• I’m the first generation in my family to attend college. And the eldest.
• Being accepted at Penn State was a big deal. Would have meant loans and trivial student jobs. After graduation, a cubicle in an engineering firm in Pittsburgh.
• Then West Point invited me to join the Class of ’69.
• I was blown away. Had I understood West Point better, I’d probably have just fainted.
• The decision to attend was not easy. There was that five-year commitment, to an Army life I knew little about. OK, I really knew nothing about it.
• Men in my life convinced me West Point was worth the risk and effort, and Penn State later would always be there.
• Seeing West Point for the first time on R Day was, HA!!, a shock. The place, the program, but especially the people.
• The staff and faculty – Where do they get these guys?
• The upperclassmen – Where do they get THESE guys?
• My classmates – Unbelievable. One gem after another, with astonishingly few clunkers. I occasionally felt like the Admissions Mistake of ‘69, but my classmates unfailingly embraced me as one of them, fully fledged.
• Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words.
• Followed closely, if unspoken, by God, care for others, confidence in self and team, and belief in the fundamental goodness of West Point, the Army, and the United States.
• Commanding American soldiers in exotic places, representing the best of America in a world filled with conflict and potential nuclear annihilation. A responsibility and privilege accorded to only a few.
• Learning from superhuman commanders, several of whom reached four stars.
• Bearing fragments of the responsibility America carries: protecting our people, as well as many others. Enabling life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Keeping the lamp of Western civilization from being snuffed out.
• Occasionally glimpsing the View From The Top of some Really Big Issues. Grasping them as an engineer from Penn State probably could not.
• Losing classmates, as expected, in a badly-chosen war. And now losing more to the ravages of age, which somehow surprise and confound us.
• Fifty years on, still meeting classmates I never knew. Everyone turns out to be a new friend I’m proud to have.
• Hoping my modest contributions bear some relationship to the monumental undeserved gift that West Point has been.
• And hoping to be as blessed in The Next Life as I have been in this one.
Great job Jim!!!