Transcript of an oral history interview with Richard H. Cummings, conducted by Joseph Cates at Cummings' home in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 31 May 2016 as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Richard Cummings was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1951. His interview includes discussion of his experiences as a student at Norwich University, his military service in the Korean War, and his family's business, the E. Cummings Leather Company. ; Richard H. Cummings, Class of 1951, Oral History Interview May 31, 2016 Hanover, New Hampshire Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: This is Joseph Cates. Today is May 31, 2016. I'm interviewing Richard H. Cummings. This interview is taking place at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center, and is part of the Norwich Voices History Project. Mr. Cummings, can you please state your full name? RICHARD CUMMINGS: My name is Richard Haven Cummings. JC: What day were you born? RC: I was born January 19, 1929. JC: Where were you born? RC: I was born in Woburn, Massachusetts. JC: Woburn? RC: W-o-b-u-r-n. JC: What Norwich class are you? RC: Class of 1951. JC: Tell me about where you grew up and what you did as a child. RC: I spent the first ten years in my life in Woburn, Massachusetts, where [sic] we moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire, establishing E. Cummings Letter Company, which we had in Woburn. I worked at D.B. because of the second world war. Labor was very much needed and that's when women started to work in industry. And teenage boys that weren't in the war, or in the service, worked – I worked – after school, three hours from 3:00 in the afternoon to 6:00, Monday through Friday and eight hours on Saturday. All vacation days, holidays, we worked in the factory. Upon my 15th birthday or so, I was registered at Kimball Union Academy where I attended two years in preparation for Norwich. JC: What was is like working in the leather tannery? Is that the right way to say it, "leather tannery?" RC: E. Cummings was a company which was a tannery. You couldn't work overtime and you couldn't work on machinery if you were under 18. It was hard work, 2 particularly, depending on the season, the drying areas in the summer were very uncomfortable. However, the pay was very good. The people in the community benefit from the location of the tannery because of the pay scale. I was fortunate that I could save my money to go toward my education costs. JC: What made you decide to choose Norwich? RC: I think it was probably the recommendation from the faculty at Kimball Union Academy at that time. JC: What was your major when you went there? RC: Government. JC: Government? Why did you choose government? RC: I have always been interested in government. I did well in the courses, and all my adult life I've been involved in local, county and state government. Topping off as being one of the original members of the Public Employee Labor Relation Board in the State of New Hampshire. JC: Who was your roommate and Norwich, and where – what dorm – what barracks did you live in? RC: My first semester, I was in the band, so that's what we called Headquarters Company. And I lived in Hawkins Hall all the time I was at Norwich. My first semester roommate was Bud Moffett from Braintree, Mass. And my second semester roommate was Seth Wiard from Norwalk, Connecticut. My roommate my sophomore year and junior year was Bruce Kenerson from Lynfield, Mass. JC: What was it like being in the band? Describe the band for us. RC: Well, I think it brought, every member, all the band closer together in a military environment which Norwich, the entire school was, at that time. We were always together and never breaking up after freshman year or sophomore year and we practiced together, we lived together, we worked together. JC: What instrument did you play? RC: I played the E flat alto horn, which is an easy way to say French horn. JC: Was there a favorite song you liked to play? RC: "On the Steps of Jackman." JC: (Laughs) 3 RC: And, "The Thunderer." JC: Do you remember "On the Steps of Jackman?" RC: Yes. JC: Can you sing it? RC: (Singing) "On the steps of Jackman, crying like hell, eyes a new born baby…" [0:06:44], and it goes on from there. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) And what was the other song? RC: "The Thunderer," which was a marching song which we always opened up with in pass and review. JC: Oh, ok. As a member of the band, were you part of any fraternity? RC: Yes, I joined. I was pledged to Phi Kappa Delta. I was the last class to join Phi Kappa Delta. The next year, they became affiliated with the national fraternity Sigma Nu. So, I was the first class to be initiated at Norwich in Sigma Nu. JC: And, what was the fraternity like? RC: Well, at the time, about a third of the population of the cadet corps were in fraternities. At the time, there was Phi Kappa Delta, SAE, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Theta Chi. Shortly after that, two or three other fraternities were brought on campus. But the originals were those first ones I mentioned. It was – it was the only social life we really had and it was necessary because of limited facilities to feed to corps of cadets. So, the fraternities ran dining rooms. In our fraternity, there was a man and wife, and a young daughter and they lived up on the third floor. And they provided all the meals, seven days a week. The cost to belong was $55.00 a month, $5.00 dues, $50.00 for the food. JC: Was the food good? RC: Very good. JC: Good. What company were you in? RC: Headquarters Company. JC: Headquarters Company. You said that. Did you play any sports or did you just – RC: No. 4 JC: No. What did you do to relax when you were at Norwich? RC: Well, as I said, we had the fraternity house, where we had a small library, we subscribed to magazines and living room couches and so we could – that was our [sic] really place to relax. Many times, we brought friends that were not in the fraternity would come, particularly the big weekends of the year, Homecoming, May Day – when we got the ring dance. JC: The ring ceremony? RC: Yes. What'd they call that? There were three major weekends a year. JC: Was there – RC: Homecoming, Winter Carnival, Junior Week. JC: Junior Week. RC: And, we had to sign up if we had a date. We had to find the facilities, rooms in town if the girl came from out of town. But, most of them came from Vermont Junior College. And several of my classmates married girls from Vermont Junior College. JC: Talk about what Homecoming was like back then? RC: Oh, I think it was a – for the cadets. For the alumni, it was a big affair. But for the cadets, it offered no classes on Saturday, which means they were really free Friday late afternoon until Sunday. And, believe it or not, we'd go up to Montpelier. And, there was a restaurant up in Montpelier called The Gardens. I forgot the name of the street, but I can take you to it. It was on the street where – of the state capitol, on the right before you got to the state capitol. A little street, no sidewalk and you could sit at a table and a car would come up to park right by the window because there was no sidewalk, and one spring day, this gets off Homecoming, but one spring day we cut class. Section leader was Russ Todd. He asked me one time not to repeat that. And we asked Russ to cover for us, because we were going to cut that class and go to Montpelier, which he did. While we're sitting there having a pitcher of beer for a dollar, a car pulls up, gets out, and it was Professor Willey, our class professor that we cut. Now, he knew there was no way that we could have cut there and be in that restaurant and also have attended class. JC: (Laughs) RC: But, we used to go up there – at one time, we're talking homecoming, we all sat down at the table and said, "Let's go to Montreal." "Well, first of all, how much 5 money do we got [sic]?" Well, I pulled out my $2.00. Somebody else had a dollar and a half. Somebody else had $3.00. So, we had a two-door 1936 Ford. Ooh. First thing we did was go to the gas station and gassed the car up, and went off to Montreal. Drove up to St. Catherine Street. Went in and had a bottle of beer. In those days, it was – the measurement was probably a liter. One. And passed it around. Got back in the car and drove back to Norwich. That was our outing. JC: (Laughs) Sounds like a pretty good outing. RC: Oh, it – and once again, it isn't – to have a good time and enjoy yourself doesn't necessarily mean you have to have money. You have to have just have ideas and something different. JC: What was Winter Carnival like? RC: Well, it all hinged on the dance and the parties at the fraternities. We would have – we were not supposed to have alcohol in the fraternities. But, we did. I'm sure it was known, but we kind of covered it up. We built a bar in that fraternity house downstairs on a rail. And when it was closed, it was a library (?) [0:15:33]. When we pushed it back, it was a bar. We had a buzzer upstairs, and if any of the faculty members came into the house, they pushed the buzzer. We'd get out from behind it, pull the bar forward and sit down. JC: (Chuckles) RC: And, we had – as I said, we had very good meals. Our entertainment was there. We'd go to the dance and from the dance at the fraternity house. JC: What about Junior Week? RC: Junior Week was probably the highlight of the year. Not only because a long winter season was over, and school was wrapping down, I think we got out somewhere around the 20th of June in those days. Somewhere in the third week of June. And, also it was the highlight of your Norwich career to get your ring. I got my ring when I was stationed at Fort Sill, I made the mistake of going in the latrine to wash and shave and leave my ring on the – by the sink and when I got back, it was gone. JC: Oh, no. RC: I went down, went all through the pawn shops and there are a lot in Oklahoma, trying to find it. I didn't. But, several years later, after I was home and married, my mother got me one for Christmas. But Balfour was a dealer, was in Hanover. I can always tell because my mother's handwriting and printing was terrible. So, it says, my initials are R. H. Cummings and this is R. M. Cummings. 6 JC: Oh! (Laughs) What does the ring symbolize for you? RC: You belong. It still does. It's probably (?) [0:18:11] my choicest [sic] possession, the Norwich ring. I have, I think I had it built up once. It gets a little thin there. And I wear it probably 75 percent of the time. My roommate said when he stationed at Germany, at the officer's club the trick was [taps ring on table three times] and that meant all the West Point guys. JC: (Laughs) RC: So, you went into an officer's club and did that, and all the West Point guys looked up and said, "What's that?" It's Norwich University. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) What were the instructors that were most influential to you when you were at Norwich? RC: One of the advantages at that time at Norwich was, in your advanced classes, junior and senior year, you had, as actual instructors, the head of the department. And, at that time, we had some very good professors. I had him, but I didn't major in the subject, I think of Shorty Hamilton, professor of chemistry. Under him, was O'Neill who was a, ranked first lieutenant so he was an instructor. He was a recent graduate of Norwich and he stayed there and he went on to head the chemist [sic] department at Norwich. I had K.R.B. Flint was a government professor. Excellent professor. I had Pop Peach, English. Pop Peach was a graduate of Middlebury. K.R.B. Flint graduated Norwich. Shorty Hamilton graduated from Norwich. They all went on and got masters degrees. In my junior year, I mention now (?) (inaudible) [0:21:01] because of the professors. In my junior year, it was suggested that I probably had better take a fifth year towards my degree. I explained this to my father who said that that would be alright, however, after that I would go to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, which offered, in their engineering department, offered a special course in leather and tanning technology. And he wanted me to take that course, to which I responded, "If that's the way it's going to be, I'd rather go now." So, I went to Pop Peach, K.R.B. Flint, who was my academic advisor, and told him what I wanted to do. And if I could, my second semester of my junior year, if I could take senior courses in comparative government, constitutional law, advanced public speaking and he allowed me to. So, I took all the courses that Norwich offered for a government major. So, in my junior year, the second semester, all my classes were with seniors. I remember once again, Russ Todd was in all those classes with me. So, as the years went by, they always thought I was in their class. But I learned a great deal from – that I carried out all through my life, in my work with the Public Employees Labor Relations Board in the State of New Hampshire. Chairman of the Republican town committee in Hanover, co-chairman of Grafton County Republican Committee, delegate to the state republican conventions three times. I learned a great deal from those men in how to present myself and understand the field that I was endeavored in. 7 JC: What was your favorite class at Norwich? RC: Comparative government. JC: What was your least favorite? RC: Spanish. JC: (Laughs) I was told you had some stories about General Harmon. RC: Well, my stories about General Harmon, are not to criticize the man because he was a fine soldier. And he was a combat commander, as against political generals, Bradley, Eisenhower, Marshall, they were political generals out of the pentagon. Patton and Harmon, they were combat commanders. Harmon took over the university at a time that it was probably, nearly going out of business. For lack of money, lack of endowment, lack of students, the faculty needed to be built up, the student body needed to be built up, the physical plant needed improvement and Harmon accomplished those things in his time and put the school on the road to recovery. Very successfully. He brought in speakers. He got Eisenhower to the university. He brought in a great deal of capital. He built up the endowment. He improved the faculty as I said. Built one new dormitory plus of course he built Harmon Hall. The mess hall was in the White Chapel and that's why, when he moved the mess hall into Harmon Hall, he needed all the student body in that mess hall to make it pay. So, he closed down the fraternities. And the way he closed down the fraternities is a lesson in parliamentary procedure. If you want to get something across, you wait until the chairman closes the meeting, to which he closes the meeting and says, "Is there anything else to brought before this meeting?" That's when you introduce your bombshell, and which Harmon did. He said, "Yes." He said, "I'd like permission to close down the fraternities and sell the property or buy the property to enlarge the facilities of the university. If I do not get a favorable vote, you have my resignation." And whereupon, he got up and left the room. He got what he wanted. As you know, they took Sigma Phi Epsilon as the president's house. And Theta Chi they made into a club or – it was Flint Hall or Flint – it's right there next to the armory. Not SAE, the big one. The little one, across the street from the president's house, I think it's a club. I don't know what it is. JC: Do you think he did the right thing, closing the fraternities? RC: He had to. Yes, yes, he had to. And, he also improved the discipline of the cadet corps. There was (sic) a lot of things he did, he had to do because the school was really sliding. And, I have – my father-in-law, Nancy's (?) [0:28:35] father, was Class of '28. Civil Engineer. And, as he was telling the president at one time, that Norwich engineers built these interstates. Because, when those interstates were being built, what, in the 1960's were they? 8 JC: Yes. RC: The civil engineers were from Norwich. They were in the intra-highway department, and they were in Vermont highway department. He was – in my – I had two nephews who went to Norwich. One, last I knew, was with the FBI in Hartford, Connecticut and the other one owned a dental school and he had a practice in the western part of Connecticut. And they both dropped their affiliation with Norwich because they didn't agree with letting in girls and they didn't agree with letting in civilians, so they dropped their affiliation. I don't say I agree, but I realize that they really had to in order to keep the student body up and fill the classrooms and bring in tuition money. JC: So, is there anything else about General Harmon that you'd like to say? RC: I think I generally said he put the school on its feet. And, he did. But, I think the catalog (?) [0:30:32] put it, he really saved the university. JC: Now, it was after your junior year that you left? RC: Yes. JC: And went to Pratt Institute? RC: Yes. And then of course, I'm out from cover. Up comes the draft board. I got drafted. Well, if you can imagine, I spent three years in military discipline at Norwich University, showing up at Camp Chaffie is a buck private. Teach you how to make a bed. And they didn't like the fact that they could bounce a dime off my bed. JC: (Laughs) RC: So, they tore it apart and made me do it again. To which you're supposed to get mad. Your Norwich training. Yes, sir. Don't do that again. And then, that's where you get your respect. And then I belonged to the Vermont National Guard for five months. I wrote home to my mother, send me my discharge. Which I took to the CP and they went to E1 to E2 immediately, which meant $5.00 or $6.00 a month. And they made me squad leader. And, sometimes the sergeants didn't like that because I could drill better than they could. And then, instead of going overseas to Korea, or far east or Europe, and there was three in Alaska. A few went to Alaska. A lot went to Europe and a lot went to far east. I went to far east. But before that, after I got through basic training they sent me to code school. I took code. And then after code school, at Chaffie, they sent me down to Ft. Soda, radio repair. So, I went into radio repair. Then they shipped me out. So, I had a year here. And, then they shipped me out and assigned me to the 38th Infantry Regiment, the second division. And, I went by ship to Tokyo. And then, 9 down at – then they flew us to Inchon. No, the ship took us there because I remember going over the side of the ship with the bag. And, they put me in as radio operator. Hey, I've been away from radio operator for six months. Code. I'd lost it. So, they were thinking what they were going to do with me. Well, I finally said, "Look, I'm rotating home. Give him my job (which was signal supply)." All signal supply came from division, but division was too far away to make it manageable, so we just took it up by the regiment. It was closer by. So, I set that up. I requisitioned. It was a great job and in other words, another thing is don't ever have a driver's license in the military. Because you might get picked to drive ammo up. And, so I could requisition a vehicle to go to Seoul to get supplies. But, what did that mean? Go to Seoul, have dinner, a few drinks. Trip around for an hour or two and go back up again with the supplies. And, anything you wanted, what you need, I bought a nice bamboo pole, a fishing pole over there in the PX. A big, huge PX in Seoul. I shipped home. Then, I had all those supplies and everything, I was in contact with all of our regiment, including the Dutch, which were assigned to us. And the Dutch had a good deal. They had a – there was a Dutch colonel that was their commander and he was a real nice guy. He always came to shows with his troops and sat with his troops at the shows and things. He was (inaudible) [0:36:39] over the guy. And, in later years, my daughter and her husband lived in Holland and I was over there Memorial Day at the America Cemetery and there were the Dutch that I served with in Korea. And so, we got together much later in life. That's about it. JC: When you landed at Inchon, where did you go from there? RC: (?) [0:37:23] Up to Seoul. JC: Up to Seoul? RC: Yes. JC: I've got us a map. RC: Oh, yes. Went up to here. And this is where I was. JC: And where's that? RC: Pork Chop, Old Baldy. We went up Old Baldy twice. And it literally, we bombed the hell out of them. We'd go up there and they bombed for over an hour. And we pull off and blow it. And then, this was always kept quiet. The ROKs, Republic of Korea soldiers, they were an army of their own. We'd go up Baldy and they'd go with us. On our right flank or our left flank. And we get up there to do our work, and we'd look over and our left flank is not covered. Word came from here. They bugged out. And that's when we very quietly broke up the ROK division and infiltrated them with us. And, it didn't do any more bugging out. If it did, we shot them. That stopped it. And the good side of it is I had a 10 poor boy with me, (?) [0:38:56] in the radio repair tent, he lived with us. We taught him English. We taught him radio repair. We gave him clothes to wear. His mother did all our laundry for us. Ironed our clothes on hot rocks. He was really a great kid. I'm sure when we left, he had a head's up in society because of his training with us. JC: And that was in July '52? RC: Yes. JC: Where did you go after that? RC: Oh, we stayed right here. All the time. JC: Oh, okay. RC: And we'd pull off hill about – I think it was three months. And they'd pull us off. And it was New Year's Eve 1952, New Year's Eve. And we pulled off, off, off and went down. All that means is that you've got to move your communications, you've got to move your mess hall, you've got to move your water, your latrine. Everything you had to do and we moved that day. And a telephone rings from the company that replaced us up there. And there's noise, and I got the phone. "Who's this?" "This is Lt. Swift." I said, "Rollie?" He says, "Yes.' I said, "Dick Cummings." "Oh, for God's sakes! How are you?" I said, "I'm fine. What's your problem?" He says, "We don't have anywhere near enough equipment up here." I said, "Really? I'll tell you what I'll do. It's snowing to beat hell. The roads are slippery. I'll load up a deuce and a half." I go down to the motor pool and find the soberest driver. And in those days, blacks were in either the motor pool or the mess hall. "Go down to the motor pool and find the soberest driver and I'll come up there and you give me a jeep, because I don't want to stay. I'll swap you a truck with equipment and you give me a jeep." "Fine." Now how are you going to take care of this equipment? Battle fatigue. (inaudible) [0:41:51] Boom! Truck gone. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RC: That was Rollie. I never saw him. I just talked to him. JC: What did you do after Korea? RC: I came home. And I went to work in the factory. Tanning. My – our company corporate lawyer was an uncle of mine. Ray, his last name, my mother's brother. And he suggested that I, I got discharged the 3rd of July. They got us out for the 4th of July. Really rushed us down (?) [0:42:52] to get us out. Instead of having a hold-over for the 4th of July weekend and wait until like the 6th of July. So, that got us off the 3rd. Discharged. And, my uncle said, "Don't be in a hurry to go to 11 work. Because this is the last time in your life you can do what you want to do. Once you start to go to work, you're plugged in for the rest of your life." (Laughs) So, my roommate and I, he got home from Germany and we got together and went to work August 16, 1953, 2, 3. Yes, '53. That's when I went to work, 1953. And Bruce and I traveled New England. He got new a Chevrolet, I had a new Chevrolet, all paid for. Paid $2,000 for it. Brand new. And, -- with money that I sent home. I made money selling whiskey over in Korea. We had a liquor allocation, particularly if you were in combat. A private got a fifth a week, a month. A corporal got two fifths a month. A lieutenant got three fifths a month. So, and for $2.00 a bottle. And even the liquor was Cadillac, Cadillac Club or something like that. So, you got three fifths a month but you only wanted one. So, I'd give you $4.00 for your two fifths. And, I'd build up, oh, about a dozen bottles of whiskey, and I'd keep it under my bunk. And I had a little dog. And word "little" in Korean is "scosh (?) [0:45:13], so I used to call him Scoshie. He stayed right under my bunk and got into (?) my whiskey. JC: (Laughs) RC: And, so on the 10th of the month I had three bucks and the 15th of the month I'd get maybe 5, 6. 28th of the month or so, 10 bucks, whatever traffic will bear. Ship the money home. $2,000. And so, when I got out, we had the money and Bruce and I went to Montreal together. We went to Eastern State Exposition together. We just played for about six weeks. And he went to work in the family shoe lasts business. I went to work in a tannery. Got up in the morning to go to work. We got to work at 7:00 so we were up and having breakfast at about 6:15. Got up. Put a suit and tie on, jacket. Head down to the office (inaudible) [0:46:35]. Went in a little locker room. Opened the door and says, "There's your clothes." Old wool pants and old wool shirt. "You're not going to wear any suit. You're out there." JC: (Laughs) RC: (Laughs) And that's where I started out, working every department. Doing every job in every department from bundling a green saw hides from cutting the rope off and shaking the sod out and preparing them to get washed and that whole process all the way through to rolling them up, finished leather to go to the shoe factory. All the way through. Then, I became kind of like a shop foreman. And around Christmas time, we had hired a finishing foreman. He's in charge of the black finish, the brown finish and the colors in other words. And we were closing shop up for Christmas weekend and he was drunk. So, I fired him. So, Christmas at my father's house, we were outside, said, "Yes, we've got a problem, we've got to find somebody to replace him." My father says, "I already have." I said, "Yes, who?" "You." Oh, I had to study damn fast! JC: (Chuckles) 12 RC: Like a day! (Chuckles) And I ran that finish room – I think I was running it when we got married. Yes. At least a year. And then my father's health was going. In 1960, I took over as, in those days we called it superintendent, and then I started organizing the staff, and organizing the foremen. I got a letter here somewhere, my nephew found here, a few months ago when my father was in Florida, came home from – (?) [0:49:13] in very poor health. He had colitis all of his adult life. Never weighed over 140 pounds. Never. And he wrote my brother, my older brother that came back and never found the shop in better shape in the 20 years he'd been in Lebanon. And I had taken it, and I really worked hard. And when he died, I really went to town and I borrowed money, which is a no-no. And I got modern equipment in. Like I got one piece of equipment, run by one man, one shift. It would replace four machines that were run two shifts. That's eight men. Pretty soon, paid that thing off in two months. I did start doing that. And we belonged to the Tanners Council, which was housed in, headquarters in New York City. And they called me up one time, he said, "We usually don't do this, because everybody is under a code name." So when they send out asking for information, and your code – your name's not on it. There's a code name only they know who it is. He said, "We usually don't do this, but we thought under the circumstances, we'd call you up and tell you that you have the lowest labor costs per foot in the country." JC: Wow. RC: Well, anyhow, that was – and then of course, Uncle Sam put us out of business, all of us. There's not a tannery in – I believe there's one tannery, and it's Prime Tanning in Berwick, Maine. And I heard a few years ago that a shoe company out in St. Louis bought them. So they could be sure of having a source of leather. JC: So how did the government put them all out of business? RC: Environmental. See, we're on the river and we need – and I used to have those figures, and I really have forgotten what they are – it was thousands of gallons of water a day. And there was no way any municipal water system could supply us. No way. That's why they're on the river. To pump the water out of the river. And, they got a problem there. In the wintertime the water is 30 degrees. You got that 30 degree water you got to raise it to 70 degrees, that's a hell of a lot of steam. And in summertime, the water can get up to 75 degrees. And you got to lower it to 70 degrees. So that's a hell of a problem. How are you going to – this is only a short time, a matter of a few weeks, you know. So, we'd buy ice and dump it in. It took a hell of a lot of ice to do it. That's what we did. That's why – and then you surge. A hell of a surge. Everything, you wash and rinse, wash and rinse. Into the river. Out into the Connecticut, down to Long Island Sound. All the town (?) [0:53:29] sewer system, dumped right into the (inaudible) [0:53:32] lake, up until a few years ago. The woolen mills in Enfield (?) dumped into the lake. The lake went down the river, the woolen mills, and leather and the tanning, dumped into the river. And half the woolen mill, all the way down. 13 What could we do? I mean, that's how the government, you say, put us out of business. JC: Oh, okay. RC: I think the largest producing leather today is Argentina. Because that's where the (inaudible) [0:54:13] cow hides were. Used to ship them by boat. To New York, Boston. JC: So, when did you meet, how did you meet Nancy? When did you meet? RC: I got out of the army. I came home. And, went to church. And coming out of church, Brownie was there. And I spoke to him, I said, "Who's that good-looking daughter of yours, Nancy?" He says, "She's over at Colby Junior College." And I said, "I think I'll go see her." So he gets home and calls her up. (Chuckles) And I went over to see her. That was in the fall. We were married the next September. (Chuckles) JC: And how long have y'all been married now? RC: 62 years in September. JC: Wow. Congratulations. What did you do after the tannery closed? RC: Find a job. Sitting down reading the paper, not knowing what the hell I'm going to do. Big tanneries out in the Midwest. That was a consideration, in some capacity. Night foreman or night shift superintendent, anything. And, reading this paper, department of resources and economic development, officer industrial development needed. Industrial agent for the northern three counties in New Hampshire. Paul Gilderson (?) [0:56:25], telephone number. I knew Paul. He says, "I was hoping you'd call." JC: (Chuckles) RC: Had 60 people call him. He interviewed me about 10:00 in the morning, over in Plymouth, a bank in Plymouth. And, the next day Paul called me up, says, "You got it." So that's – I spent 16 years doing that. And I loved it and I was good at it. I – even today, I see television ads that I'm responsible for. When I ride up country, I see factories that were built by companies that I moved in, from Canada, Sherbrooke, outside out Montreal. Massachusetts. My objective always was not to hit them hard but suggest a branch, suggest a satellite, suggest the reason why. Taxes, labor costs, transportation costs is less expensive and it's offset by your savings on labor. No union. One of my – I picked this up from my father, when he was asked a question about the labor, in New Hampshire against Massachusetts, he says, "All the labor are capitalists. They own a piece of land. They own an animal. They cultivate vegetables. They buy grain. They buy 14 fertilizer. They sell their product. They're all capitalists. And that's exactly right. You just don't get a guy off the street. He's got a reason to where he's really working for cash, supporting himself. JC: Well, let me ask you a couple of questions back about Norwich. What was your favorite part of going to Norwich? RC: Well, if you're talking socially, I'd say membership in a fraternity. If you're talking academically, it's those three professors I mentioned. JC: What was the – is the most important thing that Norwich taught you? RC: I wrote that out somewhere, because I gave that some thought. And I – JC: I think it's on the back. RC: Respect for authority and responsibility. JC: What did the school's motto, "I Will Try," mean to you when you were a student? RC: Say that again. JC: The school's motto, "I Will Try." What did that mean to you as a student? RC: Basically, I'm in college and I will try to finish this course, I will try – and it's been my motto all my life. On my tombstone. JC: I was going to ask you, has it changed any since you were in college? RC: No. JC: No. What about the idea about citizen soldier? RC: I think it's an excellent education. JC: And why is that? RC: Because it teaches you responsibility, authority, respect. You have to – in order to be able to lead, you have to know how to follow. And Norwich teaches you that. I had a classmate whose sons went to the Citadel. Three boys and they all went to Citadel. Because of his experience at Norwich. JC: You think they regretted going to the Citadel instead of going to Norwich? RC: I have no idea why he picked it. 15 JC: (Laughs) How do you think your professional life would have been different had you not been a Norwich graduate? Or had not gone to Norwich? RC: Not as disciplined. JC: It seems like discipline was a very major part. RC: Yes. If you take, in my day and my era and my location, kids went to the University of New Hampshire. First of all, a large percent of them flunked out after the first semester. Another big chunk flunked out after the first year. So, those that really got in to graduate was a lot smaller than those that got accepted to go there. Reason why, they weren't prepared for it. In my era, they came from these little towns throughout New Hampshire down into the more metropolitan area, Portsmouth area, New Market area and open campus and open lifestyle that they weren't used to. And, if affected them. Very few percentage of them really ended up graduating from college, at that time. JC: Do you think going to Norwich has opened some doors for you that might not have been opened otherwise? RC: Oh, yes, I think so. But, particularly in my later line of work. I can remember having a meeting up in Woodsville, New Hampshire. And, I was working on locating a company, it was Bass Shoe as a matter of fact. And, Bass Shoe was a Maine company and I knew that I couldn't deal with the management of Bass Shoe, because they were favored to Maine. Bass Shoe, and I forgot the name, but the parent company was in Greenwich, Connecticut, so I just, on my own, drove down to Greenwich, Connecticut. No appointment. I had a name and an address. And I knocked on the door, and went in and they listened to me. They're located in Haverill, New Hampshire. While I was doing that, talking with local people in the Woodsville/Haverill area, and a ___(?) [1:04:47] sat and he says, "I knew there was a reason why I liked you." So, I said, "Well, yes, you went to Norwich." JC: (Chuckles) RC: And he had gone to Norwich. JC: Do you think Norwich folks have a special bond that other military and civilian institutions lack? RC: Oh, yes. A great deal. The corps of cadets brought that about. And, from my day to this day, wherever we meet, we always, always get together. Homecoming is an uplift, particularly now at my age because all my roommates are gone. All my closest friends are gone. My brothers are gone. My cousins are gone. But, we go up there and Eddie Barrow's (?) [1:05:51] there, always a joke from him. And Louie Swift, all my cousins, great bunch. 16 JC: Have you continued to be involved with Norwich since you left? RC: I have been very interested in the museum. And I contribute to it. Not much, but I do every year. Because I think they're doing a tremendous job of carrying the history of the institution, from when it was almost nothing, on. And I can remember being involved with Todd's wife because she really worked hard on that. And she used to come down to affairs in the town of Norwich, over here, and I'd meet them over there. They dedicated a stone plaque over there in the town of Norwich a few years ago, and she was there. And I think you've all done a wonderful job up there with that. And the improvement on that library was very interesting. By the way, I have it here somewhere and if I can't find it, I was on the committee that resurrected bricks from the barracks in Norwich. JC: Oh, okay. RC: And clean them up. I got a picture here somewhere and I'll mail it to you when I find it. It's a group of us in Hanover, by the field house. What's the name of the field house? (inaudible) [1:07:47] The great big field house there. And we dumped the bricks in there. And literally we cleaned them up, put them on pallets and took them – they all ended up at Norwich. And some when out to national headquarters of Theta Chi and some you have there in the vestibule of the library. I was in that group that worked on that. JC: And the rest of them are downstairs in the museum. RC: Yes. JC: Did you stay in touch with a lot of your classmates? RC: Yes. As much as possible. JC: What advice would you give a rook today on how survive through that first year? RC: Well, it was a hell of a lot tougher my first year than it is today, I'm sure. If you can't survive it, you don't belong there. That's just as simple as that. JC: Was there anything else you'd like to add that we didn't talk about that we should? RC: To run it all up together, the best thing about Norwich was that it was an institution with traditions, small in size, closeness to faculty and classmates. And we acted together, lived together, worked together and played together. That would be Norwich. In my day. JC: Anything else you want to add? 17 RC: No. JC: Well, thank you very much. (end of audio)
