, half-way houses, etc., and a budget of $3.5 billion.) that was corrupted from the head down.  Up until that morning I had been Florida’s top drug official (colorfully labeled ‘Drug Czar”) but had recently informed the governor of my intention to retire.  Apparently, that didn’t faze him in offering me this new ‘opportunity’. 

He did give me the courtesy of holding my initial meeting with senior staff in his conference room (it was a Saturday morning, so no one was there).  The meeting with the top 12 department officials that morning was tense; before it ended a phone call came in to the number three honcho in the department hierarchy announcing there had been a prison break in the Panhandle.  “How often does that happen?”, I asked.  “First time since I’ve been in the department” she answered.  It hadn’t taken long for the gauntlet to be thrown down.  (It was a fake, a message to the ‘new guy’ – me — that he couldn’t handle the department; we found the two ‘escapees’ four days later hiding in the attic of a warehouse inside the prison, where they had been secreted.)  A ‘resistance movement’ had already begun.

            The department had been corrupted, but by my estimate at the end of my time there was that only 10 percent or so were so involved.  Yet that was enough to make the climate toxic for everyone, not just inmates and offenders, but also for the cadre who were bullied, cajoled, or otherwise threatened to ‘play ball’ (violence by rogue cadre against rival cadre was common, as was inmate abuse).  Also corrupted (or dysfunctional) as a result were the many systems that make a corrections system run properly (medical care was poor, food service was abysmal, contracts were chaotic, maintenance was broken, and so on).  With this recognition early on, prioritizing became easy.  Figure out who the corrupt are and get rid of them, replace them with good people (and there were lots of good people in the department) and fix the operating systems.

            Week two began with a meeting called by me of the 400 ranking members of the department (all with nametags) at a central Florida town.  At 40 tables of ten apiece (which I scrambled every hour), all were introduced to me as I queried the regional leaders about their agendas and priorities, after which I talked to them from the front of the room about ethics, discipline, and behavior, liberally sprinkled with quotes right out of Bugle Notes (‘an officer on duty knows no one’; ‘…discipline is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment…’).  Some were entertained by such ideas (so much so they failed to recognize that among them were strangers who were noting their defiant under-the-breath comments at the tables — and their nametags) which helped me isolate on where to go first.  By the end of week five, the first tranche of leader departures (wardens, IG, general counsel, others for a total of 12) ensued, usually on the heels of an early morning visit by me to their presumed fiefdoms. 

            Some of this was not easy, as rural counties in Florida are bastions of Corrections Department employment, are heavily intermarried or otherwise connected with local law enforcement (Sheriff and Warden brothers-in-law is not uncommon), and not shy about contacting their political benefactors in the Florida legislature.  One of the chief goons (think of the movie “On the Waterfront”) was related to a top Florida law enforcement official and the strongest union in Florida represented the prison guards.  But bit by bit progress was made, although it took a while to uncover all the rot.

            And the rot was extensive if zany at times.  For example, inter-prison softball competition (by rival guard teams) had become an obsession.  Professional ball players were recruited as ‘officers’ but never pulled a shift.  Steroids were smuggled into the prison system.  It produced better long-ball hitters and made the dealers some money as well.  Monies for the lavish weekend ‘tournaments’ were raised by compelling guards to sell T-shirts with the team logo for $20 apiece (the guards, whose average salary was $32,000 a year, were made to pay for the shirts up front to the supplier – often the warden or another ranking official; he or she then, hopefully, could find family and neighbors to buy them in turn). Thereby, well-funded post-game celebrations, usually at pricey hotels, became wild events, not uncommonly erupting into drunken brawls between teams.

Logo of Florida Corrections for T-shirts (News4jax)

            A convicted murderer and inmate, a former doctor who killed for the ‘mob’ and who retained substantial wealth in his outside accounts, was caught (by a tapped phone line) paying a former head of the department to ‘engineer’ a prison transfer to be with his lover.  The former Secretary in this case saw no problem with that.  He was merely working for a client, in his opinion.  The transfer didn’t go through.  And it became more difficult for him to consult with inmates after I played the tape for him in my office.

