What West Point Means To Me – Sally Robyn

My connection to West Point began the summer of 1965. My high school boyfriend left, as summer began, to enter USMA Class of ‘69. I looked forward to his letters that trickled in bearing a West Point postmark and designation, New Cadet Eric Robyn. He wrote of hazing and a regimen known as “Beast Barracks” but for me his pictures belied words of misery – I was enthralled by the gray granite buildings and his uniform of gray. I had heard of West Point, of course, but it existed merely as a picture postcard of cadets on parade, a legendary football tradition and the high ideals of Duty, Honor, Country. No doubt this mystique was aided by Hollywood and a popular TV series made in 1959-60. Seeing it firsthand was not even on my radar until Eric and his parents invited me to Plebe Parent Weekend, pretty heady stuff for a high school senior. There began my lifelong love affair with the place and my special cadet. To excuse missing several days of classes, I argued that Plebe Parent Weekend would be my only time EVER to visit the Academy. My parents agreed it was an opportunity not to be missed. However, yearly trips to New York soon became a pattern. Post June Week 1969, my newly minted lieutenant traded cadet gray for fatigues and a wife. When we returned in 1976 for an assignment in the Tactical Department, I saw through his eyes those same mythical cadets in gray as malleable future officers in need of daily discipline and guidance. Their pranks, ever new to them, were rarely new to the “Tac” who once stood in their shoes. When our son Jed was born in the Old Cadet Hospital my room overlooked Eric’s Plebe barracks, a coming full circle. In 1988 cadet gray became the familiar dress of our son Paul, Class of 1992, a ‘69 Class son.
When Paul and family later returned to a teaching assignment in the Social Science Department my vantage point again changed. I was now mother of an instructor. I have been blessed by West Point through key experiences of life – courtship, marriage, parenting and a host of friends. Once asked if I distilled Eric’s 26-year career to only one assignment which would I choose. The answer was and will always be West Point.