Transcript of an oral history interview with Richard S. Schultz, conducted by Sarah Yahm at Norwich University on 8 April 2015, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Richard Schultz was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1960; his interview focuses on discussion of his connections to Norwich University, his military service, and his law practice. ; 1 Richard Schultz, NU 1960, Oral History Interview April 8, 2015 Interviewed by Sarah Yahm SARAH YAHM: And you're bragging. (laughs) DICK SCHULTZ: That's what this is all about. SY: No, but it's not bragging, it's really just, but we'll, the whole point is it's sort of a casual conversation, so I'll ask questions and it's going to trigger your memory. And the point of oral history, too, is that it's not just like, you know, you've probably told the same stories a thousand times at dinner, you know. DS: Well, they get better as you -- SY: And you get better as you go along. But so, but maybe I'll ask a question that will make you rethink that story or remember another detail and things like that, you know. So that's kind of how it works. So anyway, so you're going to get, so for instance, you know, I interviewed somebody and, and I'm talking about, well, you'll get it back and you'll get to, you know, edit out things that are uncomfortable. So for instance, I've interviewed a bunch of the Iranian students who were here in the '70s, we're going to have to redact large parts of those interviews because if they ever want to go back to Iran, or their relatives in Iran, things need to be wiped out. Right? So there's that, which is serious, and then there's somebody who said something mean about her mother-in-law and was like, "You have to get that out of the tape!" right. So it spans the whole gamut. So let's get you close to this microphone, skooch in and close to the microphone. And then I have to test levels. So tell me what you ate for breakfast today. DS: Well, we had breakfast at the Capital Grill, I had two eggs, over light, some bacon, some good toast and several cups of coffee. SY: Oh my god, several cups of coffee. It's going to take me a lot to keep up with you. I haven't had my first sip of tea yet today. So you're going to be way faster than me, but that's okay. Hold on now, I'm checking my levels, okay, my levels are good. Your levels are good. okay. So I am here, what's the date? I should know that. But remember, you had the coffee. DS: Today's the eighth. SY: OK. So it's April 8th, I'm here at the Sullivan Museum and History Center with Richard Schultz, but you go by Dick, right? DS: Yes, I do. SY: With Dick Schultz, class of '60. DS: The great class of '60. SY: The great, so what made the class of '60 so great? DS: We're so active. Even the president, when he refers to us, we are the "great class of '60." SY: What do you think makes you so active? DS: Spirit, love of Norwich. SY: Yeah? So let's go back. So, well first of all, where were you born? DS: I was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. SY: OK, and when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?2 DS: An adult, I think. (laughs) I have no idea. I really had no idea as a very young child what I wanted to be. But this leads into Norwich because my father was a Reserve Army lieutenant colonel and I always saw the uniform. And I think as a kid, I wanted to have a uniform. And Dad was a Norwich graduate. And I'm a legacy. He was class of 1934. SY: Wow. Huh. And would he tell you stories about Norwich? DS: Not a lot. He would tell me that in 1934, before they marched to breakfast, they had to go down to the horse stable and take care of their horse. I remember that. SY: Yeah. So your dad was in World War II, I assume. DS: Yes. SY: Where did he serve? DS: He served in the States and in Europe. SY: Yeah. And so let's see, so you were probably a little kid when -- DS: Yeah, I was about seven years old when I really started to notice this. SY: How old were you when he was at war? Four? DS: Yeah, maybe four. SY: Yeah. Do you remember him coming home? DS: I remember coming home. I was, I think I came, after the war we came back to Brockton, Massachusetts, and I started the third grade. So what would you -- SY: But do you remember your dad coming home? Do you remember seeing him? DS: Not really. S: Not really? DS: No. S: Yeah, yeah. And did your mother move in with relatives while he was away? DS: Yes, yeah. SY: Yeah. That was a common thing to do, right? DS: Yep, common thing in those days, yeah. SY: OK, so your dad in uniform, so the military appealed to you. DS: It did, very much so. My dad was there. I had an uncle who served, saw a lot of combat in the Pacific theater and I had another uncle who died as a bombardier over Germany during World War II. SY: And did they talk about World War II, or was it not really discussed? DS: It wasn't discussed. SY: Because you know and again, we think a lot about PTSD nowadays. Do you think that the war, that your father struggled with memories -- DS: No, my father wasn't in actual combat. Not like my uncle who was in Japan, in New Guinea and Guadalcanal and that type of place. My father didn't see that type of combat. My uncle who did see a lot of combat never wanted to speak to it until I got to Norwich, then he would tell me some stories. SY: Really? What would he tell you? So he felt like you were sort of in the brotherhood? DS: Yeah, yeah. What would he tell me? Some of the atrocities that the Japanese committed upon the Philippines, the natives in the Philippines -- the rapes, the murders, the stuff that, that he saw. SY: Yeah, he witnessed that, yeah.3 DS: And he also saw, he also was a very lucky guy. Patrolling through the jungles of New Guinea, I think it was, he had a trained monkey that was on his shoulder and the monkey could somehow sense the Japanese in the area and would start to screech and give him, he was a lieutenant, give him some warning. And one day a Japanese sniper aiming for him shot the monkey off his shoulder. SY: No, he lost his monkey. He lived, but he lost his monkey. DS: He lived, the monkey died. SY: Oh. Happy but sad at the same time. (laughs) That was a good story. OK, so you're a kid, you're growing up in Brockton, Mass, and did you -- this is something I ask everybody -- did you play war as a kid? DS: Oh, I'm sure we did, absolutely. I'm sure we played war games. SY: But you don't remember them? DS: I don't remember them. I think we did, we played more than, war more than we played cops and robbers or Indians. SY: Cowboys and Indians, yeah. Well, it was a great generation post–World War II, it makes sense, yeah. OK. So tell me how you ended up choosing to go to Norwich. DS: Interesting story. I was not -- in high school I broke no academic records. I was just barely surviving. And Dad said, "I think it's time for you to go to Norwich," and in those days I think, I think it's probably not true, but I think as long as you had a pulse you could get into Norwich, OK. And I qualified with a pulse and not much more. And sure enough, I'm admitted to Norwich and I remember the first day I came here, Sarah. I drove up to the main gate in those days and I was 18 years old and I was driving the car, I'm a hot shot. Dad's in the front seat, Mom's in the backseat, kid sister is a couple years, three years younger, she's in the backseat. And I drove up to the gate and there was a cadet standing there and he had a couple of stripes on his arm. And I rolled down the window and I said, "Hey, where do you register?" he looked at me, no answer. And I said it quite, a lot louder, "Hey, where do you register?" no answer. Finally I whistled very loudly at him and he came over to the door and he put his nose through the door, right to my face and he said, "Mister, when you talk to me you call me 'sir,'" and my dad leaned over to me and he whispered in my ear, "I made it through this goddamn place and you'd better, too," my mother had tears in her eyes and my kid sister said that she thought that the cadet was very cute. (laughter) I remember that incident. SY: So you must have been, were you freaking out? Were you like, what the hell have I gotten myself into? DS: I was concerned. And at that point they separated us from our parents. (clears throat) They shaved our heads. And it's my recollection is they issued us an M-1, a rifle. SY: With no bullets. DS: No bullets. And we were told, "Never let it out of your sight," and "Say goodbye to your parents," and, "If you really behave yourself as a class and get recognized, maybe you'll get out of here for Thanksgiving, no guarantees," and then the parents were told to go down to the armory. And Ernie Harmon, Major General 4 Ernie Harmon was president of Norwich and my mother remembered that Ernie, who spoke with a real deep gravel voice said to the parents in essence, "Now why don't you all get the hell off my hill so that I can try to make men out of these pathetic boys." SY: Sounds like something Ernie Harmon would say. DS: That's exactly what he said. And that was it. They left and -- SY: Your father's like, what's going to happen to my little boy? DS: Absolutely, no question. That was my introduction. And I loved it. SY: Interesting. So when did you really start loving it? Right away? DS: I loved it the moment I got there. SY: Really? What did you love? DS: I loved the atmosphere, I loved the camaraderie, I loved the, everybody's doing the same thing, everybody's dressed the same way, nobody's different. SY: And what about that did you like? DS: I just liked the regimentation. I just felt that, this was made for me. And I also had the challenge. My father made it through, I could do it and I could have a better record than he did. SY: And do you think regimentation is part of why you didn't do so well in high school is that you didn't have enough regimentation? You think you were hungry for structure? DS: Oh, I'm a high school kid, you know, I'm chasing girls. I'm not interested in tomorrow's geometry assignment. That's no different than anybody is today, I think. But I loved Norwich. SY: So OK, so do you remember, OK, so you're getting your head shaved, right, so you're losing your precious hair. What are you thinking of while it's happening? Are you like, oh, I don't want to lose my hair? DS: I knew it was going to happen. It wasn't a surprise. SY: And then what about the first time somebody gets in your face and yells at you? DS: (laughs) It's all part of the orientation. You know, you know from day one that if you are a good cadet, a solid cadet, you're going to be in his shoes next year. You're going to have a couple of stripes on your sleeve and you're going to be yelling at next year's rooks. And it's all a big joke. SY: Yeah. Were there any kids who didn't make it? Do you remember? DS: Yes. Statistically, 51%, and I know this because I did some research on it, 51% of the cadets that entered with me in the class of 1960 did not graduate. SY: Wow, and did you -- DS: Now that is because of academics, because of military or because of honor code violations. So we lost 51%. SY: Did you lose any good friends? DS: Not that I can remember. I'm sure I knew them. Sometimes, I don't know if you, sometimes, I've bumped into my old roommate a couple of years ago at one of these reunions and he said to me, "Dick, do you remember the third guy that was in our room in Alumni Hall?" and I said to him, "Billy, we didn't have a third guy," he said, "Yes we did. He stayed only a couple of weeks and you and I woke up one morning and the bed was empty. He was gone," and I said, "You know, you're right."5 SY: You didn't know why, you didn't know -- DS: Just couldn't take it. SY: Yeah, just couldn't take it. So did you ever have moments of doubt, where you were like, am I going to be one of those kids? Or did you know you were fine? DS: I never dared to think that way. SY: Because your father would have killed you. DS: I was going to make it. It never occurred to me to leave. SY: Interesting. So what were your Norwich high moments and your Norwich low moments? DS: High moments, I think involved -- being here at Norwich, as a general thing, I was very proud of being here. I was very proud of the fact that all of the sudden I started to -- not immediately excel, but I started to handle my academic courses. I made good friends. That's something, Sarah, that I -- I think is so important about Norwich. The friends you make here in four years are lifetime friends. SY: Why do you think that is? DS: It's like no other college is, probably because of the fact it was a fulltime military school. Don't forget, in those days there were no women. Everyone, the draft was in, if you left Norwich your name, your deferment ended and you went right back into the draft. SY: So OK, but I'm confused. Because you're in that window post Korea, pre-Vietnam. Right? DS: Yes. SY: So there wasn't a draft (overlapping) -- DS: Oh there absolutely -- SY: There was? DS: There absolutely was a draft in 1960. The draft continued until just before Vietnam. Let's see, Vietnam blew up in 1963 or so. SY: Because that's, I've been confused about that, because I mean knew, and Korea ended when? Fifty? DS: Fifty-five, '56, no maybe '56. SY: So I thought there was a gap of, you know, I don't know, five some odd years where there wasn't a draft, but there was continually. DS: There was definitely a draft. And if you left Norwich, Norwich notified your draft board. SY: OK. And then you were going to go in without any control. DS: That's right. And you were not going in as an officer. SY: Right. Well that certainly makes leaving less appealing, too. So you were saying the friends you make at Norwich are the friends you make for life. DS: Yes. And that stayed, that's true as of today. We're a very, very tight group. Another high point, of course, would be graduation. My -- mother and father pinned my second lieutenant bars on. Dad gave me the first salute, I had to give him a dollar. Those are proud days. And academically I did well, I started to make the dean's list. SY: What was your major? DS: Business administration. I don't know if anyone's ever mentioned to you, but responsibility is something that they teach at Norwich. And cadet officers are 6 responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen under their watch. If a rook is not doing well academically, it's his captain's fault. And they would knock on your door during study hours and you'd better be seated at your desk reading a textbook and not a comic book. And there were certain hours that the upperclassmen were not allowed to bother you, academic hours, study hours. But once the study hours were over, then all hell broke loose. Then you're matched out into the halls and you're bracing and you're doing pushups and you're parading through the shower in nothing more than a raincoat and anything that the upperclassman can do to harass you. And then at a certain hour, get in your sack, go to sleep, it all starts again tomorrow morning. SY: Right, right. So did you end up taking on leadership positions in the Corps? DS: Yes. I was promoted my second year to cadet corporal. My third year I was cadet sergeant. My fourth year I was a cadet officer. SY: So what made, you think you learned how to be a good leader? DS: Absolutely. SY: So what made you a good leader? Do you remember a moment when you -- DS: No, there's not a moment. It's the combination of your training. The first thing a leader does is take care of his men. They're most important. Just because you have some stripes doesn't mean you can abuse anyone. And here at Norwich the rooks look at their cadet lieutenants and captains and majors and what have you and say, "That was me, they were me three years ago, four years ago," so that's something I have to aim for. SY: Mm-hmm. Yeah and did you feel, do you remember, I don't know, I was just thinking if there's a moment where you felt like you really excelled as a leader, and a moment when you felt like you failed as a leader? DS: I don't. I don't have specific instances. SY: OK, so we've talked about Norwich highs. And were there any Norwich lows? Failed tests to -- DS: Oh sure. But lows -- I'm hard pressed to tell you about any particular low. To me Norwich was just wonderful. I just could not have made a better choice, even though it probably wasn't my choice. SY: Did you get in trouble? DS: Everybody gets in trouble. Everybody walks tours. Everybody -- (laughs) I remember one time I, as a rook, I was coming up from the mess hall and rooks are not allowed to walk across the Parade Ground at that time. And I was in a hurry to go somewhere, I don't know. In any event, I started walking around, walking across the Parade Ground. And someone from a corner room in one of the, in the hall, I've forgotten the name of the, of it, right next to the -- the path, yelled at me and I turned around and I gave him the bird. And then next thing I knew there were two corporals escorting me up to the third floor room and I knocked on the door and I walked in and I never saw so many stripes in my life. This was a high-ranking junior cadet that I had just given the bird to. And he gave me demerits, that took me 10 hours to walk off. (laughs) Walk back and forth with a rifle. OK? And, but it's all in good spirit. SY: Yeah. What did you guys do for fun?7 DS: What did we do for fun? There were all kinds of clubs and activities. I'd have to go through the yearbook. SY: Were you a member of any? DS: Oh, yeah. And I don't remember, but I was a member of a number of clubs. And -- after the first year when you've got some freedom you could go to Montpelier. You'd grab a ride with an upperclassman, you didn't have a car. But you'd get to Montpelier and sometimes go to Vermont College, known as VC. SY: I was just going to say, what about the girls? DS: The girls, absolutely. Went to see the girls. And -- I don't know, we were so busy. SY: You didn't have much time for fun. DS: No. SY: Let's see. Who were your favorite professors? DS: By name? Oh boy. SY: Any that made an impression on you? DS: I liked most of the professors. I was a business major, I know I liked my English professor. SY: Was Loring Hart your English professor? DS: Yes. Yes, and subsequently president of Norwich. And I liked history. I liked the military professors. I won a prize as a freshman history, military history student. I was awarded a book as a prize, very nice. OK, that was about it. SY: All right. So it's getting to the end of Norwich, right, and you're about to commission. Right. So you know, where did you commission and what was that like? DS: Okay, okay. Let me back up a little bit. Before commission, in my class there were, some of us who thought we might like to go to graduate school. And we were ready to be commissioned and one of my buddies said to me that he was going down to Boston to take the law school admission test and I started to joke with him, I said, "What are you wasting your time for? You're not smart enough, you couldn't get into law school if you wanted to," he said, "I'll bet you $10 that you can't get into law school" and conditioned upon "if you do go down to take the LSATs, you've got friends at Boston University, you get us dates." I said, "Okay, you're on," so I called up my buddies at Boston University and I said, "Myself and a friend are coming down, we're taking the LSATs. We've got a three-day pass, we need dates," done, okay. So sure enough, we take the LSAT and both apply to BU and BC. We want to go to law school together. (clears throat) And he gets accepted at BC and waitlisted at BU. I get accepted at BU, waitlisted at BC. So that was the end of that. Also in my class another, two other guys went to law school, Doug Auer, who is now deceased, and Stan Brown, who is deceased. Stan and I roomed together in Boston. And we got our commissions with the rest of the class and we became what Alden Partridge who founded the school for, we became citizen soldiers. We had, we had, I was offered a regular Army commission, because I was a distinguished military student, which is a certain level of, of that and I turned it down, the regular Army commission, in order to go to law school. The Army said 8 to all of us who went to graduate school, there was also a couple of doctors and a dentist, out of our entire class that was it who went to graduate school, excuse me. And the condition was, yes, you can go to graduate school provided you're in the active Reserve while you're in graduate school. That means that each week you go to a meeting and you go to summer camp during the time you're in law school. Now we're second lieutenants. Which is fine. And that system worked out just great. Then I graduated from the law school. SY: Now hold on a sec. Hold on a second. Because it sounds like you sort of went to law school on a lark. You were like, I'll see if I can get in. DS: Yeah. SY: And then you're like learning tort law and was there a part of you that was like, why did go down and take those LSATs? Or did you discover that you really liked it? DS: Nobody likes law school. Anybody who tells you they enjoyed law school is full of baloney. SY: That is true. I've heard that before. DS: Okay. I think -- I did what was necessary to graduate from the law school. At that point I had no idea what I was going to do. I knew I could have my regular Army commission if I wanted it. And I -- I was just -- I didn't know what I wanted to do with the law degree. And I had to go in the Army, I owed the Army two years of active duty. The Army then came to me and said, "Well, Lieutenant Schultz, you are a Norwich guy, which we like, and a lawyer. You've passed the Massachusetts bar. We're going to make you an instant captain and we're going to put you in the JAG Corps, which is Army lawyers. And I said to them, "No you're not. I have had college right up to here. I don't want to be behind a desk. In the Pentagon or someplace like that. I am a commissioned armored officer and I want to be in tanks," and they said, "Well, it's up to you," I said, "That's right, it is," and so I said, "Where are you going to station?" and this is where the Norwich, what they call the "Norwich Ring Knockers Club" comes from, okay. Norwich takes care of Norwich. And they said, well, "I see that Norwich, well, we can make you this offer. You can stay at Fort Knox, Kentucky and be an instructor," I said, "That's not interesting to me," "Would you like to go to Korea?" I said, "Well, you know, that's a possibility, "Well, would you like to go to Germany?" I said, "Sold, OK, Germany sounds great, send me to Germany," and so a matter of a few weeks after graduating from law school, I reported to Fort Knox, Kentucky, I did some training in Kentucky and then they shipped me off to Germany. Which were, among, Norwich and my active duty time were the most formative years of my life. Both in a very positive sense. I reported to my commanding officer, who was at that time Colonel Frank B. Clay, son of Lucius Clay, who was a famous World War II general and in charge of Germany after the German surrender. Well, Colonel Clay, I went into his office and he has all my, he has my what they call a 201 file, he has my file on his desk and he said, "I'm so glad you're from Norwich," he said, "I am a very busy guy. The only officers I want in this unit are West Point, Norwich, VMI and the Citadel. I don't have time for the others," I 9 said, "Yes, sir," I'm assigned to what is called the Second Armored Cav which is a very, very prestigious outfit. SY: That's my phone. I'm sorry. DS: That's OK. I wanted to ask you if we're doing all right. SY: We're doing great, we're doing great. I'm getting really interested in hearing your stories in Germany. I just have my phone -- DS: Am I getting too detailed? SY: No, no, no, no. This is great. I want to hear about all this stuff. By the way, what did this, your commanding officer, what did he think Norwich grads had that other officers didn't have? DS: OK, we back on? SY: Yeah, yeah. I never actually paused it. Kept it going. Edit out. DS: Well, Colonel Clay, one of the most respected leaders I've ever met, I just loved him, he became a major general -- he wanted the training that came from a military college. He didn't want the ROTC. So anyway, I was about to tell you, the Second Armored Cav is a unit where in, where regular officers go to what is called "get their ticket punched for higher advancement." How in the world they took a reserve officer like me, with a law degree and put me in the Second Cav is beyond me, it belonged to somebody who was going to make a career out of the Army. And it was a wonderful assignment -- we were on what is called the, what was the East German / West German / Czechoslovakian border, known as the tri-zonal point. On one side is a minefield with watchtowers and East German / Russian soldiers looking at us through binoculars and we're patrolling a dirt path, fully armed, which made it a very, very unusual outfit after, in the Cold War. Fully armed, reading to protect ourselves and our only job as border patrol people was to give early warning in case they came over the border. We were much too small a unit to stop them -- our job was just to say, "They're coming, get the hell out," and -- it was so much more interesting than a garrison job because this is something that was very, very necessary and important in the Cold War. SY: So what was a normal day like? DS: Well, you went out on the border for a month at a time and you stayed, after a month you rotated back to your home, "concern" it was called. And you stayed there for two months and then you'd go back out again. What was it like? You lived out in the woods. You slept out there. You patrolled 24 hours, 24/7. You had listening posts. And -- you made sure that they didn't come over. SY: What was a listening post? DS: It was really very, very close to the border with microphones, to see if anybody was trying to sneak over the border. SY: So did you catch anybody sneaking over? DS: I never did. SY: You never did. DS: No. SY: So OK. So were there also any civilians attempting, they wouldn't cross at that point, that point to cross, there were tons of people with guns.10 DS: Yeah, yeah, but there's tons of crazy people. Don't forget, a border is a two-way street. It keeps them out and it keeps us in. So we didn't, we didn't have much of a problem. But we were ready in case there was a problem. SY: Was there ever a time when you thought you guys were going to -- DS: There was a couple of scary times. SY: Tell me about those. DS: One time, you've got to picture, you're in a Jeep. And you're not very well protected. You're patrolling this dirt path. And all of a sudden we heard (machine gun SFX) and we saw about 100 yards in front of us the dirt kick up. Well, if I'm going to, my grandmother, if she wanted to shoot us, wouldn't miss by a 100 yards. They had no intention of hurting us. It was harassment. But we were right there in so-called front lines. So we make a telephone call to Air Force jet fighters who are constantly monitoring the border and we give them coordinates and in a matter of a few minutes, along comes this jet fighter, zooms right over our heads and stays on our side of the border, but makes a ton of noise. And what does that do? One, it scared the daylights out of us, but we knew they were coming. He was coming. And second, it showed whoever fired on the other side that this is not just a Jeep, it's the United States of America. And we're going to protect our people. So this was the type of thing. And -- SY: Any other scary things? DS: Yeah, there was one other one. I was patrolling the border and there was a -- a train, a train trestle on top, a little bit of a tunnel, tunnel is just the width of a train and I came up on my side of the tunnel and my counterpart, an East German or a Russian, came on the other side and we just simultaneously looked at each other through the tunnel. And before I could do anything, my gunner, who was right over my head with a machine gun, turned the gun toward the Russian or East German and all I heard was click, click, click, he armed the machine gun and before I could say a word I was thinking, don't shoot, don't shoot, don't start World War III, and the Russian on the other side looked at me and yelled, "Amerikanisch cigarette? Amerikanisch cigarette?" and I yelled, "Nein, nein," and I told the driver, "Move," and that was the whole, the whole thing. SY: Interesting. So he was actually, he, huh, he actually thought you guys might be able to connect. DS: Oh, what we wanted me to do was throw him a pack of American cigarettes. SY: Cigarettes, for sure, but still -- (laughs) DS: Yeah, but he was not the good guy. SY: OK. So you're out in the field. You have a couple of incidents like this. DS: Yeah, but that's over a two-year period. SY: Right, most of it is probably boring. DS: It was fun. It was fun. SY: How did you guys entertain yourselves? DS: We were single. And the exchange rate was four to one. I think we were being paid somewhere around $230 a month as lieutenants, times four, makes us rich. We could buy anything. On the German economy. A Volkswagen cost $600. A Mercedes I think was somewhere under $2,000, maybe $1,800. OK? We were 11 very wealthy guys. I roomed with a fellow who's a West Pointer, we lived off base. We had a poodle dog who rode in our tank. We both had Volkswagens. SY: Wait, wait, wait. You had a poodle who rode in your tanks? DS: Oh, absolutely. He was the tank commander. (laughs) SY: That's hilarious. DS: Yep. And he came to work. And when we weren't out in the border, he came to work with me every day. He was very good. And toward about I would say -- oh, six, nine months before my tour ended, Colonel Clay came to me and he said, "I need an assistant S-1, which is a personnel officer at regiments. Would you like to come up to Nuremberg and work in the headquarters?" I said, "Sure," and he, I moved up from a town called Bamberg to Nuremberg and I was a regimental assistant S-1, which is personnel. And that's when my roommate and I lived together in Nuremberg and it was a good life. Yeah. SY: It sounds like it. DS: Oh, it was not roughing it. And after my time came up and I rotated home and that's when we get back to Brockton. SY: Yeah. And had you thought about staying in at that point? DS: Yes, I did think about it. This Vietnam had -- I couldn't point out Vietnam on a map, this was 1962, I'm sorry, mistake, 1965. And I -- we didn't even know where Vietnam was. Everything was nice and quiet, it was good. And I always thought of staying in, but then with the law degree and my parents were so happy their son was a lawyer, I came back to Brockton. And started a law practice. In those days, this was 50 something years ago, in those days you could do that, you could hang out a shingle and you could say, "Here I am, I'm a lawyer, I'm very well known," the name is known in Brockton -- I became an assistant district attorney. I prosecuted because of connections, that happens. I prosecuted some attempted murder cases, rape cases, things like that. And then I decided, time to go to work for myself. And opened an office and defended the serious felonies. And divorces and breach of contract and what a general practicing lawyer does. And I enjoyed it very much. SY: Yeah. What did you like best? Did you like being a prosecutor? Did you like being defense? Did you like? DS: I enjoyed both ends of it. I didn't stay a prosecutor very long. Just long enough to get what they call "experience at government expense," that's how you learned to try a case. Let the government pay you to screw up their assault case, rather than let the client pay you and say you're the worst lawyer he's ever had. SY: There you go. DS: So let the government pay for it. So then we start to practice law. And I'm still single. And now I've got, now I'm 28 years old. And I'm talking to my, about one of my very, very, very close friends, who's now married and I had met his girlfriend before I, while I was in law school, I said, "How about that girl you were dating when I was in law school? She married?" he said, "No, she's not married, I think I still have her number," then he gives me her number, I call her up, I make a date with her, she remembered having met me and we get married. And we've been married now for 49 years. Two children. One lives an hour from us in Massachusetts in Sharon, two grandchildren. And another one lives in 12 McLean, Virginia, which is an airplane ride. And he has two children. So that's jumping the gun, that's getting the children, but I think you probably want to know what I did in my law practice. SY: Yeah, I want to go back to Germany for a second. Because I think, you know, one of the benefits of getting someone from a place like Norwich, right, is in addition to the military training, you've also taken some history classes, right, taken some English classes and maybe taken a sociology class or two, so when you were in Germany, did you have a sense of like the politics or what was going on? Were you thinking about that? Or were you just kind of just keeping your head down? DS: The German politics? SY: No, the politics of the Cold War. Were you like sort of aware of the role you were playing in US foreign policy, were thinking about that when you were in Germany? DS: This was very much the Cold War and the answer to your question is definitely yes and it brings to mind a very serious incident that happened. I was there when President Kennedy was assassinated and I remember being in the officer's club after hours and don't forget, this is a time when there was no Internet, no telephone communication, no news that, you didn't know what was going on. And the officer of the day came into the officer's club and very dramatically, just almost like you would see in the movies, went to the bar, took a piece of silverware and banged on a glass for quiet. And I remember that he said, "Gentlemen, the president of the United States has been shot," we didn't even know if he was alive, OK, "Everybody man your battle stations," we did not know if this was a Russian conspiracy. We had no idea what had happened and we all got in our tanks and we all rushed to our stations on the border, the entire regiment went to the border. And our guns were loaded and they were pointed toward Russia, so to speak. And we sat there for three days not knowing what had happened to Kennedy and finally the word came out that Kennedy had died and that this was not a conspiracy from the Warsaw Pact and everybody returned to their base. Very scary. And just like in the movies. SY: Yeah. And did you sort of live with this fear that World War III was going to start? I mean, you're right on this border, you see everybody armed, the Cold War is quite literal to you and it's not so cold. DS: It's a terrible, psychological and dumb feeling when that happens. Because here you are trained to do a job and we sat out there and everyone had the feeling, we hope this is a war because we're Americans, we're the good guys, we're going all the way to Moscow, nobody can stop us, bullets will bounce off us, we've got the white horse. What an immature, dumb mindset. But that was the feeling. Let us go. We'll teach these sons of bitches that shot our president a lesson. SY: And you think that's just being 24? DS: That's being 24 and macho. SY: Oh, yeah. So it's interesting, it's sort of amazing to me thinking about this border with sort of armed kids on either side.13 DS: Eighteen year olds. SY: Both feeling that way and you know, it sort of seems like the Cold War could have gotten hot accidentally very quickly. DS: Oh, no question about it. SY: Why do you think it didn't? DS: Leadership. Leadership. At the officer level. The lieutenants knew that it would be their necks if they fired the first shot. And the training that the officers gave the enlisted personnel -- "You don't have to agree with me, but do what I say. And I'm telling you, you don't fire the first shot," and it worked. SY: Do you think you were a good leader? DS: The Army thought I was. I was promoted to captain. I was recognized as a good leader. SY: Sounds like you were a good leader. DS: I think I was. I did my best. I did my best. And when I came back from, when I came back and I decided to practice law, I still owed the Army some time, Reserve time. So I stayed in an additional Reserve unit and for a total of seven years commission time. Two years on active duty and five in the Reserves. Three during law school, two years active duty and two more. SY: And were you scared that you would have to go to Vietnam? DS: No. SY: No, because you were -- DS: No, they didn't need me at that point. SY: Okay, so let's talk about your law practice. How do you think your training at Norwich and your time in the service affected who you were as a lawyer? DS: Good question. How did it affect? I was very surprised that when I came back in 1965, you couldn't, a lawyer couldn't advertise. The rules have changed. You could put an ad in the paper saying you're opening an office, but that was the extent of it. So the only way a lawyer could get to be known as a practitioner was frankly to run for political office and hope to lose. (laughter) Because you don't want the job anyway. And that's what I did. There were -- three openings on the Brockton School Committee and there were six candidates, I was one. Being a candidate permitted me to advertise my credentials in the paper and to go to the League of Women Voters and this club and that club and talk to people. And at Election Day, thank goodness there were three openings, I came in fourth. Thank god, because I didn't want the job. But I advertised and I found that World War II veterans, Korean veterans were very interested in a Cold War veteran. And Norwich, to the military, whether you're a Norwich guy or an enlisted soldier, it means something. It's got credentials. Everybody goes to Boston University and Boston College and Harvard Law. In all my practice no one ever came into my office and said, "Before I hire you I want to know what law school you went to," never ever once asked that question. But if they saw my Norwich diploma on the wall and they wanted to talk about it. SY: Hm. Do you think it's that because lawyers have reputations at times for being like shysters, right? DS: Oh, absolutely.14 SY: So do you think they were like, okay, maybe this guy has integrity because he has this background (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? DS: Maybe that was their thinking, I can't get in their heads, but I think to a lot of my clients, businessmen and defendants as well, the Norwich diploma on the wall didn't hurt. SY: Yeah. Hey, what case are you most proud of? DS: I can't pick one. I really can't pick out, that goes back too far, I've been gone a long time. But -- and I also, I'm also thinking in, you know, this idea of Citizen Soldier. SY: Yeah, let's talk about that. DS: I also became very involved in Brockton itself. I was appointed a member of the Brockton Planning Board, the zoning board, the Consumer Protection Agency. I was president of the Jewish Community Center in Brockton and it evolved into a larger geographical area, the South Area Jewish Community Center. I just volunteered my time, not only because it's the right thing to do, but it was the right thing to give back to the community. SY: So hold on. I didn't realize you were Jewish. So now I have some questions. So first of all, what was it like to be a Jew at Norwich in the late '50s? There weren't that many. DS: There weren't that many. Good question. SY: I should have -- Schultz, I should have -- I thought about German, yeah. DS: Yeah, no big. There weren't a lot but there were some. I can't remember a single incident at Norwich of anti-Semitism. As far as my friends were concerned, that never ever came up. I was extreme comfortable. SY: Interesting. And did you go, let's see, because on Sundays people go to chapel, but there's a synagogue in Burlington. DS: There also, in my time was one in Randolph. SY: Really? DS: Yeah. I don't know if there is there anymore. SY: I don't think so. DS: But there was a rabbi in Randolph and there were, I would say maybe 20, 25 Jewish students. And we arranged for the rabbi to come up here and conduct services for holidays, right here on campus. SY: So you would do like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. DS: Yeah, if we weren't home, the rabbi would come up. But specifically to answer your question, it never was a problem. SY: Now that's interesting. I also interviewed a woman in town, Phyllis Greenway, and she remembered a song that one of the fraternities sang. This wasn't an anti-Semitic song, it was a funny song, that sort of had like a vaudeville flavor that involved a Jewish student, I don't remember what it was, but you don't remember a song? DS: No, but she, what was her position? SY: Phyllis? Oh, she was the girlfriend and then the wife of a Norwich student, and I think he lived in a house off campus and they had a -- okay, so -- DS: Was he a civilian?15 SY: No, no. He was, OK, wait, hold on. So then I think you being in Germany has a whole different valence. This is post Holocaust, you're this Jewish kid, you're going to Germany, right? DS: Yeah. SY: I mean first of all your parents were probably like, what the hell are you doing? DS: No, the only instruction my parents had was, "Don't bring home the daughter of a Nazi." (laughter) SY: They said don't bring home a shiksa, don't bring home a Nazi shiksa, that's it. (laughs) DS: Right, right, right. SY: But here you are in Germany. You're dating all these German girls. You're enjoying the German life. Did you think about being a Jew in Germany? DS: No, no, no. It's a very interesting thing, no. We, my roommate and I visited Dachau. And we were, of course, he wasn't Jewish but he was from West Point and one of my closest friends to this day and it just, Sarah, was never an issue. SY: It doesn't sound like it was something you were thinking about that (overlapping) -- DS: I wasn't thinking about it. I was very aware of the fact that when an American officer, emphasize "officer," walked down the streets of Germany in 1963 and if the street was narrow, the German citizen would give way to the American officer. They're very conscious of a caste system. This is going to be very difficult to describe, I think in this oral history, but the other thing that I remember to this day is when we drove our tanks down some of the narrow roads of Germany in 1963 and there's still some damage, everything had not been built up, if the scene had been transposed from Germany to the United States, an American seven- or eight-year-old kid seeing a tank go by would wave to the tank, the tank would wave back to the kid. In Germany the 10-year-old kid doesn't wave, he raises his right hand to the tank. In the salute. And we were very conscious of that. How they get that -- SY: And it's the Sieg Heil salute, right? So did it -- DS: Yeah. It was a tank. Germans love tanks. They've got tank mentality. They'd rather have a tank than 10 Mercedes. Yeah, they didn't, we were very conscious that the German kid did not wave, he saluted. SY: So it was a militaristic society. Yeah, yeah. And did you, when you were sort of hanging out with German girls, did you mention that you were Jewish? Or was it something, did it not come up? You didn't think about it. DS: Never thought about it. If they knew, fine, who cares? SY: Interesting. And did you, you were there for nine months. Did you celebrate any holidays? DS: Oh, I was there for 18 months. SY: For 18 months. So did you celebrate any holidays there? DS: Oh, yeah. SY: So where did you go? DS: Right there on the post. SY: There were enough men for a minyan.16 DS: Oh yes, absolutely. Are you Jewish? Oh, I didn't realize that. How do you spell your last name? SY: Yahm, Y-A-H-M. DS: YHM? SY: Y-A-H-M. We don't know, we don't know where it comes from. Sea in Hebrew but, yeah. DS: So this must be interesting to you, then. SY: Oh yeah, very interesting. That's why I was like, wait a second. I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah, so that's interesting. But there are no, I mean but you weren't worshiping out in the community, you weren't going to like a synagogue in the community, there weren't any. DS: No. There weren't any. I wouldn't have understood them anyway. They'd be in German. Yeah. I should have known, bring home a shiksa, I should have picked that up. SY: You said the shiksa, exactly. (laughter) DS: Okay. SY: And that's interesting, too, because your dad was in career military, that was -- DS: No, he was a Reservist. SY: He was Reservist, but still, that was unusual for a Jewish man in that era. DS: Yeah. SY: Yeah, so how did he -- DS: I don't think he had any trouble. SY: But I mean, how did he get into that path? Like where did your family come from? Did you immigrate? Like what was the deal? DS: The usual story from Poland, from Russia. He's first generation, I'm second generation. He came to Norwich on an academic scholarship, my dad did. And I don't think he had any clue what he was getting into. But I think he -- was of a mindset that nobody's going to throw him out of here. SY: So he was a public school kid who did well and got the scholarship? DS: Yeah. SY: And this is in Brockton? This is in Brockton? DS: Yeah, in Brockton, yeah. Class of 1934, look him up in the yearbook. SY: Interesting. Okay. So he gets a scholarship, he gets up here, he's being sent into the WASPy wasteland, right? And then here he is and he did well and then he stayed in the military. DS: Reserve. SY: Reserves. DS: Don't confuse them. Reserve. Yeah, and then he got called up right after Pearl Harbor. SY: Okay. And then what did he do for a living? DS: He was in the real estate business. And -- Brockton at that time was a town of about 55,000 people. Everybody knew everyone. Everyone knew everyone who was entitled to be known. You walked down the street, it was safe. Today it's a city of well over 100,000 people. If you walk down the streets of Brockton you'd better have a flack vest and a helmet on. Because it's a tough town. But it's changed, yeah.17 SY: Has that been sad for you? DS: I'm sorry? SY: Has that been sad for you, to see your hometown change? DS: Yeah, yeah, it was too bad. Good for business. A lot of criminal work. (laughs) SY: There you go. (laughs) DS: What are you going to do? (laughter) So, want me to continue? SY: Yeah, yeah. DS: OK. So anyway, I'm very, very proud and loyal with Norwich. I think these formative years here are just invaluable. I started a Norwich Club on Cape Cod, for Rook