            It also was dangerous from time to time.  On one occasion, we penetrated and broke a drug-smuggling enterprise in a prison in the Florida Panhandle.  Prison staff, up to highest level, in cahoots with inmates were trafficking drugs into the prison.  We caught on and broke it and on the morning after doing so, I showed up with a new warden I had selected to take over.  Although I generally was armed, guns could not be brought into the prison, where I had to go to restore order.  The SOP called for me to wear a signal alarm that with the push of a button would bring a response squad of guards on the run and the armed tower guard (with M16) to take a ready-to-fire stance and await my command.  As I moved with the new warden through the grounds, a group of about 12 inmates came out of a weight-lifting cage in the exercise yard and came toward us with seeming hostile intent.  I hit the button and the new warden hit his. No response.  The reaction squad did not appear; a glance at the tower showed me the guard there had abandoned his post.  We were on our own.  Thanks in large part to the experienced warden who immediately began to berate and threaten with severe sanctions the dozen now face-to-face with us, they hesitated.  So, I reinforced the threats and the warden one-upped me.  It was enough to give the inmates pause and they backed away.  The upshot was we had to fire a bunch more of the staff, something I had planned to do anyway, I removed all heavy weights from the prisons, replacing them with pull up bars and parallel bars and had guards lead what you would recognize as the ‘daily dozen’.

Eighteen months into the effort of reform and de-corruption, a final confrontation was a prison riot in the Everglades, where the rioters were the guards who had gotten drunk, started a bonfire, and moved with weapons to threaten the life of an uncorrupted guard who was about to come off duty; he had reported to me a horrific act by cadre.  They failed as we countered with strength, protecting the guard and vectoring about 20 trusted and capable leaders to the prison, even as I called local law enforcement in on the problem.  When I reached the threatened guard (with whom I had placed two armed IG agents during the night) I asked what he needed.  He asked that I let him go off prison grounds as he had elderly parents that he stopped by to look in every day after shift.  And then he wanted to go home, as he was sure it was past time to let his dog out. Both requests were granted, and he was promoted as well.

Entrance to a Florida State Prison  (Fl Times Union)

            So, what had happened to cause this particular department to become so dysfunctional?  Honor had been abandoned.  Employment and especially leadership in the department had come to be seen as opportunity, not duty.  Certainly not by all, but by the more ruthless who for a while had their way.  Once countered, it was not hard to find the good people, very much in the majority.  Many of them had in fact stood up to the oppression during the worst of it.  By and by, I reminded all of the guards (who prefer to be called ‘officers’) of their oath of office and had each and every one of them recite it again; I also wrote and printed a wallet-sized card that echoed the tone and commitment to duty of in a manner similar to a soldier’s ‘Code of Conduct’.  It was to be memorized and held on the officer’s person at all times. 

It is my observation that there are always good people that only want to do their duty and to do it well.  All they need is a chance to do so, along with the reinforcing signals and support that it is proper to do.   Once able to do that within the Florida Corrections Department, decency and functional systems returned.  Whether or not such things last rests in the hands of continued honorable leadership.  But the key is honor.  Leaders and institutions need to hold honor high and never let it erode. 

            As for me, I retired (my original plan before the Governor’s call), although two years later than expected.  But the good news is that somewhere during that time, Pat forgave me for taking the job without talking to her first.  I might add, she could write her own story on this, as we did have to make adjustments in our daily routines.

Written by Suzanne Rice · Categorized: By James McDonough

Oct 08 2021

Duty: Rwanda – 1994


McDonough, DUTY:  RWANDA 1994

     I had been granted the opportunity to command at brigade level late in my career, something I had aspired to for some time.  But it would not be of a standing brigade already on the rolls.  Instead, it would be a brigade I would have to build from scratch, gathering people, units, and materiel from parts of a dwindling American Army presence in Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.  It would eventually become the reflagged 173rd Airborne Brigade, a storied outfit whose flag was retired after withdrawal from Vietnam in 1971.  But that could not be known at the time (but it was an objective I had in mind from the start).  Although the assignment would mean dislocation and separation from my family for a while, I eagerly accepted (with my wife Pat’s support) and took on the duties of command.