Sendoff, you've heard of those. We started the first year with about 15 people in attendance. We now have over 200 that come to, it's the largest sendoff in the country. Rich Schneider comes down, he stays at my house, OK. Or at General Sullivan's house. Gordy lives about five miles from me. SY: Oh, he's out on the Cape, too? DS: Yeah, he's got a summer home. SY: Oh, I didn't know that. And you guys were in school together at Norwich. DS: He was class of '59. He lived across the hall. SY: Hah. Were you buddies? DS: So much, not close. Became better friends later. Carlo D'Este, who I mention, Carlo, if you look up Carlo, he was class of '58, he runs the Colby Symposium. He lives five miles from me. And Rich doesn't always stay at my house. One time he couldn't stay at Sully's. But he and Jamie come down. SY: And this is Falmouth. DS: Falmouth. Yeah. So we start the club and we got so large a few years ago that we had to change venues because we were afraid the fire marshal was going to come in and close us down. We have a golf tournament. Good leadership. I formed this club, I got this club going and then I got a successor, so I'm no longer president. This is good leadership. Yiddishe cup. SY: I was just going to say, (laughter) you're using your noggin. (laughter) DS: So what else can I -- I served on the Board of Fellows at Norwich. SY: (phone rings) Hold on, it's going to pass in a second. We're just going to wait. Have to wait 30 seconds for it to pass. Dadadadada to my phone. I should have put it on silent but I forgot. There we go. Delegating. Yiddishe cup, that's where we were. DS: (laughs) Oh, I served two terms on the Board of Fellows. Loring Hart appointed me. And I come up here with the great class of 1960 for, every year we have a mini-reunion. And I am very, very honored. I'm only a captain. Everybody in my class is a colonel and I am the guy that leads them onto the Parade Ground, okay, with The Guidon. You've probably seen these parades. That's nice. We're very tight, we're a very close group. SY: What do you think a Citizen Soldier brings to society? Like what you do think, versus somebody who's a career military guy, like how do you think your perspective is different? Because Alden Partridge was like, "We don't want a standing army, we want citizen soldiers," right? DS: Yeah. SY: What are your thoughts about that?18 DS: I think we need Citizen Soldiers. The mindset is different. The Citizen Soldier in business can't simply say, "This is an order, do it," because he's going to get nowhere. He has to be probably a little bit more diplomatic. He has to remember who he's talking to. He has to cajole, beg, borrow and barter. The career army officer that's wearing eagles on his shoulder or stars might have a more difficult time coming back into business because he's not used to asking for anything. But yet they do very well. The smart career officer that retires, especially one who has been in the Pentagon, retires with his Rolodex and can work wonders in military business. And there's an old saying in business, that you know you're important when people return your phone calls. And people return phone calls to generals and colonels. They don't necessarily return phone calls to the lawyer. Because they don't know if they're being sued or what's going on. SY: Or if they're going to get charged for it. (laughs) DS: That's right, that's right. That's right. But I think in retrospect, if you had asked me, what would I change -- I think I would answer you by saying, "Not a damn thing." SY: Hey, that's a good way to view your life, huh? DS: I think that I wouldn't, I would not change anything. I am very, very proud of my association with Norwich. Excuse me. I am extremely proud of my children. They've done very, very well. They're college graduates with advanced degrees. Neither one decided, wanted any part of Norwich. Maybe because of the information that I've given you today. It's kind of tough for a legacy because you want to do better than your predecessor and this is very self-serving, but I think I would be a tough act for them to follow. And I think that was, that was -- grandchildren are doing very well, one's in college. Another one is a tremendous athlete that's never met a sport he doesn't like. The others are kind of young right now. We have a wonderful relationship. My marriage is wonderful. It's, in fact it's one of those situations where my wife was saying to me the other day, "Some days I'm mad as hell at you and could kill you, but I could never live without you," and I thought that was pretty nice. SY: That was very sweet. DS: Yeah. What else can I tell you? SY: I don't know, that's good. And I also, we've been, I want to make sure you can get up to the president's house. DS: Oh, he'll wait. (laughs) SY: Oh yeah, all right. Because you're from the amazing class of 1960. DS: No, I will be on time, I've got time. SY: Yeah, I know, you sort of -- DS: I have such respect for Rich Schneider. I think he is the best thing that has ever, ever happened at Norwich. I think we're going to hard pressed when he retires. And hopefully we can pressure him not to. (laughs) SY: I'm not sure that he feels that way. (laughs) DS: No, I don't either. SY: Let's see. We talked a little about Citizen Soldier, we talked a little bit about service. And it seems like you talked about service to your community in 19 Brockton. Do you think service was something you learned at Norwich? But it also was something you learned growing up. DS: Yes. Service to the community. I owe the community. The community was very good to me. The community -- the community not only was good professionally, but I think respected what I do, who I am, where I've been. Everybody knows that I was in the service, everybody knows I was a Norwich guy. Where I live now, I wear by Norwich sweatshirts. I'm a Norwich ambassador, I love talking to potential students. I go out of my way to meet with them. SY: What advice would you give a rook coming in now? DS: The advice I give them is if you haven't been up to the campus on the hill, call the admission office, arrange for a tour and see what it is. See what you're getting into. I do not have much contact with civilian students. I'm not a big advocate of the civilian population, which comes from, where I'm coming from. But not that I turn them down or anything, but I just don't go out of my way. I'm much more interested in the kid that wants to be a cadet. SY: I don't know. Any last closing thoughts? Are we? DS: A closing thought? I hope this has been helpful. SY: Very helpful. DS: I hope it's not too abstract. I can't imagine why anyone would want to listen to it. SY: Everybody feels that way. DS: Do they really? Okay. SY: I bet if General Sullivan were sitting here he'd be like, "Why does anybody want to hear about my life?" DS: He is so smart. He is so polished. When General Sullivan speaks, do you remember an old ad that used to be on television, people are in a dining room and one, one table over there says, "My stockbroker is Merrill Lynch and they say," and then the whole screen goes silent in the dining room. When Gordon Sullivan speaks, people listen. He is so smart, so polished and such a wonderful person. SY: Was he like that at 20? DS: Yeah, good guy, good guy. Everybody liked him. SY: Yeah. So you weren't like, he has the authority to -- DS: He was a buck private. SY: I know. DS: Okay? Nobody thought he'd make corporal. When he got commissioned there was a, "Really?" (laughter) SY: A nice guy, but I didn't think that was going to happen. DS: Right. SY: So funny, you never know. Right? DS: Right. SY: You never know. All right, well I think, I think that's about it for my questions. I enjoyed this. DS: Okay. SY: Are you eating wheat this week? Or are you not eating -- DS: No, I've got some medical problems. I have -- END OF AUDIO FILE
Transcript of an oral history interview with Harold L. Gilmore, conducted by Joseph Cates on 22 January 2017 as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Harold Gilmore was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1953; his experiences as a student at Norwich University and his post-graduation career path, particularly as an educator, are discussed in his interview. ; 1 Harold Gilmore, Oral History Interview January 22nd, 2017 Home of Harold Gilmore Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: Let's record and we can get started. HAROLD GILMORE: All right. Very good. JC: All right. This is Joseph Cates. Today is January 22nd, 2017. I'm interviewing Harold Gilmore at his home. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. To start off, can you tell me your full name? HG: Harold Lawrence Gilmore. JC: And, when and where were you born? HG: Born in Whitinsville, Massachusetts in 1931. JC: Okay. HG: April 30th. JC: April 30th. What is your Norwich class? HG: Class of 1953. JC: Okay. Tell me about where you grew up and what it was like as a child? HG: I grew up in a very unique town. The town of Whitinsville, a village of Whitinsville, in the town of Northbridge, Massachusetts. It was what you'd call a company town. It was a town that was operated fundamentally by the Whitin Machine Works, which was a textile manufacturing company. My father worked there his whole life. My mother worked there part-time at times. It was a town that was written up by the Harvard Business School at one point in time as sort of a socialistic environment. JC: Oh! HG: It was a town that ran the library. It had its own housing for its people. The rents were subsidized so to speak. They maintained those properties. So, it was a very unique environment, something that probably not many people in the United States have ever lived in but was very enjoyable. It was secure and stable 2 employment, good schools. Other resources were all well-made, fire departments, police departments, many of it subsidized heavily by the corporation. JC: And what corporation was it again? HG: Whitin Machine Works. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: And it was a textile manufacturing company. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: Subsequently, it has disappeared. Went out of business. Textile manufacturing moved elsewhere. Moves down South and then out of the country primarily. The remnants of it are over in New Bedford where I ended up retiring from the University of Massachusetts over there where the icon on the entrance of the school is a huge spindle, which is a representative of a device that runs a thread through looms, weaving machines. JC: What made you decide to choose Norwich? HG: Well, I was the first individual in my family to go on to college. It's a large family. My mother was one of eight children. My father was one of four. They married. They lived within, almost a stone's throw of each other. We lived in the same place. I grew up in the same place and had many aunts and uncles in the neighborhood. So, I did not have any prior experience with Norwich. The only thing that was driving me at the time was my father said, "You've got to get a college education." He was a wood pattern maker and worked at Whitin Machine Works, as I noted, and he said, "This is not your lifestyle. You've got to upgrade yourself." I did not have the experience that current people have of visiting campuses. I never went to Norwich. I had an uncle that had gone to the University of Rhode Island. He had not graduated. So, I applied there. And then, Norwich had a high school visit team that came through and I got impressed with what that fellow had to say so I applied to Norwich. I did not get accepted to the University of Rhode Island. So, I had the choice of one school, Norwich. So, I went to Norwich. Unbeknownst to me about anything about Norwich. As a matter of fact, I had my high school yearbook signed by one of the teachers and he signed it, "Hup, one, two, three" and he signed his name. I said, "What's that all about?" He says, "You're going to a military school! You're going to be in the Army!" I says, "I am?" When I arrived at Norwich, it was like a new day in my life. I had no military experience. I'd never even been a Boy Scout. The regimentation was totally new to me. That probably was the beginning of what I consider a rather difficult period of adjustment for the four years. As you will probably know, I was a private in the Corps for four years. 3 JC: Oh. Okay. HG: Never given rank. I had the one opportunity close to graduation, which I refused. I thought it was a token gift which I did not appreciate receiving at that point in time. I didn't accept it. In fact, I applied to transfer out of Norwich my freshman year to start college at Georgia Tech. I got accepted to Georgia Tech, got a telephone call from my mother saying, "What is this acceptance notice we've received from Georgia Tech?" I said, "Well, I'm going to Georgia Tech next year, Ma. I'm not going to Norwich." She says, "Very well. Pay your own way." I stayed at Norwich for the rest of my life because I had no money at all! JC: What was it like that first day showing up at Norwich? HG: Well, it was a very memorable day. My father and mother drove me to school with the necessary material that I had to have, clothing and I think we had to bring a mattress at the time. We arrived at Norwich in the morning. My father and mother dropped me off, dropped me off at Cabot Hall. Room 109 was my room. My roommate, Ron Bartlett, at the time, had arrived about the same time so I met his father and mother. We met each other, of course. My father, immediately after dropping me off, jumped in the car and drove back to Whitinsville. They had to get home before dark I think. We started out very early in the morning. In fact, had to turn back because he discovered on the way that we probably didn't have enough gas to make it all the way to Vermont. We went back to get an open gas station because we started out so early in the morning. But no, they dropped me off and left. I remember a conversation I had with Ron's mother and father and she said, "Would you take care of Ron? He hasn't been away from home before." I said, "Yes, I will, Mrs. Bartlett, but neither have I been away from home before." (Laughs.) That was an interesting first day. And then, in contrast to the first day my second year, where I arrived on campus and used to ship a lot of my stuff up in a big, overseas container by train so that my shipment had arrived at the mailroom on campus. I went to the dormitory and I was back in Cabot the second year too. I said, "Rooks! Rooks! I need a rook to go down and get my suitcase and bring it up to the room." "Sorry, Sir. We don't do that anymore." JC: Oh! HG: The harassment rules had changed over the summertime and I hadn't gotten word of it. Plus, I arrived too late, I guess, because I recall having to do that very same thing for upperclassmen that first year. JC: Mm hmm. HG: So, anyway, that was my first day at Norwich. JC: What was your major? 4 HG Electrical engineering. JC: And why'd you choose that? HG: Well, my uncle was sort of involved with the electrical work and not that he had a great influence on me but I observed that and I thought, "Well." He was working for General Electric at the time and I said, "Well, I think that maybe I would do the same thing." So, I sort of went into that field not for any other particular reason than he was successful in what he was doing and I thought it would be of interest to me. JC: Okay. HG: Fortunately for me, in the long run, there were only nine matriculated double Es in '49, which got depleted very quickly, either through people who didn't continue at Norwich or transferred to some other major. I graduated with one other very close friend of mine to this day, Al Gardner, who lives out in the southern part of Vermont on the western edge of Massachusetts. We were the two electrical engineers that graduated in '53. We had tutorials. It was a very fortunate thing for me because probably the school where I had to fend more for myself, I might not have done as well as I did in the curriculum. It was a good experience. JC: Which fraternity did you belong to? HG: I joined Lambda Chi Alpha, which is off-campus, up on the hill. My primary reason for joining them was at the pledge period, you were entertained at the fraternities. They had an excellent meal. At that time, they had a pastry chef with some sort of recognition and he put on a beautiful dessert and I was a fellow who had been plump my whole life, loved sweets, and said, "This is the place for me!" Joined the fraternity and wouldn't you know it, he terminated. He quit. The pastry guy was gone! But we still had good cooks, husband and wife team over the four years, and I ended up being steward of the fraternity. It was a large part of my college life was being in the fraternity. I had to be there at least every day, serving a meal, because I was in the kitchen. In fact, I got rewarded for doing that type of job with half my food bill was being paid by labor so that worked out very nicely for me. JC: Well, what else do you remember about being in the fraternity? HG: Great social environment. I thought that we had, as any organization you end up with some cliques and I had three or four fellows that I chummed closely with and carried on to this day until both of them have now deceased. We had a life-long bonding there so the fraternity life to me was probably my sole social environment on the campus other than some of the things I did with the intramural sports and whatnot. I really was sorry to see the fraternities go but I understood the reason for it and, of course, I was long out of the school at that time anyway 5 so I didn't react one way or the other. It was just a little bit of self-disappointment in the whole thing. I've kept my affiliation with Lambda Chi Alpha for over the years. I still am a donor to the fraternity. I've had representatives from Indiana come up and visit me at the house here asking me for more money. The Lambda Chi, at the time, had sort of reputation of being an academically-oriented fraternity and scholarly environment. Probably didn't pan out as scholarly as I had thought it would but I think the fraternity still holds to that sort of criteria. They like to have their fraternities be scholastically oriented, not just a place to go and drink beer or mess around with the ladies, you know. JC: Right. HG: So, yeah. I heard there might rumors that the fraternities with the civilian population at Norwich might come back. JC: Really? HG: Yeah. I heard a rumor about that but just a rumor. I'm sure that it'd be a hard sell to get them back on campus. JC: Yeah. I know Theta Chi would like to be back. HG: Theta Chi was the Alpha Chapter so, and Lambda Chi, we were the Zeta Chapter, the Zeta Chapter of Lambda Chi so we were not new in the world of fraternities as Theta Chi was. JC: What intramural sports did you play? HG: I got involved in softball, a little bit of tag football and basketball. As I recall, I managed, I guess you'd say, our company basketball team for a while, not that I was any expert in the sport itself but I knew enough about it to try to get the boys organized and spur them on at the games with the other companies. I was in Company B, I think, most of the time. We did okay but it gave you something to do as well as sit in your room and study, that sort of thing. Then, I was on the rifle team for a while. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: When I discovered that my scores were not counted because they have a system of counting only the top five or six scorers and I was always one or two below. I figured I never was good enough. I shot for the team and I gave it up. Tom Atwood, a classmate of mine, was an Olympic sharp shooter so he's – JC: Oh. Really? 6 HG: Oh, yeah. Tom was on the team and he spent a lot of time during his days in the military doing just that, representing the United States on the Olympic rifle team. Tom and I keep in touch to this day. JC: Okay. HG: Yep. JC: He would be a good one to interview. HG: Yeah. Tom is down in Florida in the winter and out in the Chicago area, I think, in the summer. JC: Okay. HG: They know, the school, where he's located. So, if you want to hook up with him, it'd be nice to get him because he was a cadet colonel too, I believe. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: I think Tom was. I know he was high rank in our corp. Getting old here. I forget some of the facts. JC: I understand. Besides intramural sports, what other activities did you participate in? HG: Oh. Let's see. University activities, you mean? JC: Mm hmm. HG: I don't think I, I didn't get involved in any of the other, oh, the IEEE, they had a professional chapter, student chapter. I was involved in that and became an officer in it. Of course, there weren't too many electrical engineers but we did have some younger grads, classmates coming in to it. We did field trips for that. And I was involved with the administration of it, so to speak. But that was probably it, the IEEE. JC: What does IEEE stand for? HG: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: Yeah. It's still an ongoing organization. I still belong to them. I'm a life member in that organization now, because of my age primarily and being a member for so many years. But yeah, it was a good organization. 7 JC: What'd you do to relax when you were at Norwich? HG: Sleep! (Laughs.) We would go to the movies. Go to Montpelier. Perhaps go out to eat in Barre maybe once a week. One of the difficulties of my being a student at Norwich was I didn't have any money and I didn't have a car. So, I was dependent upon a very tight budget and it didn't loosen up at all until I became a junior and senior where we were getting the ROTC ninety cents a day supplement, twenty-seven dollars a month. That helped a lot for spending money. My mother used to say, "The only time you call home, Harold, is when you want money. We don't have any to give you." So, I used to spread my money pretty thinly. So, I didn't do a lot of relaxing that cost anything. There is an incident. One time, Garry Moushegian, Al Gardner, my buddy, the electrical engineer, and I decided to go horseback riding and thought that'd be nice Saturday afternoon entertainment. So, we went out and, funny thing, we rented the horses and got saddled up, got on the horses, and started our trip. Well, none of us knew how to ride a horse. None of us had been on a horse before. The horses turned around and went back to the barn. Garry's a tall guy. Well, the barn door was so low, he got scraped off the saddle. Laughs. Finally, we get them back outside and get them on the way. We did our tour and we're coming back home and, of course, the horses wanted to get back in the barn again. So, they started trotted along and we're bumping along behind them in the saddles and so forth. We got back to Norwich and Garry came over to my room. He says, "Look at what happened!" It wore holes in his underwear! Laughs. So, we had some laughs, you know. Different things like that happened. That's the biggest recollection I can of the things that we did. We had fraternity parties. We had to get involved in that, preparing for them and that kind of thing was an activity that I did as extracurricular. JC: Did you do anything else for entertainment other than what you mentioned? HG: Not that I can think of. I wasn't in any outside of the school activities. I did join the Masonic Order when I was a senior. I joined that and that involves some off-campus activity. I got involved in the Northfield Church. Even as a freshman, I would walk down to church. So, I got involved in church activities. And to this day, I support the Christian Fellowship Organization financially on campus each year to help them along so they can have programs that they want to put on. They have a little bit of money to work with. JC: Right. HG: So, yeah, that sort of thing I got involved in. JC: Okay. Do you remember any particular songs from when you were at Norwich? HG: Well, there's "Norwich Forever," of course, the school song. There used to be a song we used to sing, "On the steps of Jackman, crying like hell! There's a 8 newborn baby. La da da." Laughs. That song we used to sing. The other words they escape me and they don't escape me. They better escape me. They were choice words. JC: I understand. I know the words too. HG: Do you know the words!? Laughs. No. That's about all I remember. JC: I've got it in an oral history, "The Indecipherable Song." HG: Have you really? JC: Mm hmm. HG: I'll have to read that because I'd like to find out what the rest of the song is. It's something like, "A bastard's son of old NU." Awful song. JC: Yeah. It's an awful song. Any other songs? HG: I don't think so. Not that I can remember. JC: Who were the instructors who were most influential during your time there? HG: Well, the electrical department certainly was. Professor Marsh and Professor Maxfield and Professor Spencer, those three. There's an F.A. Spencer award in electrical engineering on campus, I believe. And I have contributed financially to that several times. I don't necessarily do it every year. Those gentleman were very influential. They were almost like tutors to Al and I. We'd be in class. It was just the two of us. You got to know the people and they got to know us. That was a very unique college relationship, I think, that we had. JC: Mm hmm. What was your favorite class? HG: My favorite class? I don't know what that would have been. I know my most unfavorable class was. JC: What was that? HG: Thermodynamics! I flunked that one. I had to take that as a, in order to graduate, I had to pass that course my final semester. So, I was taking an overload. I like Public Speaking. That was an interesting class. I did that the freshman year. I recall we all had to give a talk and I think the fellow's name was Fisk that was the professor. After I got through, I was critiqued, of course, by the student population, including classmates and they criticized me for having my Boston accent. Fortunately, for me, Professor Fisk was from Braintree, I believe. He says, "Mr. Gilmore is going to be fine with his language. I understood him perfectly." 9 Laughs. So, that was a favorable thing out of that class. I remember that so I'd call it a favorite class. I enjoyed it. JC: What do you remember about being a rook? HG: The harassment. A lot of harassment and the fact that we had these duties to perform like opening of windows and preparing the latrines and shining upperclassmen's brass and shoes and that sort of thing. As a person unfamiliar with that, having been the oldest in a family of four, and the only male in that family, I was fairly independent and having to be subjugated to these requirements was demanding in terms of my having to conform to the practices that were being expected of me. That was the worst part that I knew of. Probably another thing would be being out where I was without an automobile. I grew up, as I say, in Whitinsville where I lived out of town about three miles. So, I was used to being in a remote area but I could drive. My folks had a car they would let me use and I could get into town fairly easily and, once there, there was always other transportation you could get as well. At Northfield, there was just absolutely nothing and the closest town was Montpelier, twelve miles away. And also, getting back and forth to school, my folks did not have the resources, the time, or the ability to bring me back and forth to school. There were no commercial transportation convenient. The only way I could get back would be to get a ride from somebody else. And so, that was always at the top of your mind. When you come home, how am I going to get to school? How was I going to get to summer camp, which was down in Georgia? I had no car. I didn't have an automobile until I had started, after graduation, when I started working for Westinghouse, without a car. I had to save up enough money for a down payment to buy one. So, my first few months at work were devoted to saving as much money as I received from my Westinghouse pay to build up enough money to make a down payment on a car, which I finally did. I bought a used car in Whitinsville. I remember it cost $1350. It was a 1949 two-door Ford sedan. I ended up taking it to Japan with me and selling it off over there. Didn't bring it back. Yeah. So, those were the hard parts of school at Norwich. You know, I can recall when I'd get back from Norwich from a vacation, it be in the evening, you'd see the lights up on the hill and I would breathe a sigh of relief, "I'm back home and I'll be safe here when I get home." It ended up sort of like a security blanket. The school prepared me for, it gave me the keys to success. I'm forever pleased and blessed that I ended up going and staying at Norwich actually. It's created a great deal of enjoyment for me over my life. I've had a great post-graduate career and one of the things it taught me was perseverance, life-long education. I wasn't necessarily a brilliant scholar but I ended up getting three master's degrees and a Ph.D. post-Norwich experience and I think Norwich had to have something to do with that motivation to do that. JC: What are your master's degrees in? 10 HG: I have a master's degree, an M.B.A., and I have a master of science and a master of arts, one in human resources and one in labor relations. JC: Okay and where are they from? HG: One is from Shippensburg and one is from Loretto. That's awful. Can you give me a minute? JC: Yes. HG: I have a B.S.E.E. from Norwich, and M.B.A., a Ph.D. from Syracuse, a master's degree from St. Francis College, and a master's degree from Shippensburg University. JC: Okay. HG: The most important degrees for me, of course, was the B.S. in E.E. and the M.B.A. Ph.D. from Syracuse because those influenced what I did with my life more importantly. The other two degrees were done because of what I felt I needed to be effective in the classroom that I subsequently taught and administered the programs in at both Penn State and at UMASS Dartmouth. JC: Oh. Okay. Let's see. What was your favorite part of Norwich? HG: Favorite what? Part? JC: Part. HG: Part of Norwich? JC: Mm hmm. HG: What do you mean by part? JC: What did you like most about it? HG: Well, I would like the day I graduated was the most favorite part for me. I had my entire family there, extended family. We rented a whole motel. I was the keystone person that ever graduated in Johnson and Gilmore family. As I mentioned, the size is extensive and I remember quite a few relatives to follow, cousins and so forth. That was an occasion that I really, it was a success for me because I went there thinking, "I've got to graduate. I cannot fail." And I hadn't even though that last semester I had to take that extra course to make it through. I did it. And then the fact that it prepared me. I left the place with a job. I had a commission. I got a deferment for ten months so I could go to work for Westinghouse and get some industrial experience before I went in the military. Stayed in the military for my, 11 well I went in for two years but I extended because I got special weapons training with atomic weapons and I was there for close to three years total. Could have stayed longer. I was asked to stay longer but for family purposes I, stayed in the Reserve though. I retired from the military and I made it well up to the rank of colonel which I felt was something I never expected either and I think Norwich prepared me for that sort of experience, knowing how to behave and accept responsibility and perform the duties that I was required up to a successful level, satisfactory level. So, the best day at Norwich was indeed the day I graduated because it marked a major milestone in my life. Just as the first day I went there marked a major milestone. JC: What was the most important thing that Norwich taught you? HG: I think to be respectful of others and to take life-long learning seriously and to be persevering in what you're trying to accomplish. Norwich's motto is "I Will Try." So, any opportunity that came along for me, I seized upon. I was outwardly looking, several Fulbrights, quite a bit of overseas experience, along with my family, and I think Norwich prepared me for that by having an overseas assignment that was one of my first, the only one I had as a lieutenant was in Japan. And I got to like other cultures and so forth. I pursued that in Africa, Europe, and other places. As a matter of fact, I was contemplating a trip to China this year. JC: Oh. Really? HG: Yeah. I think I may go to China. I got the quotation and everything. One of the things I have to clarify is that both my wife and I's status health-wise to make sure that we're fit to go. I think we both will be allowed to do that from a medical perspective. The only thing remaining is making the commitment. JC: Mm hmm. HG: So, yeah. We're looking forward to that. We've gone on a number of cruises in the meantime to Alaska, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Alaska. So, we engaged travel, so I think the military and the Norwich environment has cultivated that sort of orientation to our lifestyle. JC: You mentioned "I Will Try." What did it mean to you as a student? HG: What did it mean to me when? JC: As a student. HG: As a student? Probably not much. I don't think you really appreciate that. I appreciate it more now that I've graduated and look back on things. I think, one of the things, it's not "I Will Try" so much but "I Will Stick to It!" 12 JC: Mm hmm. HG: I will not quit! I was amazed at the number of freshman, matriculated freshman that left Norwich the day they had to get a short haircut. JC: Mm hmm. HG: I, fortunately, grew up every summer having my head sheared off with what we used to call a Harvard clip. So, it didn't bother me to have to have it cut another eighth of an inch off. But these fellows that came up with the golden curls that had to get sheared said no and left. I wasn't going to give up. If Norwich's moral had been "I Won't Give Up," it would have been more appropriate than "I Will Try" in my case. "I Will Not Give Up." JC: What does Partridge's idea of a citizen soldier mean to you? HG: Well, it means to me that I'd like to see conscription come back. That's how much meaning it has to me. I think everyone should have a requirement to do some public service of some sort, not necessarily military but some kind of public service to build a concept of patriotism and to embed the value systems that our country stands for in their lives, personal lives. And so, the citizen soldier concept, I thought that Partridge had was just that. A person has a responsibility for his country, his family, and the two can coexist. JC: Mm hmm. HG: So, that's what that means to me, to be part of the process as an individual. JC: Mm hmm. Do you remember any funny stories from when you were at Norwich? HG: I'm sure Fred told you a funny story, the time I came up and down on the dumbwaiter at his surprise. He wondered, "Where was Harry?" And I said, "Here I am!" And I was inside the dumbwaiter cage! Laughs. That was a comedy. The other thing was the, not so much of a story but incident, was the time I repeated earlier about the horseback riding incident. That was a humorous event. I don't recall any other thing comes to mind at the moment. I'm sure there probably were numerous other events that happened that created some humor but I don't recall any right now. JC: So, what did you do after graduation? I know you went to work at Westinghouse. HG: Yeah. I went to work for Westinghouse immediately upon graduation. Had a job before I graduated. And then, I took a deferment from, Westinghouse gave me a deferment for about ten months because I did have the two-year obligation as a commissioned officer. So, then I went in the military and got asked if I were 13 interested in taking a special weapons training. That's the atomic weapons training. I got a Q clearance and so forth. And I went to Sandia Base. While there, a unit, 261st ordinance detachment was formed. I became the first commanding officer for, until such time as the captain showed up to take over the reins. I was in individual training. Didn't finish that. Went in to unit training, the 261st trained with the 5th field artillery battalion for deployment to Japan which, incidentally, at that time was against the peace treaty that we had signed with Japan. We're not supposed to bring any new armament into the country but we did. We brought in nuclear weapons. We used to have a little difficulty, the artillery did, going out to the range and firing it off. I went there and did some field exercises in Iwo Jima in Okinawa. While there, got to talking to a gentleman at KU Ammunition Depot Bar one evening and he was leaving for Syracuse University for the comptrollers' program there. And he says, "Harold, you ought to think about getting your M.B.A." And I said, "Well, what's that?" He says, "It's a master's degree in business administration. It's a great topping off of your electrical engineering degree and it's highly sought after people." Now, this was back in 1957, '57, '58. So, I put in for an early release. It was like eight months early. They weren't going to let me go until I got some congressional involvement by Saltonstall and he facilitated my departure from the military. I didn't give up my commission. I just went in the Reserve. And so, I went to Syracuse at that time. Got my master's degree. Went back to work for Westinghouse. Worked for AVCO in the reentry vehicle business, the Apollo program. And from there, I decided to go on to Syracuse. I got a three-year fellowship for a Ph.D. program in organizational behavior and operations management. So, I took that, went there, gave up my work, sold my home, took my family to Syracuse. Again, very, in retrospect, very risky situation. A lot of people start out looking for a Ph.D. and they never get it. I was told when I arrived, I had a very good advisor, a fellow who I had as an M.B.A. faculty member, Dr. Seimer. He said, "Harold, you do not leave this campus without that Ph.D. because you'll never get it if you do." So, I says, "All right, Dr. Seimer. I will not leave." So, I stayed there and I got the doctorate and left them. In my first job, I was planning to go back to work for AVCO because I was in a research and development division where higher degree were, of course, very prominent. JC: Mm hmm. HG: Well, and they had said, "Well, maybe there might be an opening for you when you get through." Well, three years is a long time and everybody changed chairs there. There didn't seem to be anything open for me so I took a job with the University of North Dakota at Minot Air Force Base in the Air Force Institute of Technology program. The AFIT program. We transferred their master of engineering degree to an M.B.A. degree while I was there and I was there for a couple of years. And from there, I transferred to Penn State University and I was at the Middletown campus. My office overlooked Three Mile Island. I was there for sixteen years, I believe. I did teach up at State College one semester. Then, for family reasons, I left Penn State. I was tenured and everything but I left Penn 14 State and came to UMASS Dartmouth here for family reasons, health reasons. And I did ten years over here. At that point in time, I retired from UMASS but, in the meantime, had picked up some work for the University of South Pacific at Fiji. So, I worked off and on during a five-year period in the year 2000 over there. JC: Okay. HG: Currently, I am volunteering at the National Graduate School of Quality Management here in Falmouth, which is an online type program. I am the director of the alumni program, which they've never had before. So, it's an experiment and it may be a futile activity but I'm giving it the best go I can give it as a Norwich guy. I'm not alumni but I'm their director. I'm modelling it after the Norwich Alumni Association. As a matter of fact, I used Norwich's bylaws in modifying to try to make them fit this school's program. So, that's where I am to this moment and I don't know how much longer that'll last. I've been doing it for a couple years now and probably give it another, 2017 may be my last year of doing that. Depends upon what my success is this year. JC: Well, you've had a lot of schooling. How did your training at Norwich prepare you for life, specifically? HG: Very well. Very well. In retrospect, I wouldn't have it any other way. It taught me to roll with the punches. You can't have everything your way all the time. To get along, you've got to go along and cooperate and you graduate. I think, probably, the teamwork idea was imbedded, not so much in a pointed way but in an overall way of existing and finishing up your, what you started. We had to work with other people. I started out as an individual and I think I came out as a person who understood that to get along in this world, you're going to have to work with other people and depend upon other people. Now, I probably, even to this day, I'm a volunteer and I know that I have, I have no resources. I have no budget. I don't have even office space, so to speak, except out of the house. Working with some adult people over here and I know that I depend upon them for everything I get done and I acknowledge that very, very fully to the best extent I can. Because I know that their cooperation, my success depends upon them. Without them, I'll die on the vine. I think Norwich has taught me that concept. Oh! I think I didn't mention to you. You probably were aware of this. I created, for the bicentennial, a puzzle. JC: Yes! You did. HG: You're aware of that? So, I put that together. JC: Mm hmm. 15 HG: And, you know, the thing is, the way that transpired, nobody seemed to want me to do it. Sometimes, that rubs me the wrong way. So, I says, "I don't care if you don't want me to do it. I'm going to do it anyway!" JC: Yeah. HG: So, I did it and quite amazed at how it turned out! There's a gentleman next door who's a graphic artist and he's good on the computer. That's what he does for a living. I got the university photographer, they let me access the photographs. I picked and chose some photographs, brought them over to Sean. I said, "Sean, what can you do for me?" He says, "Let me see those." So, we looked. He says, "I'll have something for you tomorrow." He brought over the thing. "What do you think of that?" Well, we made some adjustments and so forth. My wife has a friend who does puzzles and she brought over to our house a wooden puzzle that she had bought for the Lilly family, the big drug people here in Falmouth, a lot of property and donor, a very big benefactor. I said, "Maybe we could have a wooden puzzle for what I've created for Norwich." So, I contacted a guy in Connecticut and he says, "Yeah. If you're willing to pay the price, I can make that for you. No problem." So, I says, "Okay. Let's go with that." I've even gone down there and I've even worked the puzzle thing myself. My wife and I watched him make, it's an example of his work. Got that done. Made a contact overseas. Got somebody to stamp out those puzzles. I bought four dozen of them. Gave them to the school and said, "Use them at will." Then, I gave Sullivan, no, I gave Schneider a wooden one and I think he turned it over to the, the wooden one I gave him because I didn't want it. What was it going to do with me? So, I gave to him and he put it in the museum, I think. JC: It's at the museum. HG: It was a labor of love. That's all. I just did it because I didn't find the support that I thought I might have gotten from the bicentennial committee but they had bigger items on their agenda. This was not going to fit into the program, I guess. And then, I was involved, at one time, with a committee on postage stamps and I had done a lot of work and I was really disappointed. I got mixed messages from U.S. Postal Service as to whether the images that I submitted weren't, "They're fine. We're going to submit them for postmaster consideration." Then, I get a message from somebody else on the committee saying, "No. We're not." And you can't reach anybody on that committee because they're, you just don't have any contact information for them except maybe names. But now I understand that they did release, or rerelease of the Alden Partridge stamp for the ROTC commemorative. They said that now Schneider's got himself behind the request for a Norwich postcard set which is what they usually do. I think if they don't do something for Norwich for the bicentennial, there's got to be something wrong in Washington. I hope they follow through. I sort of dropped out of the picture because it's now gone beyond my involvement. But I filed all the paperwork and everything else necessary for that. Hopefully, we'll see something come to pass. 16 JC: Hopefully so. HG: Yeah. I was told that one the things, they said, "Well, you've got to get the postmaster in Northfield involved. And I said, "Well, I'm not in a position to do that. You're right there in town." The bicentennial committee itself could just go to the postmaster and say, "We want to issue the stamp." And if he supports it, I guess, or postcards, they don't, the stamps are a little more dicey to get through. But the postcards are pretty easy to do, I guess. So, maybe, we'll see what happens. I don't know. I've lost touch with that group. The last I heard was that they upgraded the applications or something by getting Schneider's support and some other people supporting it too. That'll be good. JC: Yeah. Hopefully, that'll work out. HG: Yeah. JC: Well, that's about your involvement with Norwich. HG: Mm hmm. JC: How do you think your professional life would have been different had you not been a Norwich graduate? HG: Oh, dear. Tremendously different because Norwich set me on a military career. It set me up for a military lifestyle, in a way, although I didn't go there with that idea at all nor did I graduate with that but it just sort of grew on you. I can recall, being a reservist, I would say, "Well, maybe I'll just stop going. I'll just give up." One year led to another year and before I knew it I had thirty years and six months and I was boarded out. I got considered for general officer and I didn't make it. I understood why. My competitor, I knew who that person was and a lot of stuff on his chest that I, ribbons on his chest that I didn't have and I figured he was more entitled to it or earned it more than I did. He had combat time. I didn't have any combat time at all. I was in a war zone, Korean War, but that was over practically. So, I think Norwich set me up for that whole aspect of my life. The academic part of it came about, my industrial area was focused on my engineering experience and math and science and so forth. And then, my academic life, all the way from doing some consulting work and so forth and having the idea of a continuous learning environment. I just kept on going to school, both militarily and civilian-wise. I took many, many a correspondence program. I went to Fort Leavenworth to the Command and General Staff School. I taught Command and General Staff School. I taught at the Army War College in Carlisle, both as a military faculty member and as an academic Penn State, because we had a program with them. JC: Right. 17 HG: You know, I'm amazed at the kinds of things I got involved in and I attribute it all to Norwich. If I had gone to URI like I wanted to heavens knows what I would have become, if I ever graduated. Or if I'd gone on to Georgia Tech, I might have failed out! Who knows? Norwich kept me going. I did hit the dean's list a couple times while at Norwich but I was no stellar student. Sullivan and I share one common thread. We both were privates for four years. JC: Yep. HG: And, you know, I'm not proud of that but we survived. He did very well militarily, obviously. Much better than I did! He got, what, four stars. I got the eagle but, nevertheless, I think that Norwich did us both very well. JC: I think so too. Has being a Norwich graduate opened doors for you that might not have been opened otherwise? HG: I thought, militarily, yes. Yeah. I can clearly recall early on in my career, when I was living up in North Andover. I was in the Reserve unit in Boston. The fellow that was in command of that unit, he loved Norwich guys. So, I got signed to his unit. Having somebody who was favorably disposed to where you're from certainly is helpful in the image that you are going to create if you live up to the person's perception of the school. JC: Right. HG: And I did very well. So, I think that opened me up for captain and major level of consideration. From then on, it was, an interesting little thing was when I worked for Penn State, I had a student by the name of Emmett Page. He was one of the Army War College students that were taking the master's program at Penn State. I was a faculty member, teaching him a course and I was over at the graduate program over there, teaching in their program, the military. Came time for me to have an assignment, as a colonel. Guess who I ended up being assigned to? JC: Emmett Page? HG: General Page. Laughs. He was in charge of the electronic research and development command in Adelphi, Maryland. I was his assistant. JC: Oh. Wow. HG: So, I got an assistant commander position with him as a colonel. I'd go down there and he'd say, "Harold," because I was in quality, he says, "I got some contracts out there. I want you to go to these contractors and see what they're doing and jack them up if they need jacking up." Laughs.) I had a great relationship with Emmett. I followed up with him a little bit afterwards. He was 18 my former student, was now my boss. I was grading him and now he was grading me! It's a small world. JC: Yes. It is! HG: Another interesting situation too was, we're in Japan, my wife and I together, concurrent travel. We'd had a major social event in Tokyo. I don't know what level it was, battalion, it wasn't a battalion party. It had to be higher up than that, maybe a Sullivan Theater type thing. Anyway, we went to it and who do we run in to? Colonel Burkle. Burkle was on campus at the time and his greeting to me and my wife when we got together, "Lieutenant Gilmore, your brass is shiny." Laughs. I says, "You can thank Mrs. Gilmore for that." See, most of my fun happened after I got out of Norwich. Yeah, Colonel Burkle. I think he was a colonel at the time. "Your brass is shiny." I said, "Yep. Thank Mrs. Gilmore for that." Oh, dear. I could go on and on and on, I guess. Been a long time. JC: Mm hmm. Do you think Norwich graduates have a special bond that other people don't? HG: Oh! Definitely! Definitely! Oh, yes. I see it in my children who graduated from Penn State. There's nothing like, these online programs, there's no bonding at all! JC: Right. HG: It's like dealing with particles in the air, dust particles, but Norwich, that experience there puts you into close proximity with other people. It served me so well. Al Gardner, I talked with on the phone all the time. Up until Garry Moushegian's demise, he died up in Norwood, MA, with him all the time. Fred Maier, Jack Gillis passed away. My roommate, Bartlett, Jack Gillis, Garry Mousehegian, they all died within a matter of months of each other. I lost all my, so now there's just Fred left and Al Gardner. So, I've got two very close friends. Other people I know but not quite as, as I said, we socially went everywhere with each other, cruises and all that stuff, you know. Families knew each other. Kids knew each other and stuff of that nature. So, yes. Norwich does create a separate, a special relationship, I think, amongst us graduates. JC: Mm hmm. Um, let me see. We've already answered that question. HG: Mm hmm. JC: Um, you've just answered that question. What advice would you give a rook about how to survive and thrive at Norwich? HG: Go with the flow. Join the program full heartedly. Don't fight it. Join it. And see what you can do to excel in it. 19 JC: Mm hmm. HG: I probably chose, I wouldn't say the opposite path but I resisted. I resisted the program and suffered for it, without getting any rank and you don't get ahead in the world that way. You're going to participate in the program and probably if you can't do that full heartedly, you might do better elsewhere. It's not a place for everybody, the military part of it anyway, the Corp. Now that Norwich has a civilian component, you know, Norwich is a nice school and it's a nice environment and Vermont's a pleasant place to enjoy the winter months and so forth. Can't complain about the environment. If you like a rural environment, it's fine. And I grew up in a rural environment so I didn't really rail at that sort of thing. Although, I sent my granddaughter up there for a campus visit and she came back, "Gramp, the place is not for me." She says, "I'm going to be a minority." I said, "What do you mean?" She says, "Well, I'm not going to join the Corp. I'm going to be a civilian. Right now, I detect that they're a minority up there." JC: Mm hmm. HG: I says, "Well, it's a wise maneuver not to go there. You've got to be happy where you are to do the best you can do." My advice to a rook is you've got to decide whether you're going to be happy in this environment or not. If you are, you'll do well. If not, you're not going to do as well. You might get through, but you won't be the success that you could be maybe someplace else. I have two grandsons. I've got three grandsons but two older ones. I tried to talk them into going to Norwich. Mother was not military-oriented and things were not so, we were at war. We've been at war for so long they don't know what it's like to be without it but she didn't think that was the thing to do. I do have a grandson here locally but he's going to Mass Maritime Academy. JC: Oh. Okay. HG: So, he's quasi-military, in a way. I think that he'll finish that program up in two or three years. He didn't want to go to Norwich either. I don't know why. I don't think he gave it a chance, because he likes to ski. He's an outdoors boy. He would do well. He's got the military bearing and so forth, but he chose the Maritime as a place to go. He did hear that employment opportunities were greatest at Mass Maritime and they are. You graduate from that place, you get a job. JC: Mm hmm. HG: If you've got anything going for you at all. Norwich used to be able to say, "You're going to get a commission." But that's not true anymore either. JC: No. It's not. 20 HG: The place is not going to sell itself with providing a vocation after you're through. Where this place practically does. So, he was encouraged to go. It's local and so forth. JC: Yeah. So, you didn't have any relatives that attended Norwich? HG: Hmm? JC: You didn't have any relatives that attended Norwich? HG: No. I didn't. I don't have anybody that went to Norwich. No. None of them. JC: Well, is there anything else? HG: No. By golly, we've had quite an enjoyable interview. I've had some fun talking to you. I can't think of much more. JC: Well, I thank you very much. HG: I enjoyed it. Thank you, too. End of recording.
Transcript of an oral history interview with William Sawyer Gannon, conducted by Joseph Cates at Gannon's home in Manchester, New Hampshire, on 18 July 2016 as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. William Gannon was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1958; his family history, experiences as a student at Norwich University, seminary education, and post-Norwich career as a church priest are all discussed in the interview. ; 1 William S. Gannon, Class of '58, Oral History Interview July 18, 2016 Bedford, New Hampshire Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: This is Joseph Cates. Today is July 18, 2016. I'm interviewing William S. Gannon. This interview is taking place at his home in Bedford, New Hampshire. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. Do you go by Rev. Gannon? WILLIAM S. GANNON: Rev. Gannon, Father Gannon, Mr. Gannon or Bill. JC: [Chuckles] Or Bill. Okay. WG: (Chuckles) JC: Well, I'll tell you what, tell me your full name. WG: William Sawyer Gannon. JC: And what's your date of birth? WG: May 30, 1936. JC: Okay. And where were you born? WG: In Manchester, New Hampshire. JC: Okay. And what Norwich class are you? WG: Class of '58 JC: Tell me about where you grew up and what you did as a child. WG: Well, I grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire for the first 6 years. And being born on the day that the whole country celebrated Memorial Day, which was always May 30th, whenever it fell. We lived opposite Stark Park. And there were cannons at Stark Park. The Gannons lived by the cannons. And the parade ended at Stark Park. And when I was three years old, they shot their guns off three times. So, I of course, assumed that that was in honor of my birthday. And when I was four and they still shot them only three times, I was upset. JC: (Laughs) 2 WG: (Laughs) So, that was the first part of life here. I still have my three-year-old nursery school report and I'm very impressed with the quality of the thinking of the writer of the report. It was a page and a half. And I was amused by some of the comments that every dog I met I thought was my own. And, that when I was asked to do something I didn't understand, I would cry. But once it was explained to me, I was alright. I love to say, "And nothing has changed." JC: (Chuckles) WG: (Chuckles) And I guess I feel especially blessed by both my early – my preschool education, which started at the age of three and my musical education which started before I was born because my mother was a concert pianist and the church organist and a teacher of piano. So, I was hearing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, and Romanov and Debussy before I was born. And much later in life is when I had a very deep and still do have, a love of progressive jazz. That's the jazz from the 40s, 50s and 60s and 70s I'd say. I read somewhere something that lead me to realize that my hearing Debussy early on had set me up for the cords that are present in modern jazz. And recently some social psychologist was telling me that when babies are adopted at the year of one year old from Russia, they come to this country, something that is often unanticipated by the parents is, all they have heard, even though they aren't speaking yet, are the sounds of Russia, the Russian language. They have to pick up on the sounds of English language. As adults, we tend to think that language is only important once you start speaking, but clearly, it's important even before you're born, you're hearing sounds from people's speech. So, I really thank my mother. She started me on the piano at age five and I still play but not publicly, on the piano. It never took with the seriousness that I wish it had. And I went on later, that was 11 or 12 to a piano teacher, another teacher in high school and nothing really got started until I took up the trombone in high school. But, my mother was very important to my early life, I now know, in ways that I didn't always appreciate when I was growing up and when I was an adult. We moved to Concord when I was six. I went to the first grade in Manchester. And, then we moved from Concord to Chester, New Hampshire, when I was ten and that would have been 1946. My father had always been, or for a long time, a grain salesman and he also owned a couple of grain stores. And he had bought a coal company in Derry, New Hampshire, and stopped his traveling. He worked for a grain company, a national company that sold to grain stores called, Park & Pollard. And their slogan was Lay or Bust and on his stationary, there was a picture on one side, at the top, of a chicken laying an egg. And on the other side, of a chicken busting apart. And in between was the slogan, "Lay or Bust." And, I kind of felt delighted in realizing how profoundly in the 20s, 30s, 40s when he was on the road as a salesman, agriculture was where most people earned their living and got their sustenance. And it was coming to an end that was probably part of 60, 80 maybe 100-year decline in this country. So, that was partly brought home to me, as I think back. When I was 11, I believe it was, he bought a chicken coop and got 25 little chicks, and grew them. And, I became 3 their keeper. And, I had an egg route. And then the next year, we added onto the garage and I had the use of a horse and it was borrowed from a company that rented horses out during the summers; summer camps and places like that. And I'm surmising that we did them a favor by feeding and boarding the horse for the winter. And they did us a favor in giving me a horse to ride. And that was all part of the fact that my father had been in World War I in the cavalry, which sounds amazing. And that's partly probably why Norwich's cavalry past had some appeal to him and to me. And that's partly how we got the horse. So, in high school, which was Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire, I guess I had a somewhat uneventful time. I played football on the varsity team, beginning my junior year and also my senior year. And then, when I came to Norwich, it seemed as if everybody was too big on the football team and I was heavily into the trombone. And I had practiced eight hours a day, as I noted in a piece that the Norwich Record had published, because I was afraid I wouldn't make it into the Norwich band. And – but I did. And, the trombone was the important thing to me and I can remember, and I think I mentioned this in the article, being at an alumni reunion and standing at the old SAE house, where I had been a member, with three or four other alums who I didn't know until that moment, and they were talking about the sports they played at Norwich. And they turned to me and said, "What did you play?" Then I said quite proudly, "The trombone." So, I started thinking I was going to be a businessman in my father's business. I'd worked part time, and on Saturdays for him, from the age of 13 on up to when I left for Norwich. And, it turned out that an ambition of my mother took over. So, in my sophomore year, I changed my major to history in preparation to going to law school. My grandfather had been a New Hampshire chief justice and the William Sawyer in my name was his name, William H. Sawyer. So, that lasted through a couple of years at Norwich, even up into my senior year. I'd been accepted at law school, but changed my mind at the last minute to go to seminary. And that was the influence of an episcopal church chaplain who was also a professor at the school of a number of courses that I took, and I just had a very deep interest in the subject matter, and those courses included Old and New Testament, one course for each. And, ethics and there was a political philosophy class that I took that was also, I would say, in the philosophy direction. And it was basically a love of the subject matter that brought me to seminary. I was commissioned in the signal corps. So, that was deferred for four years. Normally a seminary education is a three-year event, but I stayed for an extra year and got two master's degrees when I graduated. Actually, one was – the first three years was then a bachelor and was later changed to a master's degree. It was a Master of Divinity. But, I had some sense that I wanted to be like my mentor. His name was Hershel Miller, Father Hershel Miller. And he had an extra year of seminary. And I discovered when I was in full time church work in Manchester, that the extra degree, I guess, helped me get a part time teaching job at St. Anselm College, and I think I was the first Protestant in their religion department. And, that went on for a couple of years. And, it led me into full time teaching, which 4 was first at the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. And then at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. And from there, I went to being a head of a school in Peekskill, New York, and later, briefly, the head of a New York City private school. And about that time, I got divorced and needed to make more money, so I went into the business world in New York City for 13 years. And, I enjoy telling people I worked for 10 years for a company, American Credit Indemnity, selling a product to businesses on their business to business transactions in which we insured the transactions so if their customer didn't pay them, and we'd insured it, we paid them and we went after the debt. And, at a certain point, my boss, who in many ways was a real scoundrel, but I enjoyed working for him, he retired. And, for some reason, I didn't have the same feeling for the new sales manager and began to think that I was really better at the church stuff than at the selling game. Although I think I was pretty good at it. And, I sort of euphemistically say that I made a lot of money in New York, but I got no respect. And then I went back to being the church priest where I got a lot of respect and no money. And a friend of mine, who is an Episcopal bishop, when I told him that he said, "Well, if you were a bishop, you'd make no money and you'd get no respect." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: That was only partly true, all that stuff. And, the church I went to was a – named Christ Church. It was in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. And, it had a reputation of being a rector, that's the position I had, a rector killer church. My immediate predecessor had been in there only three years. He was fired by the bishop because he first divorced his wife, kicked her out of the rectory and brought in some other woman. And, of course, enraged the congregation with that behavior. So, the bishop did what he should do and fired him. And, 30 years prior, this was 1991 when I went there, the rector had had some involvement with, probably a parishioner. He was married with children. And in a New York City hotel, he killed himself. JC: Oh, my goodness. WG: And it was – in some ways it was as if that event has still clung to the walls of the church. Its impact was so profound. I met somebody that had attended the church for eight months after that event and did not know about it, indicating that nobody talked about it. It was too painful to communicate. So, I was taking – I knew I was taking on a church that was a tough place and it took, I would say, a good three to four years before things really calmed down and we got going again. And, when I retired in '03, I continued to do part time interim work as a priest in Episcopal churches. And I realized very quickly that when you come newly into a leadership position, whether it's a church or something else, you are inheriting a great deal and the trust relationship that either did or didn't exist with the prior administrator, is going to bedevil you or bless you. And, places where there's been a profound leadership, I discovered it was very easy to come in and I 5 would be immediately trusted and we'd get going and have fun. And places where there had been a succession, would have to be more than one succession of bad leadership, it was going to be a battle of sorts to exert any kind of leadership. And, at this point, I'm just a pew sitter. (Laughs) And enjoying it. JC: Well, we're going to back up a little bit – WG: Sure. JC: -- and we're going to fill in some questions. You talked a little bit about why you chose Norwich. Can you elaborate more on that, why you chose to go to Norwich? WG: Well, I think I chose mostly because of my father. I'd had relatives that went to Dartmouth, and perhaps – and UNH. Perhaps that would have been my mother's choice. But, it was the military that intrigued me. I had a cousin who had been in World War II and I worked with him – he worked for my father. He was about 10 years older and I had, just a high regard for him and I would guess that it was the military side. And I had a classmate, Harry Parkinson at Pinkerton who also got interested in Norwich. And, I remember him saying that he had had an uncle who'd been a soldier in World War II and had died. And I think that was part of his interest in going to Norwich. JC: And you said your major, you majored in history and you kept with that? WG: Yes. JC: Why do you think you chose history, particularly? WG: Good question. I think I had a love of history born of my mother and she had genealogy interests. We were – I learned early on we were descended from Mayflower people and – on her side, not on my father's side. In fact, my ancestors on my father's side fought on the other side during the Revolutionary War. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And went from New York City to Canada (chuckles) – came back through New Brunswick, through Maine at a certain point later, several generations later. That kind of had something to do with it. And, I guess other than I'm – I still love history, read a good amount of military history. I sort of think I may be drawn to military history as one who hadn't served because when I got out of seminary there was nothing happening. And, I think if I had thought I should go into the service, it wouldn't be as a chaplain, it would be in the signal corps where I'd started out. I'm not sure if that would be true. And, where was I headed with this – what was the question again? 6 JC: Why you chose history as your major. WG: Oh, why I chose history as my major. I just – I'm not sure. Oh, I was talking about military history. Oh, and I think I had in the back of my head -- When I was a priest in Harrington Park, New Jersey, in a second church, I had a celebration for Veteran's Day in November, whether it fell on Sunday or one of the days before or after. So, I had a breakfast for veterans and their families. And the World War II veterans have a great reputation that no one ever talked about their experience. Well, this was in between an 8:00 and a 10:00 service and I discovered that when the veterans got together, whether it was World War II or later, you couldn't shut them up! (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And it made sense that they were talking because they knew the people they were talking to would understand where they're coming from. That was their military service. And I wonder if maybe my father's – he was in every battle in World War I, in Europe and was never wounded. So, I sort of grew up with hearing all that kind of stuff. JC: Was he in the first division or was he in the 76th? WG: The 76th Field Artillery Horse Drawn Cavalry. That's where the cavalry part came out of there. But he trained with horses. JC: Who were your roommates at Norwich and where did you live? WG: It was Jackson Hall. I can picture them. I'm not sure I can remember their names. Harry Parkinson was one. And there was a kid from Vermont that went on to West Point after the first year. And we were all bandsmen. And there was a guy, Lemons was one of the guys. He was an upper classman. That was in a subsequent year. But that leads me to an event that happened, I think, in my junior year, when there was a shooting in a room. I think I was on the first floor of Jackman. And across the hall, a guy named Tony Reddington, was with a roommate who had a .45 pistol. And an upperclassman of mine, Norm Elliott, came in the room and saw it and said – the two guys being rooks, "Let me see that." Pick it up. Took the clip out of the handle and aimed it at Tony Reddington and pulled the trigger. And it hit him in the body somewhere. Just unthinkable behavior. You would think. So, he, Tony was taken by ambulance to Hanover. The first successful aorta transplant kept him alive. He was able to survive about an hour's trip at least. However long it took the ambulance to get there and he came back to the school I think the next year and graduated. I'm pretty sure he graduated. And just recently, last year, I think it was last year. Or the year before. No, it was last year, I think, at a Saturday evening dinner at the hotel in Montpelier, I was 7 sitting at a table with my wife and I heard this voice saying, "Who are you?" And I didn't recognize him. And he said – "I'm Bill Gannon." And he said, "Bill Gannon?" And it was Tony Reddington. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: First time I was seeing him I think, since Norwich. And there he was. JC: Now, you were in band company. WG: Yes. JC: What can you tell me about band company? WG: Well, I'm sure we had – I'm trying to think if we ever played our instruments. I think we did. But I'm not sure when we might have done that. We got to play quite a bit, as a band. And, I think that was daily, which is important to do. I still play the trombone every day, because I play in a couple of concert bands. And I also play in a swing band. A couple of different ones. So, that was an important aspect because you have to keep your armature up if you're a brass player. And we would be playing for the bringing of the flag down. And that would be a daily event. And one of my favorite stories and memories of a time when our band had a major leader, not the professional guy but the cadet, determined that he was going to have a yacht cannon that would shoot, just a blank, and it was positioned under one of the real cannons by the flag pole, and nobody knew that he was going to be doing this, that we were going to be doing it. And he had explained to us, probably about this time, that the bass drum was always hit, this was something we did to simulate a cannon going off. And then we would start with the National Anthem. And on this occasion, I remember seeing a rook standing at attention, holding a string. His arm was up, he was holding a string and he was going to pull the string on – connected to the yacht cannon. So, he was given the command. And he pulled the string. And there was this huge roar and blue or black smoke and we started playing. And I remember looking because the trombones are in the front line, so I remember seeing both columns of cadets down the parade ground. And I was looking at the ones on the left as we faced east, I guess, and the whole column jumped at the cannon sound. And I'm sure the same thing was happening on the other side. There were three regimental officers in the middle and the cannon was sort of aimed at them. I'm not sure of this, but I believe I saw them leave the ground. JC: (Laughs) WG: And, the best part is, they came down saluting. (Laughs) 8 JC: (Laughs) WG: And held the salute for the duration of the National Anthem. (Chuckles) Well, our leader got fired from his – he was reduced from a sergeant to a private. And, (laughs) was discipline. I'm not sure how else he was disciplined and eventually became a leader again. That's a story worth – and, that was the beginning of a tradition of a 105 howitzer being deployed in the things that take place with the flag coming down on the parade ground. JC: Okay. Now, you said you didn't play any sports, you just played the trombone. WG: Right. JC: And, did you participate in any other activities? WG: I skied, but not on the ski team. And, I think that was part of the appeal of Norwich. And back then, there was a ski slope right across from the school. And, on a Saturday for sure and on Sunday, you could just walk across with their skis and just ski. And I remember that those of us in the signal corps course were a part at Mt. Mansfield, of setting up a communication system for some ski races that occurred there and to do that of course, we all got free skiing (laughs) as part of our setting of it up. JC: What did you do to relax when you were at Norwich? WG: Well, I think an important part of my Norwich experience was the fraternity life which we – we joined fraternities – was it our freshman year? I think so. And if it wasn't, it was the sophomore year. Because we ate in – the mess hall is the current chapel, and after the chapel mess hall, it was in the fraternities that most, but not all, that most of the school had their meals, lunch and dinner. And, the social life of the fraternity, I think, was very important. We had parties just about every Saturday night and we had a beer keg. And the commandant came around to make sure we weren't drinking. And the word went out ahead of his visiting, to the first fraternity. There were six, I think. And, that fraternity spread the word around the others that he's on his way. And when we got that word, we all had paper cups, so that by the time he got there, the keg was behind a two-part door. When it was open, the top part was open, but when he was coming, the top part was closed so you couldn't see the keg. And he would come down, this was in the basement, and he'd come down and we'd all start singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And I'm sure he knew what was going on. And I would have to say, I would expect that the benefit in part was, and I don't know if anybody's studied this, but I'll bet there was a minimum of drunken driving accidents on the highways if all 9 the drinking was happening at the school. So, the social life centered – and Vermont College was a place where we got dates. Sometimes we went south, I can't remember the name of the school or the town, but it was in south Vermont. Some guys went to New York state for drinking purposes, because you could drink at 18 in New York state. And I remember one – I had a very close friend, Carl Haskell, who was a year older. And I remember on one occasion he had a musket and he and I went out to a nearby bridge and I got to fire the musket and the fun part of that was learning that you pull the trigger and then you wait. (Laughs) JC: Yes. (Laughs) WG: And I swear I could see the bullet flying through the air! JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) And I know that there were some others who – I didn't go hunting. I hunted squirrels when I was growing up in Chester. But some guys were hunters and that was part of the relaxing. I played the trombone in a dance band, The Grenadiers. There was some pick up jam sessions. I remember a classmate who has become a famous military historian, Carl Estes, Este, I'm not sure which it is. JC: I think it's Este1 WG: Este, right. And he played the jazz guitar in the group. So that was – I've always been a big reader. Tony Reddington told me when I saw him that he started reading Soren Kierkegaard because he saw a copy in my hip back pocket of the paperback, by that Danish existentialist philosopher. JC: What fraternity were you in? WG: SAE. Sigma Alpha Epsilon. JC: Okay. And, tell me a little bit more about The Grenadiers. WG: Well, it was a dance band. I think there were – there's a full sax section or if not full, at least almost. Which would mean four saxes, full would be five, usually. And there were either two or three trumpets. There were two or three trombones. Maybe there are four, I'm not sure. Double bass, stand-up bass, drums and I'm not sure if we had, we probably had a pianist. And that was the standard – maybe also guitar, I'm not sure about that. That was the standard makeup of dance bands in those days. Still is for that matter. And, I don't remember – we must have 1 Carlo D'Este 10 played for dances. I don't remember doing it. But, the music was fully, I would have to say, at the top of my relaxing moments. I can play the piano. When I was 12, I had lessons from a jazz piano player who taught me the chords and I had – as I said, this was on the piano, of all the chords. So, what happens is, you can get what's called a fake book which has the melody line and the chords. Guitar players use them, of course. But on the piano, you can play the chord with the left hand, melody with the right. And, I used to do some of that stuff in the fraternity house on the piano. And I remember one fun time at the fraternity house, at a party, they had – I didn't have anything to do with this – but they had taped the girl's restroom. And at the conclusion, after all the dates had been taken home or left to however they got home, I mean, I think it was around 12:00 or 12:30 at night, we gathered in the kitchen to listen to the tape. And we roared with laughter when we heard one girl say, "This party shits. Let's go down to Dartmouth where they really know how to party!" JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) JC: Do you remember any particular song that y'all would play? WG: Songs? Well, the songbook back then, which is still true for me now, "How High the Moon," "Sunny Side of the Street," "Body and Soul," "There Will Be Another You," "The Very Thought of You," and all those. I mean there are about – there's got to be over a thousand of them that are in my head. JC: What about some Norwich songs? WG: Well, there is the school song, which I don't think I ever fully learned the words to. JC: (Chuckles) WG: It doesn't really impress me, musically. (Chuckles) JC: Most alma maters don't. (Laughs) WG: Right. JC: What about "On the Steps of Old Jackman?" WG: Is that a song? JC: Do you remember that one? 11 WG: No, I don't. JC: Oh, okay. WG: I think that's since my time there. And I remember it being sung at some reunion recently. JC: That's one a lot of people sometimes mention. What instructor – who were the instructors who were most influential to you during your time at Norwich? WG: Well, Rev. Hershel Miller was one, and he was the priest of a small Episcopal Church in Northfield as well as on the faculty of Norwich University in the religion department. There was a Roman Catholic priest who taught courses in the religion department and Hershel and that was the makeup of the department. In the – the head of the history department was a Dr. Morse, who was a Harvard graduate, I'm pretty sure. And, my – I took a number of courses, and the name is escaping me, but he was published. He was Eisenhower's historian. [Albert Norman?] And probably the name will come to me. And he lived a long time after retiring, and always sent me Christmas cards. And, I wasn't always an "A" student in his classes, usually a "B" student, I guess. But he seemed to have taken – I think he liked the fact that I went on to seminary. Eber Spencer was the government professor that I had in philosophy – political philosophy course. And he wrote my recommendation for law school. I was very fond of him. There was an English teacher who was the – this was a big part of my life were the Pegasus Players. And the advisor for the Pegasus Players, I think his name was Nelson but I'm not sure. But, in my sophomore year, a friend got me involved in the Pegasus Players and a play called "Time Limit." And, for some reason, I got to lead. I don't know why. And that was the beginning of – that changed my life. My first year I was basically a "C" student. And my second year, I became a dean's list student. And I think that was true for the rest of my life at Norwich. And it was theatre that did it for me. And I found that after getting involved in theatre that I studied less and got better grades. So, I was being more purposeful and with it in my studying. And, in my junior year, I think, I was playing King Creon in the Sophocles play "Antigone" and I think it was somewhat influential in my life. I had a line that I gave in the play. I was speaking to a subordinate person in the play, and the line was, "You dazzle me." And it was a put-down. And the mostly cadet audience roared. It was a total surprise to me that that would happen. And I think I grew to like hearing people laugh. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And it's been true in my teaching and church (?) [0:47:04] life since I tended to be somewhat entertaining. 12 JC: What were your favorite classes and least favorite classes? WG: My history classes were – that was one of my favorites. The philosophy classes were all my favorite. I took economics and I would say that had less interest to me but money had less interest to me later. Biology was okay and my first-year math class was so-so. I had had everything in high school, including calculus and I think I could have gone on and majored in math if I wanted to, but the math class was business math. And, much later in life, this could be the reason I didn't like it as much, I got tested for what I should be doing which really didn't provide any surprises. Part of the test was a math test and I'm surprised to have the guy tell me, this was a phycologist that administered the tests, that I'd gotten all the easy questions wrong and all the difficult questions right. (Chuckles) JC: (Chuckles) WG: Which, I guess, means if I'm not entertained, my mind goes to sleep. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And I don't pick up on stuff, which could mean I should never fly an airplane. JC: (Laughs) Probably so. What do you remember about being a rook? WG: Well, I remember being yelled at. I remember, I almost didn't come back. And, I think that that was partly – I got one – I remember getting 16 demerits one month. 