     Those duties came swiftly, for even as we were forming in northern Italy, the brigade (originally dubbed the “Lion Brigade” since we were near to Venice) was tasked to be the rapid reaction force for much of Eastern Europe and Africa and parts of the Middle East.  At that time (late ’93, early ’94) the Balkans were heating up while much of the remainder of our AO (area of operations) remained in turmoil.  So even as we built our organization, we had to be ready to move and operate quickly with whatever we had at the moment (and we did have some crack units, like the 3rd/325 Airborne Combat Team, from the get-go).  Operationally, the task was to consider where we might have to go and train for a variety of mission-types if so committed. The dilemma was that there were so many diverse likelihoods of place and mission, we could not possibly train for them all.  The solution was to contemplate a very difficult one and train for that one, hoping that if any others broke, we could handle them in stride.  Ironically, as it turned out, I decided in February of 1994 that Rwanda would be a particularly hard nut to crack, given its remoteness and complexity.  So, we conceptualized an evacuation of Americans under duress and trained, rehearsed, and wrote a plan for such a mission.

Rwanda – A Long Way from Italy (Berkeley.edu)
Rwanda – A Long Way from Italy

     On April 6th, a scenario in that country unfolded that we had not expected – a horror show that became the worst genocide of the last decades of the 20th Century, one that would see one ethnic group (Hutu) murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) at the rate of 10,000 a day through the spring and summer of 1994.  With little clarity of what was happening, I reported up through the chain of command that we were ready to commit if called upon.  But the United States was not interested in getting involved, so we continued to build and train for other contingencies (of which there were no shortages).

     By July, it was getting harder for the world to deny that a genocide was in progress.  But a U. S. reaction was only precipitated by news coverage of the resulting cholera epidemic in nearby Goma, Zaire, one of 20 or so refugee camps of Hutus who had fled Rwanda in the wake of the civil war then raging alongside the genocide.  So, we were alerted and, after a few days of uncertainty, committed to Central Africa.

     An infantry company and support units were sent into Goma (along with the general commanding the Southern European Task Force, SETAF, Major General Jack Nix, my immediate superior); CNN was in Goma by that time, so much attention was focused there.  The airborne battalion (minus) was staged in Entebbe, Uganda as a backup force (under command of LTC Mike Scaparrotti, USMA 1978, later SACEUR — Supreme Allied Commander, Europe as a four-star general), and the Brigade (minus detached elements) itself went into Kigali, Rwanda, staged at its largely destroyed national airport.  Overall commander of the effort was the Deputy Commander of the United States Army Europe, LTG Dan Schroeder, also based in Entebbe.

              

AOR (Area of Operation) for the Lion Brigade

     Overall, it was a clean distribution of forces, but even as we boarded the planes in Aviano, Italy, the mission was unclear and the intelligence of conditions on the ground almost non-existent.  Somewhere over the Sahara, I received a static-laden call from an unidentified speaker into the cockpit of the C-141 that was trying hard to give me the latest iteration of both, all to no avail.  In a final desperate attempt to give guidance, three words came through clearly – “Stop…the…dying.”  That was good enough and that became our duty.

     The mission was apropos.  Dying was everywhere.  In Goma alone, five thousand died from cholera within the first day of our arrival, the survivors standing beside the decomposing bodies in Lake Kivu, drinking the cholera-infested waters (a practice we immediately put a stop to as we sought a way to have the dead buried and the water purified).  In Kigali and elsewhere in Rwanda, it at first seemed as if nobody was alive, save warring military foes advancing or retreating and a skeletal UN peace-keeping force holed up in its headquarters beside a major killing-field intersection in the city.  Indeed, everything seemed dead, to include all livestock and all crops in the field.  Everything was in ruin – the electrical grid, the water systems, the abandoned hospitals, communications systems, banking systems, etc.  Land mines were ubiquitous.  Bodies were everywhere, almost all of them defiled by machete, bludgeon, or fire (the official count was 800,000; I believe it was closer to a million).  The rivers were so stuffed with corpses that they created natural dams at bends or other constrictions in the water.  It could not have been bleaker.

Destroyed Rwandan Church, Site of a Massacre (Design Indaba)

There were survivors and bit by bit they emerged from hiding, some from the marshes, others from the bush (forests), some from cisterns, some from places so vile they beggar description.  All had needs, most of them extreme – water, food, medicines, shelter.  The mission remained:  Stop the dying.  How and what to prioritize was itself a priority.  Who gets the water we brought in with us?  How do we get the airport up and running?  What power grid do you restore first?  What do we fly in and in what order, or how do we clear roads to let trucks get in?  Where do you bury the dead?  How do you off-load the large transport planes coming in (soon at a rate of 50+ a day)?  What orders do you follow when they conflict with one another (and there was plenty of that, some with escalated risk if obeyed or not obeyed)?  As you find survivors and put them to work, what wages do you pay them (we had suitcases of money for that, essentially creating an economy)?  How do you protect your troops?  How do you hold the airport if attacked?  Where do you apply your medical detachments yet keep them safe from attack and from disease (over 50 % of those we treated had HIV infection)?  What side in the civil war do you support (eventually it was the Tutsi dominant Rwandan Patriotic Front)?  How do we protect VIPs as they arrive once they believe it is safe to do so?  Who do you work with and how – UN officials/peacekeeping units, non-government organizations (NGOs), orphans (about 700,000 Tutsi children were orphaned), other militaries (French, Belgian, Australian, many others), returning ambassadors and their staffs, the press, religious leaders (some who may have been complacent in the genocide) and so on?

            Such is the nature of duty.  The definition is easy, the fulfillment of it complex.  In Rwanda and the surrounding areas, we did the best we could and with the support of many others believe we collectively made a significant impact for the better.  We didn’t ‘stop the dying’, but we did slow it and gradually improved upon that and then even more.

            So many years ago, as a cadet at West Point, I had envisioned duty as clear and straight-forward.  Some higher authority would tell me what I was to do, and I would do it.  By the time I served in Vietnam soon after graduation, I came to understand it was more complex than that.  By the time I served in Rwanda, I began to understand more fully the disparate pulls as one tries to see what duty demands of you.  I had entered this part of my military career with the expectation that when committed to operations, tactics would dictate the courses of action to undertake as I looked to fulfill missions while taking care of soldiers.  Some of that would lie ahead, but in this instance the full weight of doing one’s duty came to light.  Perhaps that is why it stands first in order of those three key words, ‘Duty, Honor, Country.”

Written by Suzanne Rice · Categorized: By James McDonough, Duty Honor Country

Dec 15 2019

West Point, Army Doctrine, and Boxing – 1991

Our class went through four years of West Point figuring that it was preparing us for a career of traditional military service.  That assumption was essentially correct, although in our lack of depth of understanding of what was “traditional” we were endlessly surprised in the years that followed by exactly what our duties entailed.  As it turned out, you see, the only tradition we should have expected was dealing with the unexpected.  However, West Point had done its job well and when the time came most of us figured out what to do and got it done.

I had a few such moments, but one of the more interesting was being tagged to draft the operational doctrine for the Army.  The Army produces tons of doctrinal manuals, but the keystone of all those ton is its central warfighting manual, known throughout the 20th century as Field Manual (FM) 100-5.  The military is one of the two great institutions that takes its doctrine seriously (the other being the church) and no branch of the military takes it more seriously than the US Army.  Hence, it is modified only every few years and only after much consideration and debate, heavy bureaucratic infighting in the competition of ideas, and ultimate directive of the Chief of Staff of the Army.  Once approved it will dictate the Army’s organizational structure, major equipment procurements, branch integration, soldier training, and officer education for a decade or more.

Shortly after the end of the 1991 Gulf War, I was assigned to Fort Leavenworth to be the Director of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), where I had been a War College Fellow a few years prior.

Mens Est Clavais Victoriae
School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS)

Soon thereafter, General Gordon Sullivan became the Army Chief of Staff and, subsequently, General Fred Franks (newly promoted) became the Commander of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).  Franks’ subordinate for the overall development of doctrine would be then Major General (later General) Wes Clark.

I suspected that drafting a new 100-5 would be part of my assigned duties.  A former director of SAMS (then Colonel Huba Wass de Czega) had drafted the 1980s versions focused on AirLand Battle.  But by 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved, and the United States was facing new types of threats and challenges around the world.  So, having written a book on leading a platoon, it was only natural that I would be the drafter of the keystone doctrine, an extra duty that would consume the better part of three years.  And so, it was to be (big “Gulp!” here).