12 was the limit. And for every demerit over 12 you had to march with a rifle for an hour around the parade ground. So, when I was doing my four hours, I was saying to myself, "This will never happen again," proving that harsh punishment can educate. I remember, but this was true later on too, but I remember feeling somewhat awed and admiring of the senior leaders in the barracks. The company commander and the first and second lieutenant. And I remember in the junior ROTC summer camp, which was Ft. Gordon in Georgia for me in signal (?) [0:50:43] corps, finding one of my first-year cadet officers who had inscribed his name in the firing range. When you were firing, you were behind the targets, underground, the bullets flying over your head, and it was a great pleasure that I saw that. And I have since made a great deal, I think, in my own mind, and to a few people who are considering Norwich, of the importance of the cadre that first year. And I believe that it is somewhat rare today for young people whose peer group up through last year of school, is their age group, and that's somewhat adjusted by the Norwich experience because your peer group at Norwich, your first year is your age group and then the rest, older cadets who are teaching you and that makes a lot of sense to me. And whether they're being nice about it or not, you still learned how to make the beds the way they wanted you to and shining your shoes and polishing your brass, pressing your pants and shirt and where to keep 13 stuff in a drawer, in a bureau drawer in the room. And the other aspects of getting ready for a daily inspection. And I think, generally, post-Norwich thinking, that most people, it's not until they hit the work world, that their peer group is other than their age group and it makes it, in my mind, much more important to have intergenerational experiences. This is true in the music world. And I think when you learn an instrument you have a non-parent teaching you how to play something, that's different. And parents are probably not so good at teaching because they have such an emotional investment. And when I was teaching in my private schools, three of them being boarding schools, I always thought that we teachers were doing a better job of parenting because we didn't have the emotional investment that the parent has. And very recently I've read that up until the 1970s, the nurturing community in a family wasn't just the two parents. It was grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, older kids, non-relatives that were functioning as aunts and uncles and somehow, at some point, maybe it's not the 70s, maybe it's the 50s, who knows. Life changed in the nurturing experience growing up, which could make the Norwich experience that much more important. JC: Now, you said you got 16 demerits. Do you remember what you did? WG: I don't. It was sloppy, whatever it was. I didn't – I may have missed a class. That was worth two. And, I don't know, if I didn't shine my shoes or something. But it was dumb stuff. JC: What was the hardest part of attending Norwich? WG: I would guess the first three months was the hardest part. And what you learned over the four years was – and I retained this in my head at least – is the non-military person is just clueless about what's happening in the military. And what's happening is you're gaining mastery over a whole culture and living in that culture. And once you gain the mastery, you're just doing what you knew how to do. And, that's relaxing. (Laughs) And the – I can remember coming back as the sophomore and how happy everybody was. And when we visit Norwich, we – and they mix the cadets up with the visiting people, it seems as if the cadets all have a very high spirit of being at ease and happy and on top of things and I think that's part of, that's part of the musical experience, is gaining mastery at an early age over something. And somebody's written a book recently called Grit, I don't know if you know of it. JC: I've heard of it. WG: You've heard of it. And she's a social psychologist. And her main point, which is present in advertising for the book is, it's not the smartest people who become 14 the most successful. It's people who've learned perseverance. And I think that's part of the Norwich experience for those who don't drop out. JC: What was your favorite part about Norwich? WG: Going back. (Laughs) And not being part of the cadet corps. JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) I guess the mess hall was a favorite part. The fraternities were a favorite part. I loved the parading, in the band. That was a favorite part. Still, when I hear a marching band drums, I get a special tingle. And the two bands that I play in, we're playing mostly serious and semi-serious music. Stuff like medleys from Duke Ellington or Broadway show medleys, that kind of stuff, but we also play marches. And I always enjoy playing the marches. And, I think the dance band is the direct descendent of the marching band. JC: What was the most important thing you think that Norwich taught you? WG: Good question. I would think it was perseverance. Now, that's somewhat influenced having just read this book. But, I tend to – well I'll tell you a musical story. I was living – I was single, living – having broken up with my wife, in Peekskill, New York and all – forever after Norwich, I was always active as a musician, mostly in jazz swing bands. So, I had a job at a New York City college, Hofstra I think, but I'm not sure that that's in New York City, but there's one that is in New York City. And, I was to play, I also play the double bass, I was to play there one night and my car broke down. I was to play both instruments, trombone and bass. So, I determined that I would try, by taxi and then by train, to get into the city with a standup bass and a trombone. Most of my playing in these swing bands is without music because it's usually improvised. So, I got myself into the city. Got through the subway turnstile, was standing on the subway, bass in one arm and trombone being held by the other, and a Chinaman came up and looked at me and twisted around me, and I was saying to myself, "Is this guy going to steal one of my instruments and run off and how will I chase after him?" And it looked up, and in sort of broken English, he said, "You musician?" (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: Which, of course I was. And the thought now of the effort I went to get from Peekskill to the gig and back, was rather extraordinary. But it has been true of my life generally that I push hard. JC: Norwich's motto is "I Will Try." What does that mean to you? 15 WG: Well, I always thought it was a dumb motto. I thought they could do better. Even "Lay or Bust" is a better motto, maybe. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: I mean, it's clear that some ad man hasn't designed it. But I actually think, my second and third thoughts about it is, it's pretty good. And I just read that infants – we saw a 12 month or 14-month-old boy in a restaurant waiting room with grandparents, parents surrounding it and he was standing with his arms out, back and forth as he maintains his balance. Is he going to take a step, or isn't he? That being hugely entertaining to the family and everybody else. That infants have to try again and again and again and they don't experience shame or failure. So, that could say that one of the more inhibiting aspects of adult life is when we fail and get all hung up over it, rather than trying again. And, it turns out, in science and in life generally, so much of the best stuff that happens, happens because you don't give up. JC: What does Partridge's idea of a citizen soldier mean to you? WG: Well, it means that I would vote for universal military training. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: I think that there is a national community that is being addressed by that identity. And the contributions that we make as citizens to our national life are going to all be happening locally, to be sure. But, we are citizen soldiers in any – in many of the contributions that we make whether it's in the military or not. And, I just think – especially at the late adolescence early adulthood stage of life, there are advantages to the military experience. I had a cab – a driver from an automobile company give me a ride home while they fixed my car and she'd just gotten out of a four-year air force stint and she told me – I asked her if she'd gone back to college because she had gone into the air force after high school. She said she had tried community college but it just didn't take, and my sense of it was that she couldn't stand the people she was going to school with. That they didn't have the dedication and seriousness that (inaudible) [1:05:21] the air force had had. And I've also read recently, I don't know if you've read Sabastian Junger's book Tribe but I can recommend it. It's short. The pages are short. And it's about our society and its brokenness and how people coming out of the military, coming from such a self-sacrificing, dedicated community oriented life into a me-too-ism, lack of community life in our country generally. And he's attributing that, rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure, but it makes some sense. Attributing to that, the post – PTSD depression. He points out that after 9/11 in New York City, the murder rate was cut in half, the suicide rate was cut in half because it was such – it was a greater sense of community. And I think Norwich has that sense of community that he's saying is missing. So, maybe Norwich 16 people should be prepared for the dysfunctional world they're entering and how to cope with it. JC: Now, after graduation, you went on to seminary. You never did join the military. WG: Right. JC: How did your training at Norwich prepare you for life? WG: Well, I think that's the same question as earlier. I think it prepared me for perseverance. I was a preacher at Norwich after I graduated from seminary. And, Herbert Spencer, my philosophy politics teacher, told me after the sermon that he was just amazed at how much more mature I was than I was at Norwich. And I believe that this may be true of graduate study generally that you learn to think in a more disciplined way than you did in college, which is not a commentary on Norwich necessarily but perhaps on our expectations of what college is supposed to do. And my experience in graduate school was reading a – I'm a big reader – and when I got there I took a speed reading course knowing that a huge amount of time was going to be spent reading. And it was very effective. But I believe part of what was happening to me was, in seminary I was learning how other people of great skill think. Doesn't mean that I bought their thought, but I knew how they were thinking. And I think that's – that was something that I – I would have to say that whatever I learned at Norwich, that deepened the thinking aspect of life that I received. JC: How do you think your professional life would have been different had you not been a Norwich graduate? WG: Well, that's good. I don't know. It could go back to perseverance. I've been a very outspoken person in my professional life. And, I think that could have been nurtured at Norwich, calling a spade a spade when I would see it, regardless of the consequences. And I think I sort of have a reputation in that way. Some people tell me that they are amazed at my courage, that I don't seem to be scared by what other people are scared of. And I think I was a very fearful person my first year at Norwich. And that may have – when I went to the summer camp training, I had what I regard as a very important experience. There were about 750 or 800 cadets. And we were taken into a field and told to yell as loud as we could. And so I was chosen of the three to be the regimental cadet colonel for marching all of the cadets from the barracks area to a parade area and doing the parade thing and marching back. And a regular army lieutenant took me – I didn't have any misgivings about this because part of the Norwich experience, even if you weren't in a command position, I was a private all first three years, was that you've seen people do this over and over again. So, you're ready to mimic what you see. And – but he took me over the trip I'd be taking, so we rehearsed. I knew what the commands were going to be but I'd hadn't known where I'd being going. So, we rehearsed the whole thing. 17 Now, I can tell you, as a priest, it became – that inspired me always to have wedding rehearsals. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And the value of rehearsing is huge in my head. And I think that could be part of the Norwich experience. But, by the time I got to Ft. Gordon, Georgia, I was relatively fearless at, I think, a lot of the military stuff that other people were probably somewhat wary of because of the Norwich experience. And when I didn't go in the military, my feeling was, because of Norwich, I've done that. I'm not interested in doing it again. (Chuckles) JC: (Chuckles) WG: I want to get onto other things. JC: Do you think being a Norwich graduate opened doors for you that wouldn't have been open otherwise? WG: Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I also would say, and I think it's important to know this, that when I was there, partly the influence of this religion teacher, there were a high number of Norwich guys that went to seminary, and it could be partly the military because a big part of Sunday morning life is ritual. But – and I think it could be the emphasis on surface that the military had and Norwich has. And I don't know what the situation is now. I don't think being a minister today has the social significance that it once had. It's not something everybody's dying to do. But that, I think there was a – I would think that probably more people were going to seminary in those old days from that school than perhaps from others. JC: Do you think Norwich graduates have a special bond that other military or civilian schools don't have? WG: I don't know. JC: What about band (?) [1:14:33] company? Now I've heard – WG: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. JC: -- that kids have very close knit bonds. WG: Yes, yes. That's also true in my jazz life. You meet a jazz musician anywhere, you're totally at ease. And he may be totally untrustworthy but you don't know that and you're willing to trust him until he proves otherwise. And, yes, I would guess that the Norwich – certainly the band's people at Norwich this is true of. And it's just partly because you know – you both know what the other one has 18 been through. And, to a certain extent, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is true for all of the Norwich graduates. JC: Now, have you been involved with Norwich since you graduated? WG: I was part of the alumni association in the 80s. I was asked to be the baccalaureate speaker at a graduation in '86, when the president was – JC: General Todd? WG: Yes. General Todd. And, I've occasionally gone to the send offs of, and to the occasional (sic) when Schneider came to Bedford within the past year. And, that's what I think. JC: Do you stay in touch with any of your classmates? WG: I've got one that I stay in touch with, who has been forbidden from coming to the school because he threatened to tear off the veil of a Muslim – JC: Oh! (Laughs) WG: -- cadet. And I just don't agree with that at all. I think there's a lot of stupidity at work in the anti-Muslim feeling. And the real situation is that Saudi Arabian Wahhabism which merged the tribal culture of Saudi Arabia with Islam and which has been exported both to this country and to other parts of the world which has resulted in ISIS and such a bad reputation for Muslims. But, there you go. JC: What advice would you give a rook today on how to survive and thrive at Norwich? WG: (Laughs) They should try. JC: (Laughs) WG: Whatever it is. Keep trying. JC: Now, did you have any other relatives that attended Norwich? WG: No. JC: Is there anything else you'd like to add or have a comment? WG: I'll probably think of it after you leave. 19 JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) JC: That's generally the way it goes. Alright, well I thank you very much for this interview. WG: You're welcome. It's been very enjoyable. JC: Thank you. (end of audio)
Transcript of an oral history interview with Robert D. Forger conducted by Joseph Cates at Forger's home in Newtown, Connecticut, on 16 March 2016 as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Robert D. Forger was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1949. The bulk of his interview focuses on the history and development of his relationship with Norwich University, including as a student, alumnus, and trustee. ; 1 Robert Forger, NU '49, Oral History Interview March 16, 2016 At His Home in Newtown, Connecticut Interviewed by Joseph Cates, of the Norwich Oral History Project JOSEPH CATES: Mr. Forger, Bob, can you please state your full name and date and place of your birth? ROBERT FORGER: Robert D. Forger, May 24, 1928, in Norwalk, Connecticut. JC: Talk a little bit about growing up in Norwalk. RF: I grew up in Westport. Westport did not have a hospital. And for years we could get our birth certificates in Westport but then they stopped. If you were born in Norwalk, you can't do it. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: That was a wonderful place to grow up in. It was a town of about 5,000 people. I went to a high school that took in students from two other towns and had a graduating class of about 96, almost 100. And 11 were from one other town and 13 were from the other town, so the other 75 were from Westport. I got a wonderful preparation there. We had a very, very good faculty. If you can believe this, I learned all my English from the Latin teacher. I took four years of Latin. We had to diagram the sentences. Latin sentences. And I had an English teacher whom I had for three years who was hung up on the classics, so we learned very little English, but we sure know all of Shakespeare and everybody else. (Laughs) And I got a good preparation because when I went off to Norwich, the curriculum as a chemist, I had to take trigonometry. And I said, "But I've had trigonometry." Oh, no, you haven't had trigonometry like this. This is really …, so you have to take it. So, I took it and got a 98 and the instructor said to me when it was all over, he said, "You know, I think you've had this subject before." And I said, "I certainly have." (Laughs) JC: What made you decide to go to Norwich? RF: I went to the physical – I wanted to go to West Point and I have a military bend and nobody in the family knows from whence it came. And I wanted to go to West Point and as a junior in high school I flunked the physical because of astigmatism in one of the eyes in which they would not give a waiver. And it was very difficult to get into it at that time because the war was on and everybody wanted to get in and be protected for four years or maybe the three-year curriculum they were doing at the time. So, our local dentist said, "Why don't 2 you go up the Norwich?" I knew nothing about Norwich but his nephew, who practiced not very far from where we are now, had gone there, Class of '39, and had become a dentist and he said, "You ought to go there." So, I applied. We went up to take a look at the place and I got accepted. JC: Okay. This is a question for you. Tell me a little bit about your rook year, about being a rook. RF: I think it was pretty darn easy. JC: (Laughs) RF: I don't think it was bad. A lot of people complained about it but I had read some stories about what went on at West Point, I had a book West Point Today about what they had to go through. As long as you didn't try to think as an individual, and not do what they wanted you to do, you were fine. One of my experiences was, they came in, and I doubt they do this today, came into our room. My roommate, myself, they turned the heat up on high and said, "At 9:30 we're going to have everybody in here." And they had everybody in our room and you had to bring your blankets, you had to wear your mackinaw, wear your blanket – wrapped in a blanket and it was so darn hot in that room and then you had to jump up and down, singing "God Bless America." At 10:00 (inaudible) [0:05:08], everybody left. They left our room in shambles. And we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to straighten it out for inspection. (Laughs) But that was – and that was not a bad experience, it wasn't bad at all. JC: You were also in a fraternity. Tell me about that. RF: Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sig Ep. In the building where the president now lives. That wasn't as plush as it is now. They've added to it since those days. And it was interesting because nobody was around fraternities in my freshman year and they rushed the new pledges in October of my sophomore year. And the house president got up, I understand, later. He said – now you have to remember, they were all civilians, because Norwich took in anyone who had been there before. To come back in civilian clothes and finish up his education. Didn't have to wear a uniform. Didn't have to participate in the military. Really a very good decision, I think. And, he said, told them, "You have to remember, we're a military school and our future is military. And you guys shouldn't be voting in people who are civilians now, just because they're your friends. You've got to stick with the military." Sig Ep took in five cadets and we were the most cadets, we were down there with cadets with 45 other civilians. (Laughs) And, we developed from there. But it was a really wise thing to say, because some of the fraternities took in only two and that was, I think, a mistake on their part. JC: Well, how did you feel about when they did away with the fraternities? 3 RF: Mixed emotions. It was sort of a second-class citizenship, particularly athletically because we had a troop league and when I left there were six troops. A headquarters troop, which was the band, and five line troops. And we had an athletic league with the troops and an athletic league with the fraternities. And it ended up that the guys who were left behind in the troops, they just felt like second class citizens. They didn't play with the big boys. And I think that was one divisive effect that the fraternities had. But it was a great place to go and to relax. When you went through the front door, why military was out the window. But when you went out the front door, your tie better be straight and your cap on right and in everything else, the military prevailed. JC: Now, you said there was an incident that happened that caused the fraternities to be done away with. RF: Yes, this was what – I left in June of '49 and early '50 when General Harmon came on board as the president. And I believe it was Winter Carnival that year and one of the fraternities, a guy in a drunken stupor went headlong down the stairs and did damage to his neck and his back and everything else and lost a semester of school because of the injuries. And that was the catalyst for Harmon getting rid of the fraternities. He – it took him a while, but he usually gets his way. (Laughs) JC: What is your – what do you remember most about your years at Norwich? RF: I think the camaraderie. I think it was a wonderful small school. I made so many friends. It was the type I liked and could live with and getting up at 6 or 6:15, that kind of thing, it – the rules and regulations never bothered me. I may have been an exception but I never walked a tour in my life. When it was O.D. (?) [0:10:05] my senior year, I can remember the temperature – 10 degrees in the middle of winter, starting a tour line with a hundred guys in it. (Laughs) JC: (Chuckles) RF: And they had a system, which I overlooked at the time, I knew what was happening. The first three guys in the line would peel off and go into Alumni Hall. Now when the line came around again, the next three or five or whatever number they had decided on, would peel off and the other ones would come back out, get at the end of the line. Because it was so darn cold. JC: (Laughs) Now, Homer Dodge was president when you were a student. RF: Yes. JC: Tell me about that. 4 RF: I don't think he was – in retrospect, I didn't have that much of an insight. I don't think he was a very effective president. He was – he wore a uniform, but that was about it. He didn't know how to wear it. He was an eminent physicist and – well we had Fuzzy Woodbury. We had a good physics department. He was the wrong guy for the job. And we finally got to him and he realized he wasn't doing anything. Fortunately, we had a guy, in fact two of them, that were commandants and assistant commandants that really kept the Norwich activity going. And some of the guys that returned, some of the veterans, I can remember the veterans getting after it. They got dressed up in their uniforms and they got all the sophomores together and they said, "We see that you're violating some of the traditions and these are what they are." And one of them was Jack O'Neil. "These are what they are and you've got to start living by them." JC: Tell me about when Eisenhower came to the commencement and gave the commencement address. RF: I don't remember anything about the commencement address, but it was allegedly his first or maybe only one of his first appearances in 1946. In my freshman year, we had three graduates. Who – how they did it – but finished up their last year and their last semester. And Eisenhower came, both senators were with him. JC: (Laughs) RF: As you might expect. And the one thing I do remember is the pushing match he got into with President Dodge. In the military, the lowest ranking guys get in the car first. And the highest ranking last, so he can be the first one out of the car. And Homer Dodge would not let – he would not precede Eisenhower. And Eisenhower solved the issue by putting the palm of his hand in the back of Dodge's back and propelling him into the car. And it worked pretty well. But that's the only thing I really remember about the commencement. JC: Tell me about some of the professors that really had an influence on your life. RF: Well, I think there were probably two. Both junior chemistry professors. They were probably only instructors at the time. And one was Bill Nichols, who taught most of the advanced organic and inorganic. He was only here the one year I was there, in my senior year. He taught most of the organic and inorganic advanced classes. Whereas, the other professors taught the physical chemistry, the more difficult courses. He was a great guy and the other was Jack O'Neil who was a senior when I was a junior and a senior only because he came back. He was the Class of '44 and returned after the war. He ran most of the labs down in the bottom of Dodge Hall. He was a true Norwich guy. And one of the things I think that proved it was when our son, Gary, went up to Norwich, he was the Class of '75. When he went up in '71, we were in the orientation line and Jack O'Neil comes up and said "hi" to me and shook hands with Gary and he said, "Things get pretty rough up there. If you need some relief any time, here's my telephone 5 number. I live right down the street. Give me a call and come on over and get away from it all." And that was really a very nice thing to do. JC: What does the idea of the citizen soldier mean to you? RF: This is a put-up question, because this is something I answered on the questionnaire that your predecessor sent out. JC: Yes. It's on the first page. RF: Read it. "Citizen soldier" by my definition is an individual with a strong interest in the military, who is willing to act in the secondary line of military preparedness, rather than full-time service. Now, that was true in my day. And up until the second Gulf War started. It really isn't true anymore because anyone who is in the national guard or the reserves is going to get called one way or another. JC: Now, you served in the reserves from 1949 to '72, correct? RF: '72, yes. JC: Can you talk a little bit about that? About being in the reserves. RF: It was a nice experience, a great experience. I got some fairly good jobs out of it. I was with a tank battalion in Stamford and the C.O. was a 1934 graduate from the University of Massachusetts. I went to my first meeting and a guy sidles up to me and he says, "You know, that isn't an army uniform. That's a Norwich uniform." I didn't have any uniforms. I graduated in June and this was a September meeting and who was this guy but Phil Marsilius. JC: Oh. (Laughs) RF: (Laughs) Who was the emeritus chairman of the board. He was the S2 of the battalion. And the next day when he brings up another guy and introduces him to me, he's the S3 and it's Tommy, they called him in those days, Andy I always knew him as, Andy Boggs, who was the Class of '44 and who was the S3. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: And I got this C.O. that I had, I got some good jobs out of it that proved to be good because I could do them. And, he went to summer camp with the Norwich guys. And he was ROTC, not military. ROTC such as Norwich. And he told me later, he gave me these jobs because those Norwich guys could do anything. And he observed it at camp, at his summer camp, they could do anything. And we had 6 two Norwich guys. We had a bunch of lieutenants who had just come in when I left the tank battalion. And he – so I got some pretty good jobs out of it. JC: Where did you go to summer camp? RF: Ft. Meade, Maryland. And we spent a week down at A.P. Hill in Virginia, living in tents in rain storms and everything, because they didn't have a range big enough. That was the closest range large enough to fire the tank guns. Now I guess they all go out to Washington some place, Ft. Lewis, I think. JC: Oh, yes. RF: And of course, we were at, in those days, I got a commission at Armored Cavalry Reserve. Now I think you get branch and material and you sort of get your branch when you graduate, but I'm not sure. JC: I know if they're in ROTC, they pick which branch for ROTC now. If they want to go navy ROTC – RF: Oh, yes. See, we didn't have any navy or any air force. And when our son was there a year and with us paying the money for him, he got offered an air force ROTC scholarship for the last three years. Which we spoke to him and said, "You've got to serve five or six years or whatever," and he turned it down. JC: Now, one thing I wanted to ask you was – you were at Norwich when they still had the horse cavalry, correct? RF: Correct. JC: Can you talk a little bit about that? RF: (Laughs) Well, I was a stellar horseman. They brought back the horses at the end of our sophomore year, the summer between sophomore and junior. As the graduate, you had to take equitation. So, I took equitation in my junior year and my claim to fame was I led the class in being thrown. JC: (Laughs) RF: (Laughs) My roommate at the time was about 5'4" and every day – every Thursday when we went down for equitation, he got assigned the biggest horse, Burma. And he couldn't get up on the darn horse, because he fixed the stirrups the way you had to and they watched over you and made sure you did this, and he couldn't get up on the horse. And they had to boost him up. It was an interesting experience and something I really didn't want to continue. And they took the horses away at the end of our junior year. So, it was over. 7 JC: They came and they went within about a year. RF: Yes. JC: Now, how did Norwich prepare you for life? RF: I think it brought out the – my leadership aspects. I think I had some during elementary and junior high school. I think perhaps they faded in high school but they sure brought them out in being willing to step in and do something and to take charge when you had to. And I'm really quite proud of – when the organization of Society of Plastics Engineers that I was executive director for the last 22 years of my civilian career, I had a president whom I was not close and some you get very close to and others you don't. At the annual meeting, after I retired, he asked me to make sure I was at the annual meeting, he had a poem that he did that went on and on and on, citing really my whole life. And at the end, he said he left us with many attributes. He represented us well in the plastics industry, he did this, he did that. But most of all, was his leadership that we value. And that was brought out later on by a couple of people that I was not particularly close to. (Laughs) They told my son, who ended up with the same organization, they told my son, "We really miss your father, because he always did what he said he would do and he did it on time and we knew exactly where we stood on every issue." JC: Another question that we ask everybody in these oral histories is what does the Norwich motto "I Will Try" mean to you? RF: I really don't know. I think it means you'll do the very best you can under any circumstances, whatever circumstances may confront you. And we use it here every day. I go out in the car and I leave Eleanor behind and she says to me, she says, "Drive safely," and I always reply with, "I will try." (Laughs) JC: So, what did you do after you left Norwich? RF: I only worked for two companies in my life. One was Dorr-Oliver, which was involved in the separation of liquids and solids, starting with ores but later got into sewage and water treatment and things such as that. And then for 33 years with the Society of Plastics Engineers. Which I got aimed into with the only two electives I ever had in my life at Norwich. I was ordered with 84 or 86 credits in chemistry and so much in math and physics and all this stuff and I took a course from Peter Dow Webster; a semester of advertising and a semester of public relations. And I enjoyed it. And I ended up doing this with Dorr-Oliver after I left the lab. And I applied for some way to do this kind of thing, with the Society of Plastics Engineers and got the job at SPE. And I did virtually every job – the meetings manager, and the local sections and divisions coordinator, the publisher of four magazines, associate executive director and then, finally, executive director. 8 JC: So, you didn't go to Korea right after – you ended up with deferment, correct? RF: Correct. (Laughs) JC: Now, how did that happen? RF: I was with Dorr-Oliver in the labs and I got called into active duty. And they said this kind of thing could happen and the personnel director put up a statement that if any of you are called to active duty, let us know immediately. And I got called to be a filler second lieutenant in a Tennessee tank battalion. And down south, your country. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: And so, they put in, or I had to put in for it but they backed it up through the Department of Mines or the Department of the Interior. And I got strictly a political deferment. And I was the first one to get the deferment and they never lost anybody in the Korean War. And interestingly enough, the deferment was signed by I.D. White, who was the chief of staff for the second army, a major general in Governors Island. And he put a handwritten note on it. "I certainly don't enjoy giving a deferment to a Norwich man." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) I can understand that. Now, talk a little bit about what you did at Dorr-Oliver. RF: I was – as a result of the courses I took with advertising and public relations and getting back to my high school chemistry teacher, I wasn't – chemistry was not my bag and how he recognized it, I don't know. I said I would like to get into advertising or public relations and they discouraged me. They said, "Well, we just hired a second guy for the ad department. So, chances are you're not going to do it." And four years later when the deferment was no longer necessary, they had an opening and I went down there as the third person in the ad department. After a merger, I went with my boss who was the ad director, who became the ad director of public relations at the revised corporation, and got involved in being the liaison for the technical and engineering societies and the technical publications. And that's what I gravitated into and then applied to SPE for a somewhat similar type of job, and got that job. JC: And, so you continued doing that type of work for SPE and then became the executive director. RF: For a short time. And then with changes and everything, why I ended up doing meetings when the meetings manager left. I ended up doing division when they had nobody to do the technical divisions, only because I had a technical 9 background. And I ended up as an associate executive director and then when my boss got fired, I got the job. JC: Let me see – RF: Can I interject something here? JC: Yes. Absolutely. RF: I believe I was at Norwich in a very transitional time. In fact, as I look back on it, it was – you'd never know what was coming next. When I went there, we had one dormitory, Hawkins, filled with cadets. And we took in, in the summer of '49, about 50 cadets who started in July and then about 50 others who started in September. And, I made a count of this, as it might be of interest. The ones that came in July, only 16 graduated. And in my class, the September class, only 11 graduated. JC: Oh, really? RF: We were losing guys like crazy to the draft. And I was young enough so I didn't get drafted until the war was – I didn't get – I didn't have to sign up for the draft until after V.E. Day and then V.J. Day came and they were drafting people – they evidently didn't need me. The mistake the other guys made was going up to Montpelier to register for the draft. And in two weeks they might pick them off because they came from Long Island City or Aurora, New York or someplace they weren't locals. And seeing this, I went home to Westport to register for the draft. Where they knew me. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: For some reason, I never came up or they never had the quotas to fill or whatever. But, we had, at one dorm full of Norwich cadets. We had two dorms, I don't know what they call it now, it's Cabot, the one right next to it at the time. It might be Goodyear or something. With – in Alumni Hall, we had four companies of fast tracks, army reserves specialized training guys who they sent to college for a year or so and then when they needed infantry troops they pulled them right out. They were -- at the end of my first year, they were gone. And we had enough when the Class of '50 came in, to fill two dormitories, Cabot and Hawkins. And in Cabot – in Hawkins, pardon me, in Hawkins they had a veteran troop; some guys that wanted to take ROTC but came back – but they had to wear a uniform if they took ROTC. And we had the veterans living in Alumni and fill/Phil/Bill (?) [0:31:02] Jackman Hall. And in my third year, why the cadets took over Alumni Hall. And, we had the veterans just in Jackman. And my fourth year, we had a few of the overflow senior bucks living in Jackman with the veterans because we didn't have enough room with the three existing dormitories. But it was – I went 10 through my yearbook and made a count. I had a hundred thirty-six in the class. And we had 27 that started that went through for four years and graduated – JC: And graduated. RF: -- as you would normally expect. And it was very, very transitional and very unusual. You'd never know what was coming next. In my sophomore year, we were loaded with veterans. They could wear their uniforms if they wanted to, if they didn't have civilian clothes. We had five lieutenant colonels walking around the campus. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: Which was unusual. JC: You were also involved a lot in the Alumni Association. RF: Yes. JC: Can we talk about that a little bit? RF: Yes. I – somebody put my name in to run for the alumni board. This was like 1983. No, '81. And at that time, they had an election. They nominated three reasonably recent graduates and two were elected and two of the old timers, in which classification I fit in. And two of the three in both classes were elected. But, the problem was, the guy who was the oldest class, always lost, because nobody knew him. And, so, I was on the alumni board for three years and the system was, it may still be, that at the end of three years and four years, those eight guys were eligible and we have girls on there now, were eligible to be elected president of the alumni board. And we knew who was going to be elected. A fourth-year guy who had seemed to be in line forever. And, a third-year guy came up to me and asked me if he was going to run for alumni president and would I support him? And I made an immediate decision. He'd been on the board and never done a darn thing in my estimation and I had done a number of things. When I said, no, I couldn't support him because I was going to run. And, fortunately, we had every preponderance of Boston people and the rest from around the country, although not many outside New England. And I ended up splitting the Boston vote and I had three people in the Boston group whom I knew, who were my contemporaries, and I'm sure they voted for me. And it ended up we had 19 that voted and I got 10 so I got the majority in the first ballot. That was it. I also got hell from my wife when I told her. She said, "You never mentioned it." I said, "No, not until last night was I even thinking about running for office." (Laughs) And she didn't have the right clothes. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) 11 RF: And then from there, usually the outgoing alumni president is elected the alumni trustee for that year. And in the other year, when there's an outgoing president, it's somebody else who the alumni board recognizes is worth being an alumni trustee. JC: So, you were on the board of trustees? RF: For a five-year term. JC: Five-year term. RF: Yes. JC: And what was that like being on the board of trustees? RF: Oh, it was very interesting. There had to be the five alumni trustees but of the 30 of them, even the board, there were 22 of them that were alumni to begin with. And they supported the president very fairly, particularly when you had a take charge guy like Russ Todd, and I would guess, Harmon and Hart, President Hart. He was there between Harmon and Russ Todd. But it was interesting and I think this is where we were interrupted, that I tangled with Russ three times when I was on the board of trustees. I look upon it as I won one, I lost one and we tied one. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: The first was when he had the bright idea that we should form a Norwich University savings and loan association. And it could be a bank and put out loans to parents who wanted to bankroll their kids to go to Norwich. And I think I tied that one. Fred Haynes and myself of the Haynes Stadium were the only two that voted against it. But, within a year, they had the savings and loan association in crisis and they ended up selling of -- giving the very infantile savings and loan association they had to the bank which is now ensconced down there by – was down there by the alumni center. I think that one I won decisively. When I was chairman of the alumni board we did a survey of eight colleges that we had considered our equals, our size, Middlebury, Babson, I can't think of any of the others, St. Lawrence. We had two people on the board go to each school and ask certain questions as to how what they did – (break in audio) RF: We did this survey and compared how we stacked up with other schools in a number of different things that the Alumni Association did. And I was only on the board for one year. I was only a trustee for one year. And Russ came up with the idea that we would get a – we would subscribe to some kind of alumni magazine where we had a four page insert, all the rest would be "pat" material. 12 And a number of previously prepared and published that a number of schools did. And I called to his attention that we had done this survey and he had seen it and we stacked up very well with our alumni communications, in other areas we did not. But the communications – and they like the Alumni Record the way it was. And I said, "I think we're going to do this." His only comment was, "I hear you," and he dropped it. We never had anymore – Of course, the third thing I tangled with him on was when President Schneider came. And what they did was, they kept Russ on the board of trustees. And the Alumni Affairs Committee of the board the trustees felt this was wrong. The alumni association thought this was wrong. And that he should not be on the board when the new president arrived. I guess I didn't do a very good job with my point earlier with remaining Norwich graduates around, Russ insisted on leaving the room and I said, "I don't want you to because I'm not going to say anything I wouldn't say to your face." We ended up starting to discuss it and somebody made a motion that we elect him to the board of trustees and have somebody resign so it would be a vacancy. I said, "I resign everything." And I said, "This is the wrong way to do it." And I moved to table the motion until the next meeting. And the chairman at the time didn't even hear my motion. And I said, "This is a parliamentary motion and it supersedes all others." Which is does. And he just didn't even listen to me and he called for the vote and he was elected to the board of trustees. (Laughs) And he was on it until he was 70. And it was interesting because shortly thereafter we played our last game with Middlebury, football game, which was a very disappointing thing that we should give up or have to give up that rivalry which was over one hundred years and only because the conference that Middlebury was in, the Little Ivy League, said that you can only play within your own conference. And, my gosh, we get a call from Carol Todd – were we coming up for the game. And we said, "Yes." And she said, "Will you stay with us." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: And this was a month after my tangling with him. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: And all my son could say was, "Who is going to taste your food." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: But we've come along very, very well with the Todds. And he was, he was a good president, a very good president. JC: Now, you were also a proponent of merging with Vermont College, correct? RF: Yes. 13 JC: Can you talk about that a little bit? RF: (Laughs) It was very difficult to enact. I ended up, and I kept my secretary at SPE busy for a week, writing letters. And I wrote to the class agent of all the five-year classes and we substituted the name of VC class agent in the Norwich letters and the Norwich class agent in the VC letters trying to get them to coalesce. And this was, I think my last year on the alumni board. The only person I was successful in getting to march with our class was my lady. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: And she marched with the Class of '50. And some guy says, "Where did you come from? I never knew any girls in my class." JC: (Laughs) RF: And we got to our reunion and he wasn't having a reunion and he got there and at the start, he got up before we started the program, and he said, "Bob, I would" -- in front of everybody, -- he said, "Bob, I wouldn't have said what I did if I realized she was your wife." And he says, "I apologize." And Eleanor jumped up and she said, "You don't apologize to him, you apologize to me!" (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: His wife got up and laughed at him and said, "That's wonderful!" (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) Let me think, what else do I want to ask you about. Life milestones. What are your major milestones in life? Can you talk about those? RF: Well, (Laughs) I was among the first to advocate a VC/Norwich union. And did so by marrying a gal who was the Class of 1950 from Vermont College. If I got the wrong year there, she'd kill me for that. (Laughs) JC: I'll fix it on mine. RF: And we had – a number of other people did. And I think it was just very natural that you had a boy's school and essentially a girl's school 10 miles away. And it worked out very well. And the girl's school were willing to relax their rules whenever we had a dance or a big weekend or something such as that. But, let me tell you, it was difficult enough having to ring a quarter of ten every Saturday night. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: Of course, I dated her only during her freshman year. During her second year, I was gone. (Laughs) 14 I think another milestone was having our son, Gary go to Norwich. Although he was not necessarily in accord with us. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: He was, unfortunately, he was a very good student, but he tested poorly in the SATs. And he applied for college when they were integrating some of the men's colleges, such as Bowden or Middlebury where he wanted to go. And they were also – with females and they were also integrating them with as far as the Afro-Americans go and diverse Americans. So, he said, when a gal got accepted to Middlebury, he ranked something like eighth in his class out of 250. And a gal who was way down in the ratings got accepted at Middlebury and all he could say was, "She took my place." And it was probably true. And Norwich was a safety school. And he went there and went through. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the love for the place that I do. And I think part of that is because of his wife. And she just doesn't have anything to do with the military and that kind of thing. And the reunion, when I was at his reunion. It falls the same five years as Eleanor's and it was – he was up there for a reunion and it was when I was the alumni president and placed the wreathes on the graves and gave some of the awards and everything. And it was Eleanor's reunion year. And he was there and he drifts in after the alumni parade was over and after everything is over, with his buddy. And said, "We just didn't get up early enough." Which to me was crazy. And I don't think he's ever been back. I think that's the only reunion he was ever back for. And Dave Whaley, he's having a hell of a job getting any money out of him! (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) I'm sure. And you have another son, Jeffrey, correct? RF: Another son, Jeffrey and he said, "You don't think I'm going to go to Norwich and be a rook, when my brother is the regimental supply officer." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: He said, "It's just not going to happen." He loved Norwich. He went four years to the summer camp so he says that's his alumni. And he loved the athletic department. He learned to play soccer there and he was a star of the Wilton High School soccer team, as the goalie. He – Joe Sable and Wally Baines were just his ideals. They were the ones that ran the summer camp. And another thing that I could mention, the Norwich camaraderie. This flyer came for summer camp and I said, "Well, maybe the boys would like to go." And at the dinner table, I brought it up. I said, "There's a camp at Norwich. You may like to go. I'll drop it on your bed." And they said, "No way." And a week later, they came to me and said, "You know, we think we'd like to do it." So, they did it. And the first week they were up there, it shows how soft-hearted they are, the first week they were up there, they called home on Sunday and reversed the charges, of course. Called home on Sunday and they 15 were both in tears. First time they'd ever been away from home, and (inaudible) [0:11:14], and who walks by but (inaudible) Wally Baines. He says, "What's your problem?" And they said, "Well, we're talking to him at home." He took the phone, he says, "They're finished talking with you. We're going to put them to work." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: My son, Gary went back another year and Jeffrey went back three years they enjoyed it so much. And Gary called at the start of his sophomore year, and he said, "I can't believe what they're doing to these rooks." He was almost in tears. He said, "They shouldn't be doing this." I said, "Well, Gary, you went through this and it makes them better people." He said, "Yes, but I don't like to see them do it." He was just soft-hearted. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) Now, he graduated in '75. RF: '75, yes. JC: And Bob Hope was the commencement speaker. RF: Yes. JC: Do you want to talk about that a little bit? RF: Well, that was – Gary told us, for almost a year in advance, Hope was going to be their commencement speaker. And I said, "That's crazy. Bob Hope is not going to Norwich-- (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: -- to be the commencement speaker." And, sure enough, he was. And came strutting in, typical Bob Hope. (Laughs) Making remarks to the audience and everything and it was just a wonderful occasion. The great disappointment was you could get up front and take a picture of your graduate getting their diploma from Hope. Which I did. And the development company that took – we had them developed – lost the negative. So, he doesn't have that. JC: Oh, goodness! Tell me about some of the places that you've traveled. You said you traveled to England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, Canada and Mexico. RF: Some of these were vacation. Some were business. And all of them, Eleanor went along. I think the greatest trip we ever had, I was involved in an organization, The Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives – who were guys who were executive directors like myself. About 130 in the U.S. 16 and Canada. I ended up as president of the organization in about 1987, I guess it was. And, they had their annual meeting in San Francisco. And it was the year I came in a vice president. And we left home and went out to San Francisco for the annual meeting on Monday. We went out and it was over on Thursday night. And on Friday, we flew home. On Saturday – it takes all day to get back from the West coast. On Saturday, Eleanor did the laundry, I did the lawn. And on Sunday, we left for my counterpart in Great Britain, the British Isles, his retirement party. We went over on the Concorde. Went to his retirement party and came back on the QE2. So, that was the most eventful two weeks we ever had. JC: I bet it was something flying on the Concorde. RF: Yes. Well, we left at noon from Kennedy and we got over there in time to have dinner. Which, otherwise, it's an overnight flight. JC: Oh, yes. I've done that one a couple of times. RF: And, the other countries -- we were bitten on cruises, both with our close friends and our closest friends over the years, have always been (inaudible) [0:15:24] alumni, the guys that I was associated with and their wives. One time, there were 18 of us, there are only four of us left now. And well two others that moved a long distance away. And we went on a cruise with them. And then we went on a cruise with Bro Park who used to be the alumni – used to be the PR director at Norwich. Organized after he left Norwich. And there was the Mediterranean and we went to Alaska. And for our 50th anniversary, we took a cruise from the Hawaii Islands through the Hawaiian Islands and up to Victoria, British Columbia. And that's the way we got to a lot of these places. Mexico, we went to because we had two sections down there that we visited. And never were we so glad to get back to this country and be able to have a salad and some good water in New Orleans. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) Well, there's always good food in New Orleans. RF: Oh, yes. JC: What is your favorite memory of Norwich? RF: I don't think I could pick it out. JC: (Laughs) RF: I have – no really, I have so many good memories that I couldn't have one above the other. JC: Well, is there one of those memories that we haven't talked about? 17 RF: I don't know. No, I don't think so. I think maybe this time we didn't – well, it's not a favorite memory, it's a humorous memory. I don't think we talked about it. Some of the veterans, in either – I think it was the beginning of my junior year, pulled out by the roots, the parking meter in Montpelier. And they came and installed it in President Dodge's private parking spot. Dug it into the ground and everything. And we got up in the morning for reveille and here's the parking meter. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: Which the Montpelier Police came over and traded it at a later date. JC: Well, let me ask you this. What was it like being a teenager during World War II? RF: Well, (Laughs) I was too young to get my driver's license until my senior year. But I think the biggest thing was the lack of transportation. And I was on the football team in my senior year, and we had to take a common carrier, a bus that -- had to get dressed, walk up to the bus route, then get on the bus, common carrier, to go to Fairfield. And get off the bus and walk to their field because you couldn't get enough parents that had enough gas coupons and or you couldn't hire a bus because they couldn't get the gas for a football game. So, -- (Laughs) JC: Was there anything else that you'd like to add, that we haven't talked about? RF: I'll think of all of them after you leave. JC: (Laughs) RF: That will happen you know. JC: That will happen. Let me see if there's anything I haven't – we haven't discussed. RF: I enjoyed my days in the Army Reserve. The tank battalion I was in, we had a great bunch of officers. But the enlisted men we had were out of the bowels of Bridgeport. And these guys, you never knew what kind of a scrape they were going to get into or anything, but they were the best damn enlisted men. I was a supply officer for the battalion. We got ready to turn in our equipment and (Laughs) we were short something like 40 gas cans. Where would 40 gas cans go? The resupply sergeant said, "Don't worry. Me and the boys will have them by morning." And I go over at 6:30 in the morning and here's the 40 gas cans. Lined up. And you know where they got them. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) 18 RF: I've seen them – I've seen them stop a jeep, two of them, stop a jeep and ask directions. And in the confusion and everything, the first one is talking to the driver and the other one unhitches that gas tank off the back and that's the way they got them. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: They could do anything, really. And the battalion commander thought I could get anything done. (Laughs) And it was only because of these guys – JC: Yes. RF: -- that did it. JC: Well, can you think of anything else? RF: No. I'm very pleased of graduating from the general's staff school. After I'd been in the reserves maybe two or three years. I said, "I'm going to do 20 years." I said, "I'm going to go to the command and general staff school, and, I'm going to make lieutenant colonel." And I made all three of those. JC: So, you retired a lieutenant colonel. RF: And, as you might say, I'm on the dole now, because I did 20 years and it wasn't until about 19 – no 2002 that Senator Warner from Virginia said, "You have to treat retired reservists the same as the regular army reservists." And up until that time, I was on my own for health care and everything else. That action by the congress -- I got Tricare and prescriptions paid for and every other darn thing. So, what was so – and I think, now deceased Senator Warner, who was Elizabeth Taylor's last husband I think. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) RF: I think that's about it. JC: Okay. Well, I thank you very much for this interview. It will be a great addition to our collection. And I will --
Transcript of an oral history interview with Priscilla Dole Hatch, conducted by Sarah Yahm on 11 June 2015, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. The bulk of her interview focuses on Priscilla Dole Hatch's family and their long-standing relationship with Norwich University; also discussed are her experiences as an elementary school teacher and her memories of Northfield, Vermont. ; 1 Priscilla Dole Hatch, Oral History Interview June 11, 2015 Interviewed by Sarah Yahm SARAH YAHM: Hmm. Well, we'll keep trying. This may not work. We might need to reschedule but we're going to give it a shot. I've been having some trouble with my equipment. Um, okay, so you've been here for eighty-something years? PRISCILLA DOLE HATCH: Eighty years actually. SY: Eighty years. Was this the house you were born in? PH: No. No. When my family bought this house when I was four years old. SY: Wow. But you were born in Northfield. PH: Born in Northfield. SY: And where was your, what house were you born in? Where was your original house? PH: The house up on, um, the corner of Stagecoach and Route Twelve. SY: Wow. PH: Right across from the library. SY: Okay. So, you've seen a lot of big changes in your lifetime. PH: Oh, yes. SY: Yeah. So, I guess I'm wondering, so your family has a long-standing history with the University. Right? Could you talk about that relationship a little bit? PH: Okay. Which one? My grandfather? SY: Both. PH: Both of them. Okay. My grandfather Dole, Charles Dole, was acting president for two years. It was at a time when Norwich was having financial difficulties. So, he used his own money to pay the instructors. Of course, there were fewer instructors then than there are now but, um, he did that and then he had, four boys went to Norwich, his four sons. And then he had two brothers I believe that went to Norwich, at least one, maybe two. And then, my other grandfather, Ira Holden, he went to Norwich, I think, two years, because he liked to play football. That was the 2 reason. But then he had to go back and work on the farm. So, he only stayed in for two years. SY: So, I'm wondering, okay, so you were born in Northfield. You grew up here but I'm wondering what your first memory is. PH: My first memory. I don't know if it's from pictures or really a memory but I remember living on Cross Street. And it was a duplex house. We had a family living beside us. Excuse me. We had a family living beside us and there were two boys in the house. And they were, we all played together and had a good time. And let me tell you what I did. Uh oh. One day, I decided to take a walk and I was three, I think. So, I, my mother discovered that I was gone. And so, she started looking for me and they were digging a cesspool line all the way down Vine Street at that time. Of course, they're pretty deep. So, she went the whole length of the cesspool trying to find me. She thought I was fallen in there. Anyway, in the meantime, I had walked down Vine Street but didn't fall in the sewer, walked down Vine Street and then I went down over the bank, walked the tracks until I got into town, into the depot. And then, I went across the, I went across to, um, East Street. Now, I went to visit my mother's hairdresser. That was my point of travel. So, she, of course, was just about crazy and she went to, she finally got the telephone call from her friend, saying, "I have a little girl down here. She walked in just a little while ago." P.S. then, when I got home, I was put on a rope and I was able to, it was on a run and I could, I could move around that way. But I had to stay on that. The little boy next door, the reason I mention him, the little boy next door came running into the house one day, that day, and he said to my mother, "Don't worry, Mrs. Dole. Don't worry, Mrs. Dole. She's all right. I let her go." (Laughs.) SY: Uh oh. PH He thought was, that's pretty much, that's the first big memory I have. SY: How old were you when that happened? PH: About three. SY: About three, oh. So, that was a young memory. PH: I was young. Yes. SY: So, what was Northfield like as a kid? What were your favorite places? What did you do? Where'd you go? PH: Well, we had the, we had the concerts down on the common. We used to go to that in the summer. My father played in the cornet band and as he did at Norwich too. And, oh dear, what else did we do? We didn't have a lot. I mean, we just pretty 3 much played together as kids. My father worked in the post office. And so, he was busy all the time. We didn't have long vacations or anything like that. We pretty much lived at home. And then, I used to go up to my grandmother's, up on Twelve A and they had a farm. And that was when I really had fun, up there too. That was great, great sport. SY: What would you do? PH: Well, if you were really good, you were allowed to ride the hay, what do you call it? SY: Wagon? PH: Wagon! Thank you. The hay wagon, back from the field, when my grandfather was, you couldn't ride it when there was any hay on it. He was too nervous about that. But you could ride once. You could ride down. And so, we used to do that and in the summer, once in a while, I could take a friend and go up there. Then, in the winter, we used to go up to the sugar house because he made maple syrup. You went up over the tracks there and up on the hill behind the, I don't know how to describe that, um, he had a bridge that went across Dog River there and that he had built himself. And then, because he had to take horses upwards to draw the sap. Anyway, he had the sugar house up there and I was allowed to go up there. We would take an egg, one egg with us and it had to be a raw egg. We took that up. He'd put it in the sap. And then, come lunchtime, we had a hard-boiled egg that was cooked in the sap. SY: Oh! Did it have a maple-y taste? PH: Just a tinge. And if it didn't, we thought it did. (Laughs.) SY: Of course, it doesn't matter if it did for real. Yeah. PH: Right. SY: Absolutely. So, I'm wondering what your impressions were of Norwich were as a kid. Did you have much interactions with the cadets? Did you ever get on campus? Do you have any memories? PH: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Of course, they were always around. They had more freedom then. They were off campus more. Once we moved here, I don't know how it always happened but they used to come here and, you know, they'd get sick of campus food and they'd come over and have dinner or something like that. My father was acquainted with quite a few of them. And so, you know, I'm just talking three or four, something like that. But they, this kind of got to be their second home. 4 SY: And how did your father know them? Just through the post office or because he was an alum? PH: No. I think through the Masons. He was a Mason and they were learning to be Masons. So, they'd come over here and study, study the, whatever it is. Then, of course, they'd stay for dinner. I can remember my mother making homemade English muffins. They were so good. They would sit down and have those and coffee after their lessons. And they would come. It was interesting. They just seemed to be glad to have a home atmosphere and feel like they could come over whenever they want. Sit on the porch or what have you. So, I knew quite a few of them that way. Of course, we used to go the football games and the basketball games. Then, when I got older, I knew a few of them. Let's see. What did we do when I was older? I dated some of them. SY: Yes. So, you did. You dated indecipherable. So, what did that mean? Going to the balls? PH: I did. Some. Mm hmm. Went to the ball and to the fraternities. They had the fraternities there. We would have parties. One of the boys that I met that I really thought a lot of, after graduation, he came back to visit. On the way back, he was going to grad school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And on the way back, he was on a flight that went down. So, he was killed unfortunately. Great, great, great cadet. Really nice, nice young man. Anyway, uh. SY: That's very sad. PH: Pardon me? SY: That's very sad. PH: It was terrible. SY: And how old were you when that happened? PH: I was, oh, by then, I was, I had dated him so I was, how old was I? I was nineteen, twenty. SY: And when were you allowed to start dating cadets? PH: It was interesting because then, if you dated a cadet, the town boys wouldn't date you. SY: Why was that? PH: They were jealous, I think. There was a definite demarcation there. You went with one of the other and you didn't go with both. You always had to make a decision. 5 SY: What, why'd you make the decision that you made? Do you remember your teenage thought process about it? PH: Actually, until after I got out of school, I did not date any cadets. I did date the town boys. But then, after that, I don't know. I don't know how it happened. A lot of the boys went away. That was '48 and it was getting close to the Korean War. A lot of them went in the service. Then, I met some through them coming here. I met two of them when they came here. And one of them I dated and we went to the ball, the junior, what was it called, junior. SY: The ring ceremony? PH: Pardon me? SY: The ring, uh, I always forget what it's called. The junior weekend. PH: There was junior weekend but there was a special name for I can't remember what it was. But anyway, it had the king and the queen and the whole nine yards. SY: Yeah. Yeah. PH: Yeah. SY: Would town boys be sort of mean about? PH: No. They just wouldn't date you. It was kind of a, a hidden thing, you know. Nobody talked about it. Nobody said, "I won't date you if you date." That wasn't even part of it but it just happened. That's the way it was. SY: That's very interesting. Let's rewind a little bit and let's talk about, because you're a teenager during World War II. Let's talk about what it was like during World War II in town. Do you have any memories of that? PH: I do. I do. SY: Could you talk about those? PH: I do because I had an uncle and two cousins that were in the War. They were Marines. I was, let's see, at that time, I was trying to think the other day how old I was when the Germans marched into Poland. That was '39, so I would have been eight. I can remember lying in bed and this was a direct route for the planes to go over from Portland to, I think, Massachusetts. I used to worry. I'd hear those planes and I think, "Oh. Are they going to?" You didn't know who they were. Whether they were our or theirs. I used to think about that, lying in bed and I used to think about my cousins, worrying about them, where they were and what they 6 were in to and so forth. Plus, other boys that were in town, you know. You worried about them too. It was an interesting time. I can remember when I heard that the Germans had gone into Poland in 1939. I was walking to school and I met up with somebody who had heard it on the radio and they mentioned it. It was a shock. It was a real shock. Because, of course, we didn't have TV and all of that to get instant information. So, it was hard to take. SY: Yeah. Do you remember deprivation during the War? Do you remember rationing? Do you remember blackout curtains? What was the day to day life like? PH: We had all the curtains on all the windows were all blacked out. SY: So, in this house, all of these windows were blacked out curtains. PH: All the windows were blacked out and, uh, then, they had the civil patrol. What was it called? I think it was called civil patrol. They would go out and canvas the town to see if they could see any light. If they did, they knocked on your door and told you something was leaking somewhere. SY: And was it your job to pull down the curtains? Whose job was it to pull down the curtains? PH: Whoever was near them at the time. Not anybody's job really. SY: Were those blackouts scary? PH: No. No. You just had them all the time. You pulled them down all the time. No. We got used to it. My mother and father were spotters, up on the hill up here. They would go up. Now, my father and friend went from six to twelve because they were working. My mother and the friend's wife went from twelve to six in the morning. So, they were up there all night. SY: Looking for planes? PH: Yes. When a plane went over, they had to notify. If it was going this way, they had to notify if Massachusetts. If it was going that way, they had to notify Portland. SY: And did they have phones with them? How did they? PH: Mm hmm. They had phone service up there. SY: Wow. PH: Mm hmm. SY: And they did that every night? 7 PH: No. Once a week. SY: Once a week. PH: They were scheduled. Different people were scheduled once a week. SY: And it was rotated. PH: It was rotated. It was constantly covered. Somebody was up there. SY: Anybody ever see anything? PH: Just the planes going over, you know. Yeah. No. Nothing happened. Thank goodness SY: No. Nothing did. Do you remember when all of the Norwich cadets left campus and enlisted? Do you remember that? Could you describe that? PH: I do. And then, the ASTP came in. SY: Yes. Could you describe that and tell that story? PH: Well, it's all of the sudden they just were, they left and there was no fanfare, not much fanfare anyway. There was more fanfare when ASTP left. They marched to the train and they went that way, as I remember. SY: Did you see them marching? PH: I think so. I know I saw the ASTP when they went down. SY: What does ASTP stand for? PH: I knew you were going to ask me that. SY: Ha! Ha! PH: Army training service? They were soldiers. SY: Yeah. PH: They were soldiers that, non-com soldiers, you called them, I think. They were up here to, I think they had different stretches like six weeks, six months, I mean. I don't know. I'm not sure what their schedules were. But they were up here and that was time we still had horses at Norwich. They had to, they had to take care of them. In fact, we had two friends, two of the AST people, their wives came and 8 stayed here. One, she could only get away like weekends. So, she'd come here. And then, the other one, she was, oh God bless her, she was only eighteen years old. She followed her husband up here. What the people did around here, they took them in. And they could live with, we had one that lived with us, the one I mentioned for room and board. And they just worked, you know, did the dishes. SY: And they weren't associated with Norwich? They were associated with the Guard or something else? PH: No. They were with ASTP that was up there. SY: But that was up on campus? PH: That was on campus. The boys were on campus. SY: Oh. I see. So, all the Norwich cadets left. And then, the campus was used probably to do some training for the military. PH: Exactly. SY: Okay. Now I understand. Okay. And you remember when they left. And you're a little kid, at this point, watching this happen, watching the country mobilize for war. What were you thinking watching all this? PH: Right. I had to, I don't know. It was just something else that was happening, I think mainly. I don't think, I mean, we knew about it and it was talked about and we were concerned. But we didn't really know what was happening, you know. We couldn't visualize. SY: Was there part of it, because when you're a little kid, any event is sort of exciting, even if it's scary. It's a little bit like a snow day like, "This is a new thing that's happening!" Do remember being excited by all the fanfare? PH: It wasn't that much fanfare, really. It really wasn't. Everything just sort of happened, you know. The fanfare was when they left and I can remember going down to the train with the girl that lived here. And, of course, she was weeping because he was going off. He was going to war then and she was going to have to go back home. She was very distraught. I can remember walking with her down to watch them march down, follow them and to get on the train. It was tough. It really was tough. SY: Was she waving? PH: Yeah. SY: Yeah. And crying? 9 PH: Crying. SY: That sounds hard. PH: They all were. All the girls that were here. Many, many people took the girls in so they could be near them. It just, they were friends forever. SY: Yeah. You stayed in touch with them? PH: Mm hmm. SY: Yeah. PH: Yeah. SY: Wow. Do you know what happened? PH: Went to visit them in Florida many, many years afterwards. SY: Oh. Look at that. So, what about rationing during the War? Were you able, what foods weren't you able to get? How did that, how did daily life change? Did the town feel empty without men? PH: Well, we didn't, we didn't have much trouble as far as meat was concerned because my grandfather had a farm and he butchered the cows or had them butchered. So, we were all right with that but butter and sugar were the two things that were difficult. And, of course, you had your stamps and your little coins that you use. It was an interesting time. You'd go to the store and, oh, and we'd take our fat, fat that you had that you dried out like if you had bacon, if you were lucky enough to have bacon. If you had bacon, then you'd dry that out and you'd take the fat down and they'd give you maybe two cents. SY: For the lard. PH: It was like a donation almost for the lard. SY: And what would they use it for? PH: They turned it back in for, they remade something with it in the war effort. SY: Interesting. Was cloth hard to get? I know that cloth was sometimes rationed. PH: I, probably, probably it was. I know my mother, my mother made everything. She made all the clothes and everything. I don't know if cloth was hard to get. I really don't. 10 SY: Okay. So, you remember your little ration book and stamps and going around and getting things. And was cooking different? Did you cook differently than you had before the war? PH: If you had a pound of bacon, you stretched, I mean a pound of hamburger. You stretched it. You put an egg in it because eggs we could get. You put an egg in it and you'd put some breadcrumbs in it. You really stretched it to make it go. SY: Do you feel like you kept some of those habits throughout the rest of your life? PH: Some of them. SY: Because you also were a Depression baby. You were born during the Depression. PH: Right. SY: Yeah. So, did you feel that that influenced you as an adult, those early years? PH: Oh, it has. SY: How so? PH: My children tell me is has. (Laughs.) SY: Oh, yeah? They're like, "Mom!" So, what types of things? PH: Oh, dear. Well, I'm frugal. That was one thing that I learned. Make it work. What other things? I don't know. Maybe the way I cook. I think that might have some influence on that. And making food go. When you're first married, you don't have much money no matter where you are. You tend to fall back on those old ideas. SY: Yeah. So, were there a lot of men missing in the town? Did it feel empty? PH: Yes. Quite a few. Quite a few of the boys went. Yeah. SY: And boys you grew up with too. PH: We lost one. Tom. Tom Mayall. We lost him. He was missing in action, finally declared dead. They had a funeral for him here. His body wasn't brought back. They had a funeral here. And then, about two years later, he came to life. He was not dead. He was prisoner. I think he was a prisoner. And he surfaced. SY: Do you remember how that news was spread? Tell me that story. That's a great story. 11 PH: Everybody was excited. Everybody, whether they knew Tom or not, they were excited. SY: And had you known him? PH: I did know him. SY: Yeah. So, do you remember where you were when you heard that he was alive? PH: I don't. I don't remember. SY: Do you remember when he first came back to town? Did he come by train? PH: I don't remember how he came to town. I remember just having him here and his mother being so excited and, oh, she was so excited. She had other boys that were in the service too. SY: What a reprieve! Can you imagine? Every mother who loses a son is like, "Maybe it's a mistake." What an incredible thing for it to have actually been a mistake. PH: Yeah. SY: Wow. You said your uncle and cousins were in the War and they were okay? PH: Yes. SY: Any aftereffects? Things like PTSD? Were they different afterwards? PH: No. SY: No. Did they talk about it or did they not talk about it? PH: They didn't a lot. No. My husband didn't either until shortly before he died. I mean, it wasn't that he wouldn't talk about it. He just didn't talk about it. If you asked him something, he would answer you, but he was not, he just didn't make a big deal out of it. That's the only way I can describe it. SY: But then, before he died, he felt the need to talk about it. PH: He did talk about it more. Yes. He was an avid Marine. He was very proud to be a Marine. The other two cousins, actually I had several, my favorite cousin, he was in and his brother and his father was in. And they met over in Okinawa. We have a picture of them where they met, the three of them in Okinawa. Uncle Ray, I think he was a general at that time. He graduated. He's on the flag up there at Norwich. Are they still there, the flags in the chapel? 12 SY: I think so. PH: And his two sons. He met his two sons over there. That was kind of nice. SY: So, he had been a Norwich graduate as well. PH: Mm hmm. SY: So how did you meet your husband? PH: In college. SY: And where did you go to school? PH: At Castleton. SY: You went to Castleton. You met him at Castleton. After the War? PH: Yes. Oh, yes. SY: What did you study? PH: On campus. SY: No. What did you study? PH: What did I study? Oh, teaching. I was a teacher too and he was a teacher. SY: What subject? Or did you teach elementary? PH: I taught elementary and he taught junior high. Then, another interesting thing that happened to me, I laugh about it now. They had a course. I don't know if you've heard about it. They had a course here in Norwich in aviation, in the summer. You've heard about it? Okay. I can't think of his name, the one that taught. Oh, he was wonderful. All of them were. Anyway, I took that course. One day, it hit me. I said, "I'm the first girl to go to Norwich, to take a course and go to Norwich in our family." It was like, okay, so there was my uncle, my grandfather, and my father and brothers. And then, I had the chance to go. SY: You might have been one of the first girls ever to take a class at Norwich! PH: That's right. SY: So, what year was this and tell me what it was like? 13 PH: I think it was 1950. Oh, we had a wonderful time. It was all teachers. I used the material a lot afterwards. I wish I could think of the man's name. SY: And what were you learning? Were you learning to actually fly? PH: Aviation. Mm hmm. Well, we had an hour, two hours in the simulator, the simulator here. We did a lot with, we learned how they studied air currents and all of that and the principals of flying. Enough so that we could take it back and give the kids an understanding of it. They loved it. I did a unit on it afterwards, the first year afterwards. Oh, it was so much fun because they got so excited to be able to do something so different. We had to make planes. They had to fly. I can't remember how long they had to fly but they did. We had to pass that. That was very important we passed that. SY: So, you had to make planes, like miniature planes, and they had to fly successfully so that you could demonstrate understanding aerodynamics. PH: Right. Right. SY: And you got to be in a flight simulator. PH: You got to be in the flight simulator. We took a trip to Sikorsky in Connecticut where, you know, they were building, they were building, I think, helicopters. Maybe they're doing that now. I'm not sure. Anyway, yeah. We had to fly. It was just a wonderful course. Nobody could ask for a better course. They were working so hard to make it successful. They really just put their all into it. SY: And it was other teachers. So, there were other women in that course. PH: Oh yes. SY: Lots of other women in that course. I wonder if you guys were technically the first group of women to take a course at Norwich. PH: I think we were. SY: Huh. How did that feel? PH: I was excited because I liked the idea of going there. SY: And your whole family had gone there. So, it makes sense that you were like, "What about me!?" Yeah. PH: It was really fun. It was a different experience. I'm trying to think how many were in the class. It must have been, I don't know. There were twenty-five of us, maybe. 