The Army gave me all the help I could possibly need.  I was given full support in picking a crackerjack team of six fine officers from around the Army (one of whom was our classmate, Gary Steele).  I also had able input from the available student talent at the school – extremely competent War College Fellows (including classmate Bill Rice (https://thedaysforward.com/bill-rice), the bright young SAMS officers (captains and majors) who were chock full of good ideas, and a brilliant faculty of experts at Leavenworth on the operational level of war.  Immediately, General Sullivan put out a call for input from his senior generals and all branch chiefs and opened the door to retired general staff officers as well.  Add to that the team at TRADOC (who had a strong interest in what came out), and perhaps most importantly the keen interest and leadership of General Sullivan and General Franks (both of whom were personally involved and who shielded me amongst the rough of tumble of contending ideas between high-ranking and often iconic senior officers).

All the above took part in the building of the final product.  SAMS students, for example, were invited to offer ideas, provided they wrote a short paper arguing their point(s).  Then other students would be invited to take an opposing view and a group of them would debate the two sides.  If an idea so offered was worthy, it very well could enter a draft. At a much higher level, the Chief of Staff and TRADOC commander would host various meetings of senior officers (e.g., Army Staff 3-stars, Branch Chiefs, four-star commanders, and others) where yours truly would offer up the drafts to that point (usually written and circulated in advance) and brace himself for the feedback (not always glowing commentary, as it happened).

Retired senior officers were not at all shy about offering their views, in a variety of ways. My favorite among the latter was LTG (R) Jack Cushman (First Captain, West Point Class of 1944) who called one morning and suggested I go to the Leavenworth archives and review his writings.  Accustomed to such calls, I showed all proper military protocols and promised I would.  He then called the following morning (at 0700) and asked me what I thought of them, whereupon I confessed I had not yet been to the archives.  The following morning at 0700 when the call came, I was ready.  His input was wonderful, I must say.  He had a penetrating grasp of the Army and its doctrine.  One paper of his, penned in 1956, dealt with the concept of “air-land battle” (27 years before it entered FM 100-5).  He and many others had great input to the doctrine.

None of this was done in the shadows; there were no hidden agendas.  Successive drafts were shared endlessly.  As we neared the end, a part of the job was to sell the product (Gary Steele was a star here – https://thedaysforward.com/gary-steele-tight-end-army/), not just to the Army and our sister services and our allies, but to the public as well, both via the media, publications,  and in various forums (one, for example, being John Lucas’ law firm in Richmond).

With such leadership from the top down, a well-resourced team effort, and endless debate based on the collective experience of all involved, the 1993 version of its operational doctrine set a new course for the Army as it closed the 20th century and entered the 21st.

The Finished Product – 1993

Okay, so then why is boxing in the title of this essay?

Military Review 1988

Well, you see every written effort must have a central concept that ties the entire body of work together – even if that theme is not explicitly articulated in the body of work.  In this case, the objective was to formulate the Army’s central warfighting doctrine.  While that effort encompassed many of the best thoughts of military theorists, historians, combat experienced generals, and other experts over the centuries (without being named in the text), my own touchstone was the three principles of Plebe boxing – the ability to move, to hit, and to protect.  They must be conquered in various combinations and sequences (hit, move, protect; protect, move, hit; move, protect, hit; and so on) and they must have the proper supporting systems (communications. intelligence, training, logistics, etc.) and apply the timeless principles of war (unity of command, mass, economy of force, etc.).  But in the end, warfare remains the ability to hit, move, and protect.

So, for those of you who thought Plebe boxing was just a physical torment to add to the tribulations of our first year at West Point, it was really a deep academic subject full of profundities that we could call upon in our future years as we dealt with the many challenges that the Army introduced us to.  It was a truism I kept from everyone else during the effort, of course, but now you know the rest of the story.

Editor’s note:  For those who would like to know more, you may go here; click on the cover photo to read more:  https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Army_Doctrine_for_the_Post_Cold/qXKyv6Q2Dl8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover

 

Read General Frederick M. Franks Intro

 

Written by Suzanne Rice · Categorized: By James McDonough

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 4th, 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 8th 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.

I make a strategic move; we get married

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.

Reinforcements arrive and come of age
Reinforcements arrive and come of age

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

 

           

Written by Suzanne Rice · Categorized: By James McDonough

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