14 SY: I wonder how long they ran that course for. PH: Only a couple, three years. They dropped it. I never knew why. I always felt bad that they did. SY: Yeah. PH: Because it was a wonderful teaching tool. SY: And it's exciting that they were also attempting to connect to elementary school teachers, right, and create an aviation curriculum. So, it sounds like you worked for most of your adult life. PH: I taught until I went down to New York. And then, I stopped teaching when I went down there. I substituted. That was all. And then, I decided I wanted to be home when my children came home. So, I stopped working. I didn't stop working. I stopped teaching. (Laughs.) SY: Yep. Let's not make that mistake. PH: No. SY: You were working hard. PH: But anyway, yes. That was it. We were there twenty-five years. Then, we came back here, retired back to this house. Been here since '82. SY: I have some more questions. I'm wondering, when you were a little girl, what you wanted to be when you grew up? What were your dreams of what you were going to do with your life? PH: You're going to laugh. I wanted to be a teacher. SY: I'm not going to laugh! And why did you want to be a teacher? PH: Probably because my mother was. I suspect that was my motivation. SY: Where did your mother get her teaching degree? PH: She got it at Montpelier Seminary. There's a seminary down there. SY: So, that was Vermont College, wasn't it? PH: And then it was Vermont College. Yes. But she did not want to teach in village schools. She only taught in the country schools. She loved it. She absolutely loved it. 15 SY: Why not the village schools? Why the country schools? PH: The children are entirely different, entirely different. They're so appreciative, everything you do. You can't do enough for them. They don't have a lot, you know. They just are super kids. SY: So, she was never your teacher. You were going to the village school and she was teaching in the country. Or did she stop teaching when you were born? PH: The way it happened was the superintendent came to her and he wanted her, because right after she got married, she was teaching down in Braintree. After they were married, she came, they came back here. About five years later, I was born. And then, she wanted to stay home with me. I guess I was four at the time because I was going to be five when school started. The superintendent wanted her to teach and she said, "No. I'm not going back in to teaching until Priscilla goes to school." He said, "Well, maybe I can arrange that." He said, "I can't put her in the village school because the cut-off date is six." And I would have been five. He said, "But maybe I could put her up here in the center across from the library, up on the hill." He said, "Maybe I could put her in there and it won't cause a ruckus. Then you could teach." (Laughs.) Who'd do that? SY: So, is that what happened? PH: That's exactly what happened. I went to school up there for a year. And then, I came back down and I went to second grade in the village school. SY: So, you come from a, your mother loved teaching, it sounds like and you love teaching. I guess, where was your first teaching job and what were your joys and failures? I've taught, so I know there are joys and failures. PH: There are. My first teaching job was right here in Northfield. SY: Where you'd gone to school. PH: Yep. And I had what I'd call the best class that ever went through the Northfield school system. 1957, the class of 1957. And they were, oh, they were just wonderful kids. I've kept in touch with them all these years. I go to their reunions. They're just wonderful. SY: What made them so great? Well, what grade were you teaching? PH: Then, I was teaching sixth grade. I was teaching in an overflow class, an overflow group, because there were so many, they divided them. So, I only had nineteen. Perfect! 16 SY: Oh, because this is the baby boom. This is the post-war boom. That was the first year of that. If they were twelve, then. PH: That's why there was so many and that's why they divided them. I really considered myself lucky. To have such a class. Oh! All just wonderful and they've done very, very well. SY: What types of stuff did you do with them? Do you remember some of the curriculum you did, some of your projects? PH: Oh, dear. We had to stick pretty much to the, you know, one time, it was a Friday afternoon and everybody was like this, you know. And so, I said to them, we had to do, it was a literature, world literature. We had a little unit on that. And so, they were working around the Australian area. So, I said, "How would you like to learn to sing Waltzing Matilda?" Well, they thought that was a good idea and I figured it was good for anything else, right. So, the only way that I could do it was by rote, because I had nothing to do it with. I was singing to them and there were two doors on either side. The superintendent could come in. Of course, anybody could come in either door. So, I'm singing away there to them and then, I'd have them do a part of it and then I'd sing some more and then we'd do all of it. I did it that way. I happened to be singing and I didn't have the voice I have now. I happened to be singing and Walt Gallagher was the superintendent and he came around the corner and I looked up and I saw him and I don't know what, there must have been a look on my face or something. He said, "Oh, I won't bother you now. I'll be back later." (Laughs.) SY: (singing) Waltzing Matilda! Waltzing Matilda! PH: That's exactly what I was doing. It was fun. I loved it. I did. I loved teaching. That's all I can say is I really enjoyed it. SY: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It must have been nice to teach in the school that you had gone to. You probably knew the, there were probably just a couple families and you knew all the families. PH: I knew the families but I also taught with some of the teachers that taught with my dad. SY: That's a strange experience, huh? PH: It was very strange. In fact, the eighth-grade teacher, I mean I always called Ms. Lyon, Ms. Lyon, you know. That's what you call her, I mean. She was very strict. When she was the principal, you know, you were scared to death of her. One day, she said, "Priscilla." And then she paused, she said, "Priscilla, call me Vesta. Don't call me Ms. Lyon anymore." Okay. (Laughs.) 17 SY: Yeah. PH: And it was the hardest thing for me to do. The others, there were a couple of others there, I didn't have any trouble with. But to call her, it was really wicked. Oh. I was so nervous. SY: That's hilarious. PH: I had been afraid of her in school and it sort of carried through. SY: What was your biggest challenge as a teacher? What was the thing that was hardest for you in the classroom? PH: What was the what now? SY: Your biggest challenge as a teacher. What was hardest for you in the classroom? PH: Discipline. SY: Yeah. What the expectation then of how you were supposed to discipline kids? PH: Well, of course you didn't harm. I wouldn't think of hitting them. No way. But, it just, I don't know, I never had that much trouble with it really. I had one incident and he's a graduate of Norwich. No names. He was a challenge personified, really. I knew I was going to get him. The others teachers had so much trouble with him and I determined, right at the beginning, I determined, "I'm going to win this child over." So, he came in. He did a couple of things but he came in one day and, uh, I don't know what he did. Oh. Yes. I had already put his desk down beside mine. I was headed this way and he was headed this way. So, he was sitting there for several things he had done and then, I don't know what he did now. I can't remember. I sat down and I put the children to work. I sat down and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I put it in an envelope. And then, I put his mother's name on it and I put it on the corner of his desk. This is in the morning. He's got to look at this until lunch time. So, I guess you'd call it torture. I don't know. He sat there and looked at it. So, he went home. When he came back, I said, "Did you give your mother the note?" He said, "I threw it on the table as I was leaving." I said to him, "Well, that means you've got to wait all afternoon to find out the result. That's going to make it even worse. Isn't it?" And so, that was that. The next morning, I went in. He's sitting at his desk. Now, I went to school about 7:30. Early. I did my best work with planning in the morning. I went in. There sits Gary. I said, "Did you get locked in last night?" He said, "No." He said, "The janitor let me in this morning." I said, "Why are you here so early?" He said, "I just had to tell you," he said, "I didn't know how much you cared about me." Because in the note, I had written, "It's only because I care so much about so much about, that I really want him to do well. Seventh grade is very important because it will be the start of his really having to buckle down in high school and learn to do well. I 18 know he can do it but he's doing too much extracurricular fooling around." He said, "Nobody's ever liked me in school." SY: What a success that is! What a success! PH: It really was. I consider it the biggest success I had in all my teaching. I had written on the bottom to ask his mother to please come in to see me. She came in and we talked about it. She said, "What can I do? What can I do to help this along?" I said, "Well, I don't know." I said, "He's very fond of his football equipment." And so, she took his football equipment away from him and told him he couldn't have it back until I wrote a note saying that it was possible. So, I let him go about six weeks. I was going to win this one. Finally, one day, I sat down and I wrote a note. Put it on his desk. He took it home. The next morning, I came in, same time, there sits Gary, full football uniform on, hat, all this stuff they wear, ball under his arm. SY: That's very sweet. PH: Is that a wonderful story? I love it. I just love it. SY: And how did he end up doing? PH: All I can say is he now, I think he's the registrar of one of the biggest colleges in the country. SY: Look at that! He did all right, that kid! PH: I wish I could tell you his name, but I shouldn't. SY: No. Oh, you shouldn't. That's a very sweet story. PH: Oh, it was wonderful. I was so pleased. He was so cute. After I left teaching, he even wrote me. He would write me letters. He was one of the ones, when we had the, when I had the units on aviation, he really got into it. He did so well on that. He really did. He was interested and excited about it. I remember him probably being the most excited than any of them. SY: It sounds like you were a wonderful teacher. PH: Oh, I don't know about that. We did have a good time. We had a good time. Hopefully, they learned. SY: Were you sad when you were moving to New York, to leave teaching at the village school? Did you teach? PH: I did. I was. Yeah. 19 SY: Did you have a send-off when you left? PH: No. Not really. Not really. SY: So, why and you lived in Northfield your whole life so you must have been sad about leaving Northfield or were you excited about moving somewhere else? What was the, I assume your husband got a job. PH: I was excited about going down there. I just wanted to do something, you know, outside. I knew I could always come back. I liked New York. I really did. Teaching was different. SY: How was it different? PH: I had, I was called in to teach first grade one day and I was pregnant with my youngest son. And so, I kind of hesitated but I said, "Okay." I would go in. I had this little kid who, I had put them all to work and when you go in, you don't have any lesson plans and you've got to figure out something quick. You've taught school. You know. So, I worked on that and then, I was walking up the aisle, between the, of course, the seats were all together. I was walking up the aisle and this little kid stuck his foot out, tripped me and I just barely, just barely held myself up and got out of it. I got home that night. I said to Stanley, "That's it. No more. Not now." SY: What was, you know what? I'm just realizing your chair is kind of squeaky. I'm wondering if maybe we should switch chairs because the squeak is coming up. PH: Is it? SY: Do you think this chair is less squeaky? PH: Could be. SY: Let's try. We'll just move my chair over and hope it's a little less squeaky. Trade. PH: This one's more solid. SY: That's more solid? Okay. Then let's do that one. There we go. So, what was it like to live in Huntington after having lived in Northfield? How was life different? PH: We lived in Northport but he taught in Huntington. It was different but I had very nice neighbors. That made it, you know. SY: And it was suburb then, right? 20 PH: Yes. We even had some potato fields. SY: Really? PH: Yes! SY: Wow! PH: Not now. SY: I was trying to figure out where Huntington is. PH: North Shore. SY: North Shore. And where's Levittown? PH: Levittown is closer to the city. SY: Closer to the city. PH: And it's in the middle. SY: But these were, like, some of the early post-War suburbs, right? PH: Mm hmm. SY: Were all the houses kind of alike? Were they designed neighborhoods or were they older than that? PH: No. You know, Huntington was, Northport especially, they had a lot of cottages out there. People went out there in the summer. A lot of them were converted cottages. Now, they're McMansions. SY: Of course. Yeah. PH: It's entirely different. Even the house that we had, it was built in the fifties. When I go by, I can't believe it. They just sold it so I was able to look at the pictures of the inside and they've done some beautiful work in there. Good ideas. No. They're not side by side really. Now, it's condos and big senior units and things like that. SY: So, how did you like being a mom? PH: Oh, I loved being a mom. SY: You did? Some people like staying at home with their kids and some people don't. You liked it. 21 PH: I did. SY: You really like kids, it sounds like. PH: I do. SY: How many kids do you have? PH: Pardon me? SY: How many kids do you have? PH: Three. SY: Three. Okay. Are they still living out on the island or are they scattered? PH: They are. They're all down there. SY: That's good. So, you can spend winters down there with them. PH: Right. I said, "We left and they didn't." SY: Yep. What made you and your husband decide to retire back up here? PH: After my mother passed away, father passed in '60, after my mother passed away in '75, the house was ours. We'd come every summer, just doing the work that had to be done to keep it up. Other than that, we closed it. He was from Vermont. He was from Calais and I was from Northfield. It was just a given to do this. Get back to where it's quieter and less expensive to live. Right now, it's horrendous to live down there. Awful. SY: Were any of your old friends still around when you came back? Did you still feel like you knew people? PH: Oh, yeah. SY: So, it was easy to slip right back in. PH: Right. Oh, yes. No problem. Between relatives and friends, it was easy. SY: Yeah. PH: That's why I say I have the best of both worlds because I go down there for six months and I see all my friends down there and then I come up here and I have all my friends up here. 22 SY: So, of course, Northfield has changed over the course of your life but I bet there's also ways in which its stayed the same. I'm wondering your thoughts about that, ways it's different and ways it's similar. PH: Well, if you take this street, for instance, every house on this street, except for the one's that painted purple, every house is the same as it was. Off this here, we now have another street off it. That wasn't there. It wasn't spruces. It was grove up there of fir trees. It was gorgeous. They took them down. SY: Oh, that's sad. PH: It is. The Common, the Common down there has changed. And, of course, Norwich has changed. That's what we watched. SY: How have you seen Norwich change? PH: Oh, my goodness! As the buildings go up, it's just amazing. And all we ever had was the, you know, Plumley. SY: The armory. PH: Couldn't think of it. Yes. Plumley. But now they have Kreitzberg. It's just amazing. It's amazing what they've done. And that's all been since, except for the building up on the Quad, all these other new buildings have all been built since the '50s. SY: Yeah. Do you remember how you felt when you heard that girls were going to be allowed to come to Norwich? PH: Oh, that was great! Yeah. I thought it was great. Nothing wrong with that. And I was so glad when we had a girl cadet colonel. I was excited. Didn't know her but I was excited. SY: Yeah. What about it excited you? PH: Oh, I just thought it was wonderful. She did so well that she could do that. SY: Yeah. PH: She had to go over some hard bumps probably to get there. SY: I would imagine. For sure. Yeah. PH: That's, you know, the Common and Norwich, that's basically the changes that have been made around here. Not too many. 23 SY: No. I guess not too many. And, I guess, the house hasn't changed that much. No. PH: No. We haven't changed it. I had the kitchen redid. We made the kitchen larger. There was a sunporch out there and a little pantry. We put that window in which was just like this window. Did that when we first came back. Other than that, no. We haven't changed it much. I like a kitchen where people can sit when you're cooking and you can talk to them. SY: Who doesn't? That's what a kitchen is for. PH: That's right. SY: That's what a kitchen's for. I wonder if you have any last thoughts or reflections about Northfield, about Norwich, about I don't know, last thoughts. You're at this point where you're probably looking back on your life and thinking about it in some ways and, I don't know, what are you proudest of? Are there things that you regret? PH: Hmm. SY: That's a hard one. PH: That's a hard one. Yeah. That's a hard one. I probably do but I can't think of. SY: But mostly, it sounds like you feel pretty good. PH: Oh, I do. I do. SY: Yeah. PH: I don't have much to, I don't have anything to be upset about or sorry. Just getting older. SY: Yeah. PH: I said, "I don't mind." My son's going to be 60. I said, "Gee, I didn't mind when I was 60. That was a good age." I said, "70 wasn't bad either but 80 has been…" (Laughs.) SY: Yeah. It's been hard. Yeah. PH: Awful. SY: Really? 24 PH: Yeah. SY: Yeah. PH: But oh well. It's all a part of it. SY: It's part of the process. PH: It's part of the process. SY: Yeah. Exactly. PH: Nothing you can do about it. SY: No. There's nothing you can do about it. PH: I have such a marvelous support group here. SY: Yeah? Tell me about it. PH: Oh. I'm so lucky. I mean, everybody looks out for me. When I go away, of course, you see my one cat has been roaming around. Got a couple of those, another one, I mean. I have a cat sitter who comes in and lives here. He's very good. He just looks out for the cats. They like him I think better than they do me now. (Laughs.) That's what I tell him. He looks out for me. I get phone calls. "Anything you need at the store?" I am going to have a woman that I go to the store with because I don't have the stamina now to lift everything and put it in and do all of that so. She'll help me with that. At the end of the street, I have Bill Lyon, who, anything goes wrong, he's right here, fixes it. I had a leak in the basement down here along the edge. I have a friend that, her husband's an engineer and she said, "Oh, he should look at that. He can tell you what to do." So, he came down and looked at it. He said, "It's really bad. It's going to cost about $3,000 to fix that." And I go, "Okay." I'm thinking, "Oh, gosh!" Then, Bill said, "Let me take a look at it." He takes a look at it. The next thing I know, the next morning, I wake up and I hear pound, pound, pound. What is that? I go around and I look and he's down there. He's working on it. He's fixing it. He fixed it! All fixed. SY: They're taking good care of you. PH: Yeah. SY: Yeah. I know another question I have – town/gown relations. How have you seen the relationship between Norwich and the town change over time? PH: Very good question. Very good question, because there's always been, the only word I can use is jealousy, a bit of jealousy of Norwich. I always say, "If it wasn't 25 for Norwich, Northfield would be Bethel." You know Bethel? Northfield would be Bethel! I said, "I don't know how you can say that because, I mean, yes, they've taken a lot of the houses over here, down." They've done things that are maybe not to everybody's liking but the good they do. Helping with the EMTs. There's just so many things that they are responsible for, helping with the police department, the money they give for that. Sure, granted, they use them. I think people resent the fact that there's no tax and nothing coming in to the tax indecipherable, but it's a college. SY: Did the cadets also have a reputation for being kind of wild at different points in time? PH: Yes. SY: Carousing in town. PH: But it depends who you ask, you know. It really does. They were boys! (Laughs.) They would do some things some times. I don't know if you ever notice the centennial stairs had chips on them. Those chips were made, if I can remember, those chips were made, I believe, I'm going to say 1950 but give it a couple years either way. They did things like that. They rolled a cannonball down those stairs. SY: Oh my. PH: That was bad. SY: Wow. PH: It was bad but it's kind of funny now. SY: Do you remember when all the horses, during the War, all the horses left at one point, didn't they? Do you remember that? Visually, what was it like? How did the leave? PH: They must have put them on a train. Must have. SY: You didn't see it? PH: I didn't see that. That was right after the ASTP left, about that same time, '40s that they left. Oh, I know what I wanted to show you. SY: Okay. I'm ready. I won't go anywhere. I'll stay right here. PH: Oh. I'm sorry. Are we still working? SY: No. No. Is it something that should be on tape or not on tape? 26 PH: Not on tape. I don't think so. It's about the drum. SY: Oh. PH: I mentioned the drum. SY: And where does the drum come from again? PH: Will that be all right? SY: Yeah. Okay. So, tell me again about William Holden. PH: He was in Gettysburg. He came back here to Northfield. He was a very active man. It will tell you some of this in there. No. Maybe it won't. He ended up having a farm up on 12A. He was in the slate business with my other grandfather that lived on Dole Hill. That's where that comes from. I forgot how hold he was when he went into the Corp. Anyway, he was there for the duration of that. Then, he came back. He did a lot of things but he was a great part of the town business, things that went on. I believe he was also in the legislature. He just kind of had his hand in every pot. SY: Did you hear stories about him growing up? PH: Let's see. I was pretty young when he died. I can just barely remember him. SY: This is Holden or Dole? PH: Holden. SY: Holden. So, your grandfather you remember? PH: Yes. SY: Yes. PH: Well, not very well. Grandfather Dole, no not very well because died in, actually I can't remember him. He died in '29 and I was born in '31. SY: Okay. So, you never met him. PH: Never met him. SY: Yeah. 27 PH: No. I just know stories about him. Change the subject here, there's a book. There are two journals, big fat books like this. You know them. I think they go from 1885 to – SY: This is Norwich history? PH: Yeah. SY: The Ellis? Ellis? Yeah. PH: Okay? All right. It tells you about Dole. SY: About Dole? Yeah. I actually wonder about your father too. Do you know what his experiences were like at Norwich as a cadet and did he enter the service afterwards? PH: I could tell you a story. SY: Yeah. Tell me a story. PH: When he was at Norwich, he used to go home on the weekend. You could go home on the weekend. His mother made all sorts of goodies, little pies, cakes, and everything. He'd come down and he'd sell them to the cadets. There's stories about him coming back with great big boxes of goodies. They'd all be waiting for him when he got there. SY: He was a little entrepreneur. PH: Yes. He was. SY: Do you also remember, after the War, when married Norwich students were living in this sort of family housing? Do you remember that? PH: Mm hmm. SY: And it was, I guess it was over by the intersection with Route - PH: It's on 12A. SY: Yeah. Do you remember that? PH: Mm hmm. SY: What was that like? 28 PH: They were little duplex houses. There was one bedroom, one living room, sort of a dining room, and the kitchen was off that. That's what they were, pretty crude, but livable. That's where, they lived there. A lot of professors lived there too. SY: Yeah. PH: For housing. SY: For housing. People were desperate for housing after the War. Well, I don't think I have any other questions. That was great. Then, this article about the drum, where was this from? What newspaper? PH: Okay. I don't know. See, my grandmother, great-grandmother, W.W.'s wife, so that's in the late 1800s, she would take anything that was happening in the paper about them. See, even down here, there's something, I think. Isn't there? SY: Yeah. PH: Right here. Were they celebrating a – SY: Yeah. PH: She had a book, a medical book and I wish I had it downstairs. She would paste articles in it. So, I don't know whether that came from a Vermont paper or, doesn't look like a Northfield paper. SY: No. It doesn't. I don't know. Well, I'll hand it over and we'll see if we can figure it out. PH: I figured it's documentation. As you read it, you'll see, because they never had anything to know. SY: Anything about the drum. PH: Anything about the drum. SY: Your family donated it but they don't know anything about it. PH: W.W. donated it. SY: I'll go find out what the deal is with it. PH: I'd love to know when you find out. SY: I will. 29 PH: Because I've never known. I mentioned it once when I was up there and they didn't have a clue. SY: There's a new registrar. He's very conscientious. End of Recording
Transcript of an oral history interview with Robert G. Minnis, conducted by Jennifer Payne on 4 October 2013, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Robert Minnis graduated from Norwich University in 1963; the bulk of his interview focuses on Minnis' military career in the U.S. Army as well as his later employment and family life. ; Robert Minnis, NU 1963, Oral History Interview October 4th, 2013 Sullivan Museum and History Center Interviewed by Jennifer Payne JENNIFER PAYNE: We can start. This is Jennifer Payne with the Norwich Voices Oral History Project and today's date is October 4th, 2013. I am here with Robert Bob Minnis, Class of '63. Thank you very much for doing this. ROBERT MINNIS: You're welcome. JP: So, did you have a nickname? RM: The yearbook said it was Minnie but I don't remember that. JP: You don't remember. RM: I was called probably other things but Minnie was the name that's in the book. So, I'll go by that. JP: How did you choose Norwich? RM: Senior year in high school, I was ill for the whole month of January and basically almost the day before I graduated class, I was still taking final exams and everything. I got accepted to Northeastern as a conditional student provided I went to summer school. I decided I just busted my gut for four months. I wasn't going to do that. Arrangements were made through my father and I think it was the high school football coach. Anyway, they got me convinced to go to Bridgeton Academy, which was a prep school in Bridgeton, Maine, for a year. I did that. While I was there, I think it was one of the dorm counselors suggested Norwich University maybe as a place to go. I came up here and visited and like it and applied and got accepted. Started in 1959, September, August, September class. JP: Where are you from? RM: I grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts on South Shore, just south of Boston. JP: When were you born? RM: 1940, but that's classified. JP: Oh. Okay. RM: I tell people I was born before World War II and they kind of look at me. JP: When you came to Norwich, what was your rook experience like? RM: Really, I don't remember a whole lot of it. I was in the I Company, in Alumni Hall, on the second floor. I remember the squad leader, Corporal Zagars, who had quite a reputation, I guess. He was kind of different, not like a lot of the other squad leaders and sometimes he was very nice and other times, he was just mean. At least, we thought he was. Other than that, I don't - other things we used to as freshman, running here and there, squaring corners and that type stuff, I guess. Hasn't probably changed a whole lot but I don't have any specific memories of freshman year, other than the fact that the academic schedule that I had was pre-engineering. I had had in high school and prep school and by the time I got here, I didn't have to spend a whole lot of time studying, so I could go out to the movies two times a week. I was out to the movies two times a week. Basically, I was involved in the rifle team, the drill team, and any extracurricular activity I could get involved in just to help pass time and keep the upper classmen out of my life. JP: Wow. Drill team is a challenge. RM: We had a lot of fun. In fact, probably the best part was, my sophomore year, we got to march in President Kennedy's inauguration parade. JP: You're in that photo. RM: I'm in that photo, front rank or second rank anyway. We had to get dress blues for that. That's the first time dress blues came to Norwich. Originally, it was just going to be the drill team, which was maybe twenty-four members and, I guess, some other people said, "Hey. Why can't I go?" Anybody that had a set of dress blues and wasn't on academic probation, I guess, got to go. We went down there. Took a bus trip down. It was Greyhound, Vermont Transit Bus Line, which I think was a subsidiary of Greyhound. We ended up going down there. We got to D.C. and it was snowing. The bus drivers had no problem with the snow because they drove in it all the time. There were cars all over the place. We stayed at Fort Meade in the barracks that didn't have any heat. You want to talk about, Harry Chebookjian, I think, could probably tell you a few stories about that. But anyway, they finally got the heat going. The next day we went into D.C. and stood in some back street same place for hours it seems in the freezing cold waiting to go on. During the night, apparently they, the Army took all the engineers and anybody around there. They just swept the street clean. Pennsylvania Avenue was bone dry and no snow. Around the capital, I stepped in a puddle of water and it never wet my sock because it was so cold, it froze before I got there. And after that, the parade, we went back, turned our rifles in, and they turned us loose for, I forget, a couple hours. They told us we had to meet the buses at nine o'clock or whatever it was to take us back to Fort Meade. Stayed there overnight and the next day, headed back to school. JP: Do you remember what you did in D.C.? Where you went? RM: Basically walked around, looking at sites. Of course, we had the dress blue uniforms that had the gold stripe on the hat, so we used to see how many West Pointers we could get to salute us. Because they had the funny uniform. To them, a gold stripe was a salute so we obliged. JP: That's great. RM: I don't how long. We walked around D.C. for a couple hours and I don't remember where we went. Just kind of around the parks and the Mall and that type stuff. The dress blues, I still have. When I graduated, they converted them over to the Army. I still can get in them. JP: That's amazing. RM: A little tight, button-wise. I wouldn't want to do any rifle drill with them on but they do fit. JP: That's great. What else do you remember about your Norwich experience? RM: Well, my sophomore year, I was a squad leader in, I think it was A Company. Yeah. Bobby Blake was my roommate and a couple weeks after that, I was transferred over to the military police section. I roomed with Tom Dillard. Basically, any time there was a function on post that they needed a student traffic directions and escort and this and that, I did that for the whole year. We went to Middlebury or Vermont? One of the football games we went to, the captain was in charge of the MPs. We get up there. As soon as the game was over, he says, "Get rid of your whites," which was a hat cover and a scarf. He says, "Get out of here because you don't want to be known as…" We all bounced in the car. There was a bunch of us. I forget what transportation it was and left very quickly because there was a little bit of rivalry between us. JP: Was that the game where Middlebury won by the fifth down? RM: I don't remember the details. It may have been. Maybe that's what caused the commotion afterwards. I don't know. I don't remember. It's just too long. It was fifty-two years ago, or three years ago, over fifty. JP: You talked about General Harmon's car. What was the story? RM: Was the football game. It was sophomore year. I was in the MPs and we stood around the, the press box and Harmon, General Harmon and General I.D. White was sitting there. They were usually raising hell, like they always did, telling stories and swearing at this and that. We had male cheerleaders at the time. They were pointing out the various problems and things that they weren't doing right. So anyway, they're getting ready, I think it was for the opening ceremony. The tank [Unintelligible] came up. It was on the left side of the bleachers, facing the field. The General's car was in the way. So he said, "Move my, Corporal, come. Move my car." Okay. So, I get in it and I couldn't find the starter. It was one of those cars. It was buried underneath the pedal and I didn't know better. My roommate, Tom Dillard, was aware of this and I said, "Tom." He told me where it was so I got the car started. I moved it out of the way. Then, the tank came and fired the round. It did what it had to do. I was there for a couple minutes looking all over the place for the starter button. It didn't work with the key or anything. I remember, he used to come to the mess hall and occasionally tell a story or two. Probably can't be repeated in most company. Freshmen week, Parents' Weekend, they'd always serve steak. We never got it but they always had it on Parents' Weekend. He'd come in and he'd talk to them. Basically, he'd say, "If you don't like this place, you can get the hell out of it." He was a good old guy. He was a lot of fun to be with. He always stuck up for the Corps. If there was a problem in Northfield or Montpelier or wherever it was, I guess the story was where he'd send the tanks or the Corps or somebody in to rescue the people that go in trouble. He didn't take any B.S. from the townies. I guess he's got his own legacy and story. I also read his book afterwards, "Battle Commander," I think. He was a colorful guy. In fact, when we were going through, looking for picture for the reunion, there's a picture of me and General Harmon onstage that I guess is [Unintelligible] the Army. I couldn't remember what the thing was. So I sent it into Nate Palmer, who was the secretary of the reunion committee. He says, "That was graduation and you." Okay. There was nothing written on the back of the photo. I just had a mental blank as to what the picture was. Other than that, Harmon was a colorful character. I can't remember any other stories. I'm sure there's several. JP: So, your major was? RM: I started off mechanical engineer and changed over to sophomore year to engineering management and that was my degree, engineering management. I don't think they have it here now or maybe they call it something different but for a long time, it dropped out of the curriculum. Basically it was the basic engineering courses, Chemistry, Physics, Math, and then, Economics and English added on to it. It was kind of a mix. JP: Business and engineering. RM: Yeah. Right. It was kind of the happy road between the two of them. It worked well because I liked the construction part of it. When I was active duty, that's what I did. JP: What did you do after graduation? RM: I got immediate commission and I reported ninety days after commissioning. I had a summer job for ten weeks and a week on either end of it. I worked for a neighbor's dad basically just to kill time because I knew I was going to the Service. Then, the day came, I reported in to Fort Belvoir, went to the Basic Officer's Course. The day we signed out, President Kennedy was assassinated. JP: Oh my. RM: So, I ultimately decided, "Get out of D.C. because you don't want to get stuck down here." I went home. I watched all the proceedings on television. I got to Europe a couple weeks after that, was the middle of December. The people over in France in the bars were still buying free drinks. You couldn't buy a drink, in honor of President Kennedy. I got to march in his parade. After graduation from college here, my roommate, Jim Andrews, his dad had a place in the Cape, Camp Edwards, which was an Air Force base. His dad had a house there. When Kennedy flew in to Hyannis, the airplane was parked at Edwards Air Force Base. When I went to Jim's cottage that day, there was a bunch of people there. They were introducing me. They were the crew that flew on Air Force One. So we're getting ready to leave. They say, "Hey. You want to see Air Force One?" I got an escorted tour of Air Force One. We drove up and the guard was saying, recognized the driver of the jeep. "Nah," he said, walked up. There was one guard, I think, one or two guards out there. Walked up. Got a tour of the plane for, went all the way to the back. JP: Wow. RM: I sat in the, picked up the telephone, called my folks and said, "Hey! Guess where I am?" JP: Did you really? RM: Got a package of cigarettes and a book of matches and I forget what else they gave you. Yeah, so I got the tour of Kennedy's airplane. It was a 707. A couple weeks later, I was down at Fort Belvoir. JP: Doing? RM: It was a Basic Officer's Course. JP: Where did you go from there? RM: I had orders to France as a bachelor. I was supposed to be in for two years. People are trying to woo you with all this, "Sign up for three years. You can go take your family to it." I wasn't married, so I didn't care. I liked France. It sounded good to me, so I was going. I did have a little French in high school which was, I figure, maybe some help. We went, landed, we took off from Dix, no, McGuire Air Force Base in Canadian airplane. When I walked out of the airplane, the tail was open. That's how they're putting in the luggage. I go flying across the Atlantic Ocean and pray that the tail won't open up. We landed in France, in Paris, and I was supposed to get off there. There was two other people in the airplane going to the same outfit I was. The Air Force saw that I was supposed to be assigned to Phalsbourg, France, which was up on the German border. They said, "No. You stay on the airplane." I was one of the last people off because I was sitting in the back. They said, "No." [Unintelligible] "Already taken care of. We put it back on the airplane. Just go back and sit down." I said, "What do I do when I get to Germany?" They said, "Well, go to the tower and they'll get you a ride and take you in to France." About a couple hours later, it was dark by this time. Landed at Rhine-Main and they got this poor E-1 airman out of bed some place. He'd look as though he'd been ridden hard. He was awake enough to drive us and he drove down, went into France. Crossed the border. They waved us on through because it was a military vehicle. They dropped me off at the orderly room where the company, it was already eight or nine o'clock at night, and everybody says, "Where were you? They've been looking all over for you." Because they thought I was coming in to Paris. They made a few telephone calls and told the battalion commander that I had arrived. They recalled all the vehicles. The next morning I got up, put on a set of fatigues and went to work. JP: Your job was? RM: I was a platoon leader in the construction battalion. I had my own little mini-construction company. I had five dump trucks, a crane, air compressor, trailers, forty people including carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators. I often thought if I could retire from the army, I wouldn't need to retire with pay. Just give me the construction platoon that I had. And all kinds of tools, you know. You need tools and it came in a box I had probably. JP: What did you build? RM: First thing I had to build was four pre-fab metal buildings for ammunition storage for the Air Force. That was at Phalsbourg, where I was stationed. After that, they got sent to Reims Air Force Base in France. They were doing an asphalt project there and I was told to go study it because I was going to do an asphalt project in Chateraux in the Loire Valley. So, I went down there a few weeks ahead of time and designed an asphalt mix and got all the pieces and parts I needed. I ordered the amount of gravel and the right quantities and sizes. Then they sent me an asphalt plant from like a twenty truck convoy. They assembled it, put it together, we started making asphalt, and we repaired the runways and the shattered roof of the C141 aircraft that was coming in to the inventory. Had to replace some concrete and over pave it. JP: Wow. RM: There was also a French aircraft repair company there. They were repairing Air Force 101s and 100 jets. Those guys used to take off all the time and buzz my equipment operators that were driving on the field. After I was there for eight, nine months, the battalion commander called an officer's call for New Year's Eve. Because we were stationed all over the place at separate places, we had to get, we collected TDY to go to the battalion commander's officer's call. So, I went to the Etain Air Force Base, where the battalion commander was. Platoon sergeant took my platoon and the rest of the equipment and went back to Phalsbourg. We married up, I think it was the Second or Third of January, when I got back. After that, summer in the Loire Valley was beautiful, wine country, gorgeous weather, all the chateaus. Then, I went back to Germany, back to France. That time, de Gaulle threw the American forces out. I went PCS to Germany with the unit but because I had two year obligation, I had to extend for a year to go with the unit. When I extended, I was able to go France. Otherwise, they would have sent me back and given me TDY or stuck me someplace for two or three months. We got to Phalsbourg, I mean, to [Unintelligible] and set up shop there. We were there for almost a whole year. A couple projects, we had to build ammunition storage facilities and the great, big, huge butler buildings for the pre-fab equipment that the Army had stationed over there. They'd fly the people over, put them in the new trucks and tanks and stuff if they ever had a problem with the Russians. Then, in, was it June or July of '66, I got orders to Vietnam as a captain. I was still a First Lieutenant so I got promoted. On the way back, they sent me to Fort Belvoir to a Facility Management course. When I got to Vietnam, the typical story was engineer lieutenants, you don't stay in the repo depot very long. You get hauled off to someplace else. I was in the replacement company for six or seven days. One day, a lieutenant colonel and an Army major, WAC, showed up in a fancy black sedan and said, "Come with us." And I went to Saigon, where I was in the facility of engineers, planned a construction order of materials, coordinate, and all of that stuff. Making sure the painters didn't go in and paint the wall before the carpenters went in, tore a hole, and put a doorway in. I was getting ready to come home and I had one last time as duty officer, which was on the 28th, that was the night of TET, '68. I was the duty officer on Headquarters Area Command, not very far from Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. JP: Oh my. What was that like? RM: Busy. JP: Really? RM: Yeah. There was a sergeant there. He, about midnight, come in and woke me up, got me out of the chair. I was sitting in the back office and said, "Sir, I think you better come out there and see what's going on." He was so nervous because he only had three days left in country. He couldn't hear me, telephone shaking so bad, he had to set it on the table. So I spent the rest of the night, answering telephone calls, trying to coordinate this and that, writing the duty officer's log. The biggest thing, the relief called, was trying to get into the embassy, was getting shot at by the MPs that were in there. I finally get a hold of them. I said, "You guys are asking for ammunition." I said, "There's a truck outside with ammunition. Just don't keep shooting at it." I guess they got their ammunition all right. The rest of the staff showed up fairly early in the morning. By eleven o'clock, I'd finished writing all the stuff that I remembered on the report. They said, "Okay. You can go. So, I left. Went and got my jeep. Went across the street and got something to eat. Then, headed back to the compound because facility was on the other side of Saigon in the Cholon section. I was going over there and there was actually nobody in the street. The Vietnam, Saigon was never, never deserted. Even at midnight, there was thousands of people. Anyway, I'm in convoy with three APCs and I crossed each other at thirty-five miles an hour. Neither one of us slowed down or anything. I just went back to the compound, turned in my jeep, turned in my weapon, and then went back to BOQ and got a couple hours sleep because I hadn't gotten much that night. Then, went back to the office and started doing facilities work again, taking fuel for the generators and all the BOQs and water to the mess halls and fixing what we could. The thousand-member workforce that we had disappeared. It was something like three or four officers and, I don't know, ten to twelve NCOs that did the work for that week, did emergency repairs, not routine stuff. Then, about three weeks after that, I went home. JP: Wow. Heck of a note to go out on. RM: Yeah. It was nice to leave. From there, I went back to the Advanced Course at Fort Belvoir. When I graduated from that, there was supposed to be a very short turnaround for engineers, for any officer going back to Vietnam. To kill time, I taught Demolition Mine Warfare, down at the engineer school for a few months. And then, one day, I got a call to report to the headquarters, personnel section. They told me I was going to become the post-chemical officer. Because the day before, the chemical officer that was there was getting out of the service and they didn't have a replacement. The fact that I'd been to a chemical school in Germany three years, four years before that, I was the most qualified guy on post. I went, over my objection, but they said, "Forget that." I took the job and I went in there and just basically sat back and let the NCOs run the place. I ran cover for them. A year later, I was on orders to go back to Vietnam and all I had to do was pick up my 201 file and my personnel records, finance records. I got a call from my mother saying, "People at assignments branch are looking for you," because they thought I was home on leave. I call them and they said, "Guess what, Captain? You're not going to Vietnam!" Oh, ho, ho. Yeah. You date the President's daughter, you might get a chance to get out of it. Anyway, I went over. I told my boss, [Unintelligible] I said, "Hey. Guess what? Somebody's playing a joke on me. Yeah. I'm not going to Vietnam." He made a few phone calls. He says, "That's right. You're not going to Vietnam." I got to stay another whole year at Fort Bellvoir. JP: Wow. RM: When I eventually did go back to Vietnam, in Christmas of '70, Christmas of '70, New Year's Eve '71, I got sent to a place called Phan Thiet [??], the construction battalion. I was the company commander there for three months and then I was the, we built roads, bridges, that type stuff. Ran our own asphalt plant. Then, I became the operations officer for the unit there. I stayed there until December, early December '71, when they had already started letting people out of Vietnam. I got an early drop by a week and they let me come home early. JP: By a week. RM: By a week. From there, I was supposed to be assigned to, what was it, Army Materiel? No. I was supposed to be assigned to Fort Belvoir. I went into Fort Belvoir and this snotty little attendant, basically Army Readiness Region 1. He says, "When you get here, we'll take care of it." I says, "What am I going to be doing?" He says, "I don't know. Worry about that when you get here." I go over to assignment and say, "I don't want to go there. You got anything else?" They sent me to Army Materiel Command as a project officer. I was there for three years almost. Yeah. That's where I was when we got married. Three years and after I got married, I was going to buy a house. I couldn't find an apartment for my dog. So, we ended up buying a house. They told me I was going to be, "You have to call me to get out of this place." Six months later, they send me orders to [Unintelligible] region, up at Fort Devens. I said, "Hey. You told me." "Well. Sorry. Priority is the Army." I rented the house out and ten years later, when I retired, we went back to it. After I went to Devens for three years, I went to Fort Richardson, Alaska for three years. Then, Fort Leavenworth for three years. That's where I ended my career. JP: How many years were you in, total? RM: Twenty years, one month, and twenty-three days. JP: But who's counting? RM: Yeah, but who's counting? JP: That's amazing. RM: Yeah. The day I signed in the Advanced Course was the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. JP: Wow. RM: We didn't go to downtown D.C. for several weeks. JP: No. RM: That was basically it. After I retired, I got a job with the United Services Automobile Association as a facilities specialist working at their office in Reston, Virginia. About a year and a half to two years later, my boss was offered a retirement under accelerated retirement package, which he took. I got promoted into his job. Moved the office from Merrifield, Virginia to Reston, Virginia. Built a second building and ultimately, retired as the Director of Facilities and Services. JP: Wow. RM: In fact, I was in charge of mail room, mess hall, security, facilities. There was probably something else. That was the person that worked in the Aramark office under the Aramark contract as the bookkeeper. JP: And that is your wife, who's here? RM: Yes. For three years, we ate lunch together. JP: That's sweet. RM: U.S.A.A. moved the officer from Reston, Virginia. They closed it. They offered me a job in Norfolk, Virginia. I said, "No. I don't want that." The kids told me I could go if I want to but they were going to stay behind. They had a place that they could stay, the neighbor across the street. I said, "No. I'll take an early retirement, a retirement." The day I moved into the building, it snowed and the day I left, it snowed. I kicked around for a little bit of time, working on a job. In fact, I went at work. After I left U.S.A.A., I went back at work for Aramark as an hourly employee, washing dishes, serving food, preparing food, cash register. I did anything and everything they needed. I worked there for about three months. When they closed the building, we had a farewell party. I was third from last out of the building. I was one of the first people in. Fourteen years of time was first and last. Then, I kicked around for a few months, working for Home Depot and places like that. I got a call from a friend of mine that was in the facility management business. He said, "George Washington University is looking for a facilities person. You might want to do down and talk to them. I went down and talked to them, Monday or Tuesday. Was hired that week. Went to work the following week. They sent me out to Loudoun, Virginia where the campus was. PSINet had owned the building. Had gone bankrupt. GW had bought it and had leased it back to PSINet. PSINet wasn't clearing the building like they were supposed to. So, they sent me out. They said, "Throw them out." I threw them out. Locked the door. Changed the locks and they never came back. I was out there for eight years before they told me my job was going to be transferred from Virginia down to district. I told my boss, I said, "I'll come down here for meeting but I'm not coming down here every day to work." I said, "I'll just tell you right now. Sometime this year, I'm going to retire and I'll tell you two weeks before the day I walk out." That's exactly what I did. We knew we were coming down to Virginia. Both my girls went to UVA. They were both working at UVA and both living in the Charlottesville area. We decided, "Let's go down there where they are." We bought the house. I retired. We moved the stuff down from the house in Virginia. We've been in Charlottesville for three and a half years. JP: Wow. This is the house you bought for the dog? RM: Yes. [MRS. ROBERT MINNIS]: No. RM: Wait. No. [MM]: That was when we first married. The dog was a Labrador retriever, seventy five pounds. Most apartments only let twenty to thirty pounds so we had to buy a house. RM: And the dog went with us the whole time we were in the service and even moved down to Virginia with us when we retired. He ended up with hip dysplasia, cancer problems and we had to – [MM]: He was fifteen. The house we first bought when we were married, we rented it out for ten years. We came back when he retired from the Army and we occupied it for three years, but then we sold it when his company moved out to Reston, Virginia. RM: I got tired of commuting. [MM]: We had twenty four years in that house before we moved down to Charlottesville, Virginia area. UVA is the University of Virginia, which you're always saying all these spots that you were stationed in, but if you're not in the military, you wouldn't know necessarily [Unintelligible]. Not everybody would know. JP: This class, I'll tell you. I know places in Vietnam I didn't a week ago. RM: Phan Thiet, that's where I was stationed in 1971, just a little village town on the coast. Had gorgeous white beaches. You'd die for a white beach like that, white beach sand. It was supposedly the nuc mong capital of the world. Do you know what nuc mong is? JP: No. RM: They take fish and they boil the fish all in crocs and they let it rot. They drain off the fluid and that's like vitamins, fish oil, vitamin stuff. It stinks. There was a story about one guy, came back from Vietnam. He was Special Forces. He had a bottle of this stuff. The customs agent said, "Open it." He said, "No. You don't want me to do that." The guy insisted so he opened the thing up and they almost had to evacuate the terminal. I was there a whole year, building roads, bridges, ran a construction project, asphalt plant, rock quarry, fleets of dump trucks, and everything else. It was basically a little construction company. Whisky Mountain was the site that we stayed at. Gorgeous sunsets. [Unintelligible] you could watch the sun go down over the hills. It was beautiful. Anyway, that was it. JP: Wow. What advice would you give to a rook today on how to survive and thrive the way you have? RM: Oh boy. Hundreds of people have done it before you. You're not the only one that thought about leaving or getting out or whatever the case may be. Just stick with it. Rely on your classmates and hang in there. It all usually works out. JP: What would your life had been like if you hadn't gone to Norwich? RM: Don't know. JP: You don't know. RM: I haven't the foggiest idea what it would be. I don't even know what I would have done for a job. When I got into the Army, I liked it. They take pretty good care of you. I got to travel a lot of places around the world, England, Austria. Every trip to Vietnam was four airplane rides. It was a different route. I got to Hawaii one time for forty-five minute refueling stop. I hit the Philippines, Guam, Wake, Taiwan, Japan. If there was a landing field in the Pacific, I was probably on it for some period of time. The last trip, coming back, I went through Alaska in December in a short sleeve, khaki shirt. It was something like twenty below zero. JP: Oh my. RM: It was a quick trip from the airplane to the terminal. I greeted the polar bear that was there and went back and saw him three years later. They have a great big, huge, Alaskan Kodiak bear stuffed in the lobby of the airport lobby. It was one of the biggest ones on record that somebody killed. We went back to Alaska, the station up there for three years. Saw the airport. The bear was there. [MM]: The Aleutian Islands. RM: I made it to Attu, which is the end of the Aleutian Islands. [Unintelligible] a little bit of travelling. JP: A little bit. [MM]: Salmon fishing. Gold panning. RM: That was in Alaska. Drove almost every kind of military vehicle that was in the inventory up to the time I retired, including a lot of construction equipment. JP: Oh, wow. Cranes, everything. Wow. RM: Yep. I had a paver, ran one of those, rollers. I had a crane operator who was a Native American. He could do things to that crane that most people can't even do with their hands. He'd pick something up. He'd drop exactly, you'd tell him you want it right here. That's exactly where it went. It was all just smooth, fluid motion. The guy, it was unbelievable. JP: Wow. RM: Anyway, that's my story. JP: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Any – RM: Nothing that I can think of right now. [MM]: Come back in ten years. (Laughs.) JP: Thank you. RM: You're welcome. Glad I could. Hopefully, it will benefit somebody and they'll get some history out of it. While I was in the Corp, we never did cover that too much, my sophomore year, I went to the MPs and that's where General Harmon and I met. In the meantime, I was in drill team and I was on the rifle team. The rifle team travelled all over New England. They didn't have vans in those days so we got to drive our own cars, so we got paid mileage for it. We'd put three or four guys in a car. The drill team, where did we go? Other than the inauguration parade, Lexington, Concord, and several other places around here. There's also a plaque up in Jackman from the Lexington/Concord parade, commemorating thirty-five years of participation. I didn't realize they'd done it that often. [Unintelligible] I don't think I'll tell the story about the panty raid. JP: Do you have a story about the panty raid? RM: No. I didn't. After the – [MM]: I wouldn't give names. RM: After the dinner, I left and came back here. JP: After the – RM: After the party, yeah. JP: General Burchhar [??] RM: I don't remember what the general's name was. He was a lieutenant general. I know that. He had a few too many, from what I remember. Anyway, I come back here and I started hearing all these things and people started drifting in. The TAC officers were running around here, trying to figure out what's going on and catch people. I basically tried to keep them away from the people that were coming in. It was an interesting night. There was a lot of people that ended up with a few tours and a few demerits because of that. While I was here, I only walked one tour. JP: Really? RM: Only one. JP: One tour. RM: Yep. My squad leader, freshman year, I get almost to, it was in spring time, he said, "Minnis, I don't think you've had too many demerits and tours." I said, "No. I haven't, sir." He said, "Well, you get one now." I had to march one. JP: Because you didn't have one? RM: Well, I think twelve was the cutoff. He gave me a couple to make it thirteen for some stupid reason. I don't even remember what it is. Yeah. I walked one. Other than that, I can't think of anything else, unless you got something specific. JP: I heard a story about General Harmon and somebody and a honey wagon, a manure spreader. Did you hear about that story? RM: No. It may have been before my time. I don't recall that. No. Maybe just ask around. It sounds interesting. JP: Yes. Apparently, somebody took manure spreader where his car normally parked and – RM: Nobody owned up to it. JP: Nobody knew what to do, but he knew what to do. He walked through it and then stamped his feet clean and said, "Sir, gentlemen, I expect you to follow me." RM: That sounds like Ernie. He used to stand up, I don't know what, I think it was in the mess hall [Unintelligible]. There used to be a raised platform that the cadet officers sat on. He'd come in there periodically and tell you, you'd see about this much of him over the platform edge. He was kind of short. Well-respected, but anyway, that's all I got. JP: Oh. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. RM: Yeah. [MM]: [Unintelligible] to talk about? RM: The National Model Railroad Association, it took me almost fifteen years to get the certificate, from the time I started to the time I finished. Even when I was in the service, I used to build models and put them in boxes and store them in trunks and stuff. It wasn't until, when I was in Alaska, we met, there was a modular group up there. I got to know them and several people. In fact, there's an adjacent story to that. There was several people in the military that used to participate in it. We decided we'd form a club between the Air Force and the Army up there in Alaska. We built some modules. We were just getting ready to put scenic and track and stuff on them and everybody got orders. They all left. I was the last one to leave so I ended up with all the modules. I took them to Fort Leonard Wood and packed them away in a shed for three years. Then when I retired, I moved here and the president of the division in D.C., Potomac division, asked me one day. He says, "I hear you've got modules." I said, "Yeah. I do." I told him what I had. He said, "Would you be interested in showing them at the Children's Museum in D.C.?" I said, "Sure." We got together. There was six of us. We took the modules and put scenery and track on them. We went down to the Children's Museum in D.C. and displayed there before Christmas. Then, a little later on after the first of the year, I got a call from Fairfax Station Train Museum. It's the actual station that the Southern Railroad had and they've got pictures of that station in use in the Civil War. It was used as for wounded, both North and South. Clara Barton started the Red Cross in that vicinity. She was one of the people that worked the wounded there, helped them. This guy calls me up and says, "In December, we want to have a train show, as a fundraiser. Are you interested in participating?" I said, "Yes." I've already done twenty-three of them. [MM]: In the same location. RM: Same location. The Southern Railroad sold the station to a group of interested people for a buck, but the provision was that they had to move it. They disassembled it, moved it up, acquired a piece of land, had the high school, trade school in Fairfax County rebuild it, board for board, put it all back together again. Replaced the bad stuff and that type of thing. Every single December, first weekend of December since, I don't know, twenty-four years' worth this year, they have a train show. They set up and they show the display inside, a Lionel display, a Gauge One which is bigger than Lionel. Then, there's an S Scale rail. They have a caboose outside that the N Scale people set up in. The people with the G Gauge, which are the garden stuff, the stuff that runs outside set up underneath around [Unintelligible] A couple years, it snowed. They put snow plows on the engines and cleared the track. JP: Really? RM: Yeah. After I retired and moved down here, I gave up the membership. [MM]: Down here means to central Virginia. You're up in Vermont right now. RM: When I retired from D.C. and moved to Virginia, Charlottesville, I said, "I want" – because I basically started this group – "I want the right to come back every Christmas show for as long as I want to do it. I reserve three spaces in the set up." They said, "Okay." The first week in December, Saturday morning, I pack up and drive up, two and half, three hours and set up. Come back Sunday afternoon. In fact, one year, the public was there and the display – The power went out. This guy, Clem Clemmons, who was basically retired Air Force, said, "What are you running?" I said, "Six volt D.C." He says, "I got a battery in my Packard outside that's six volt D.C." He ran an extension cord out, wrapped some wires around the terminals and wires around the other end and we ran trains in the darkened room with only the red light and the caboose. JP: That must have been magical. RM: He even wrote an article in a national magazine about it. JP: Wow. RM: It's three o'clock. I think that's it for now. JP: Thank you. RM: You're welcome. JP: That was amazing. [End of interview.]
Transcript of an oral history interview with Joshua Fontanez, conducted by Sarah Yahm at Killeen, Texas, on 10 April 2015, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Joshua Fontanez graduated from Norwich University in 2012; the bulk of his interview focuses on his experiences as a gay student at Norwich University, especially regarding the formation of the university's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Allies Club. His later work for OutServe-SLDN is also discussed. ; 1 Joshua Fontanez, NU 2012, Oral History Interview January 14, 2015 2015 Kingwood Dr. Killeen, TX 76544 Interviewed by Sarah Yahm SARAH YAHM: Can you tell me where you were born? Where are you from? JOSH FONTANEZ: I was born in Willingboro, New Jersey. I grew up – was raised my entire life in New Jersey. I lived in a small town called Browns Mill, New Jersey in the pine lands, cranberry bogs and blueberry bushes and right outside a huge military base, Fort Dix-McGuire in Lakehurst. SY: Sorry, I need to have you say your full name. If you will, just say who you are. JF: Yes, Joshua Aaron Fontanez. SY: Excellent. So you grew up next to a big military base, so when did you start being interested in the military? JF: Oh, I always wanted to be in the military. I can remember first grade my first grade teacher used to – her husband was in the military, and he used to come in and he'd talk all the time, so I always had that desire to be in the military. What rank or what job I wanted changed but I always had that passion that calling to be in the military in some form or fashion. SY: And you didn't come from a military family? JF: Neither of my parents were in the military. A lot of my aunts and uncles, my grandparents were all in the military. SY: Interesting. I've been asking everybody this question: did you play games as a kid? Did you play imaginary games where you were in the military? JF: We played like soldier and stuff like that. My dad still has pictures of me with tree branches running around outside, or you know not necessarily modern-day military but also like medieval times, sort of. My cousins and my sister and stuff like that or as I got older you got like little toy guns and stuff like that and we used to do war games inside the house clearing rooms and stuff like that, you know, hide and go seek with little toy guns and stuff like that. SY: Interesting. So you always kind of wanted to be in the military, when did you figure out that you were gay? 2 JF: So I look back in history and it's kind of like – Look, the signs were always there, when I look back, I think I first, I want to say, I first was kind of like okay I had a hint of it my freshman year of high school. That was when I started to actually, not just the emotional aspect but going into that part of my life becoming more sexually attracted to men and stuff like that. SY: And, how – were you freaked out about it? It's interesting because in all the interviews I've read with you and about you, you seem super confident, pretty angst free about being gay. So what that the case when you were fourteen? JF: It was not at all. It was even like the mentality – I look back and I want to give my fourteen year old self a big hug, and just tell him that it's going to be okay. It's going to be better. There was a lot of nervousness and even though like my parents are completely supportive of who I am and my lifestyle and stuff like that. I grew up in a Christian home – it did play a huge role in that. So I remember, I want to say it was like the first time I ever kissed a guy. I went outside to mow the lawn, and I was just praying that I would be healed and that I could be normal and stuff like that, almost to the point of tears. But, it was definitely a huge, huge struggle. A lot of loneliness, depression, not really understanding, a lot of denial at the same time, because you know even in high school you get the questions, Why don't you have a girlfriend? Why aren't you hitting on girls? You are going to this ball or this prom or this or that, why aren't you chasing after them or getting dates or anything like that? So— SY: Yeah, so did— were there adults or mentors who supported you? JF: I wasn't even out. I didn't come out until college, so no one really knew, like some people, like I talked to my sister now and she had like a hint later on in high school, but really no one really knew, just kind of like a couple of other gay people like I would meet knew, but usually they were all in the closet too. It was not something we were ever open about, and it was to a huge point in my life until I accepted who I was that the people who were even in high school who were out, both male and female— So you know, I was extremely mad at them and it was like the whole aspect of — I would make fun of them just as much as anyone else would and that's one of the things I look back, and I'm like "Wow, you were horribly wrong for doing that." It was part of my own insecurity of fear of if I can't be who I want to be they shouldn't be who they want to be either. SY: Were you is afraid that they would recognize something in you and out you in some way? JF: In some way, like, even when I talked to some of my friends a lot of them were like, Yeah, we knew. It was very clear and then I would respond, If you knew why didn't you say something and support me tell me and come up and confront me? There was a huge aspect of would they, 3 and it was even a societal thing because even in high school I got involved in student government or JROTC or the different mentoring things they had in high school, I always thought, I can't be that leader and that role model and be gay at the same time. I remember when I came out to my best friend, I told him— I came out to him, I want to say right after I graduated high school so it might have been like our first break back from Norwich. I told him, listen, I don't have this pressure on me to be this role model anymore for the high school, for all these leadership positions, so I want to tell you that I'm gay, and the reason why I never told you is because I never thought I could. Like, I couldn't be gay and be a leader. I couldn't be gay and be a role model at the same time. SY: So most people don't describe going to a military academy as realizing that they can be gay and be a role model, but it seems like that's what happened to you. So, what happened at Norwich that enabled you to come out that first semester? JF: So coming out to my – I only came out to my friends back at home. I didn't even come out. It wasn't until my senior year that I came out to friends at Norwich and that was a whole different fear, that was a huge fear under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but I started out to my friends back at home just simply because I needed – it got to the point where I needed to tell someone. The pressure was just overwhelming. The additional stress that comes with going to college, being away from family for the first time, financial independency, all the different clubs and activities I was involved in, and to throw into that, ok now your emotional life, and this part of my life I was still, there were still times when I was like, maybe I can convince myself to be straight. Maybe if I just try hard enough that I can just overcome this. It did for a long time, like even, I want to say up until my junior year of college, a lot of depression, mental stuff. You know, because on the weekends, because it was a dry campus — so if we left campus to go drinking and stuff like that, a lot of binge drinking, it was just emotionally destroy me and physically it had a huge aspect on me as well. SY: Were you accessing like the gay community in Vermont? Or were you just pretty closeted? JF: So a little bit, so there was – you have like the gay, for one any community, ironically, I always laugh because it was like you would think a state as liberal as Vermont there would be a huge gay community, and there's a pretty good one that I found out later on definitely as I started getting more active in activism but it's like then you have Northfield. So even like my freshmen year, I didn't have a car in college until the second half of my junior year. Even trying to reach things, you have to go to Burlington, Vermont. Even in Montpelier there is a very, very small, in my opinion, community where you constantly can meet. Then a big aspect of it which we try to put out there is that no one knew. Like no one knew that there was all these different communities out there and organizations you can go to and different activities and conferences. I spend hours and hours and hours researching and sending out hundreds of emails to different 4 colleges and professors up and down the east coast trying to find out information, tons to people in the different colleges in Burlington, trying to get help from them, whether it was UVM or any of those different colleges. It was definitely difficult in that aspect. SY: I wonder if there was a point in your time at Norwich before you came out especially under Don't Ask, Don't Tell when you were like, Hey these two parts of myself are incompatible. Did you doubt being in the military? JF: I never doubted being in the military because like I said, my mentality was always this that I loved the military so much and I love— I'm such a patriot that is how I used to view it and I was so dedicated to serve my country and defend the Constitution and our way of life and I knew that I was willing to be trained and do things that my family couldn't do. I knew they couldn't defend themselves, and I was will to, so if sacrificing my happiness and sacrificing who I was as a person was something that I needed to do to accomplish those goals that was something that I was completely willing to do. To being able to complete my military service, to complete that obligation I feel I had to for my country, my values, my beliefs, I was willing to stay in the closet as long as I needed to be able to accomplish that mission. SY: So when did you decide to come out at Norwich? JF: We actually— I'm trying to remember when I first came out – see the first person I came out to, the very first person I came out to at Norwich was – okay when I say come out, there were a couple of cadets – when you found out who the gay cadets were, you talked or you know gay civilians, but actually openly came out to was, I want to say, was Dr. Newton, and it was, I want to say when it was, it was right after Junior Ring Ceremony of my junior year. In tradition of Junior Ring Ceremony, big party, big condo events, and stuff like that, and so everyone was drinking and at the party I kissed a guy. Just like the rumor mill spills, before I could get to campus the next day, everyone knew. I remember going to the office the following Monday, sitting down with Professor Newton and she saying like, You know Josh a couple of the cadets were talking and a couple of my students were talking and they said that you kissed a guy this weekend. And I was like, You know to be completely honest, Dr. Newton, I think I feel you already know but I do identify myself as a gay man. She said, "I know. I've known for a while." And at this time the repeal, Congress had officially passed it, but it didn't come into effect until the following, the upcoming fall. She said, just be careful there are some – at this time, I was still a very controversial leader on campus, even at this time. SY: Why were you a controversial figure on campus? JF: My junior year I was elected the student government president, and by this time I have accepted that I was gay. I knew I was gay, and I knew I wanted to start a club on campus. By 5 this time, we knew we had to wait. Everyone saw the writing on the wall. Sitting in ROTC classes, the instructors would talk about the repeal and the possibility of repeal and what we thought about it. SY: How would they talk about it? Would they talk about it in positive terms or negative terms? JF: They would pretty much just ask – They would just use the Socratic Method. They would just come in and be like, Hey, Congress is talking about repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. SY: And what would your classmates or rookmates— what type of things would they say and did that have you frightened? JF: Most of them would say, I really don't care, that's what would shock me the most. A lot of them say, Hey, I really don't care as long as they do their job. But, they would then go and make jokes, gay jokes, and they would still put down people if they thought they were gay and it was still viewed as a negative thing. SY: How much were slurs like faggot thrown around? How much were there gay jokes? Was the culture hostile in that way? JF: It was. Even to the point of my senior year, it was still a societal thing and in a lot of aspects it still is. Perfect example, my second semester, I got moved into a new room my freshmen year and Cadet [Ringcone? 0:18:28], now Lieutenant [Ringcone? 0:18:29] in the Army, he's an Apache pilot, probably my best friend. I was the best man at his wedding. But, his freshman year we got into a big discussion, and he swore that being gay was a psychological disorder and it could be fixed. And, he is now probably one of my biggest supporters after I came out. Even when the club came up, he was at every meeting, when we did Pride Week he was there cooking. When I got threats and different letters slid under my door and stuff like that, he would chase people down the alleyway trying to catch them after they did it, or he would walk with me around campus because certain staff members were afraid I would get jumped and stuff like that. One of my greatest supporters and still one of my closest friends, just seeing that change – Some of my other close friends, they would see how using words like "That's so gay" even something that is so easy and is used by society so much they would catch themselves and look at me and say, "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Or they would stop people and correct them, like an underclassman would come around and be like, Hey, stop being so gay, or they would use different slur words and they would stop them and be like, Are you serious? Well, what wrong with being gay? You'd see how much someone's attitude would completely change when they actually get confronted by someone. They did that. 6 SY: Just wondering, it sounds like when you were around people corrected their language and stuff, but I wonder how much it was a real part of them. What do you think? JF: I would say, if I was a betting man, I would say it probably it would still be a big part of the culture, because it takes someone who is consciously there holding people to standards. One of our biggest examples when we would have discussions, you wouldn't do it with race or with gender, but at the same time, someone can't hide their gender and they can't hide their race but if you make fun of someone so much and make the environment hostile enough you can force someone not to admit that they were gay. That was a big thing, even with the repeal people would be like, I have no problem with you being gay and being in the military, but just don't be gay around me. And we had this one student, he – long, long post – Pride Week was very controversial, and this guy who was a very popular guy in the Corps of Cadets came out as being gay, and put on Facebook that he didn't need a Pride Week to come out, and he pretty much said that, Me being gay makes my friends extremely uncomfortable and because it makes them uncomfortable that I have enough respect for them not to be gay around them. So pretty much it was the mentality – in my opinion it was like good that you came out but at the same time look at what you just openly admitted is. Who you are, who you can't change, the people you love, you're not even willing to show that emotion around people who claim to be your best friends because it makes them feel uncomfortable. That's what a lot of people would do, they would be – the aspect because all the conversations I used to have with newspapers and stuff like that, the university would make it very clear that they've never had a policy that would restrict students from being gay. They would never kick them out for being gay, but you look at our civilian population who is never restricted by Don't Ask, Don't Tell like our Corps of Cadet students were through their ROTC scholarships and stuff like that, but they still fully admitted, I'm scared to walk around campus holding my boyfriend or my girlfriend's hand. I'm afraid to bring them to the Junior Ring Ball. I'm afraid to show them affection and caring in an open environment because I don't know how people would react. I don't know how that would – so, in that aspect its different than being able to – you're never able to – used to say the term is, you know, you can serve freely not get kicked out but you can't serve openly. You can't be who you are. You couldn't, you know, because a lot of people would get a lot of looks or sayings and I mean, they were, they were pushed back into the, not into the closet, but people would know they were gay but they wouldn't ever bring their significant other around. We had our senior year, our regimental XO came out as being gay, and I knew he was gay since my freshman year. When he finally got the courage to come out, he came out in more anger because he didn't think— he though a lot of the attention on the gay community put a spotlight on it but even after he came out as gay, he was still afraid to bring the guy that he was dating to the Junior Ring Ball. So he didn't even show up to the event. It was that aspect of, Yeah, like okay, we know you are gay, the [real? 0:12:42] is done, but you just can't be gay around me. 7 SY: How did you know he was gay? Did he come out to you? Or was it a sort of sub-culture where people who were closeted on campus but out to each other? JF: Yes, so there were, so it was always that difficult thing, mentality of how to find out who was gay. You had a lot of different avenues. Clearly, we didn't have meetings or anything like that like we did when we had the club, but usually there were two different ways. There was an online dating site. You would go on there and you would see different people. SY: Online dating like Grindr or something and Norwich? JF: No, no, no, it was called, what was the name of it, this was old school, Manhunt. SY: Oh, Manhunt. JF: Yep, and I remember – I know what Grindr is, I didn't hear about Grindr, ironically it was my straight friend who told me about Grindr, but not until my senior year. Manhunt was like the big, back then, the big dating site. I remember being on one night, and I saw him on there, and we talked and stuff like that. Ironically, he lived three doors down from me. We lived on the same floor. So we would talk and stuff like that. So that was one way, but that wasn't a huge way, because unless you knew about the website, no one would go on it. The other event was, and yet again, unless you knew about it, you didn't go either, but it was – So Vermont doesn't have a gay club. Vermont has a gay night. So in Burlington, the club Higher Ground has what's called First Friday. So the first Friday of the month, the club is a gay club. People travel hours from all over Vermont to come there because it's really the only outlet, that one day a month. So you would go there and you would actually see different cadets there and stuff like that. SY: Can you talk about that a little more? Do you remember your first time going to Higher Ground, going to your first First Friday? How did you get there? Did you hitch a ride? Were you scared? JF: My very first time was— When was it? It wasn't until my junior year that I actually went to the club. I'd heard about it, but I really didn't know about it, and I went with a civilian who was – it was her and her girlfriend. I went as support. Because even all the equality stuff we did up to my junior year, I always did as an ally. No one else has the courage to stand up and do it that would be my line. So, I will be the one that takes the brunt force and stand up and help the people who have no voice. SY: Oh, I see, so when you were a controversial student council figure because you were doing equality work but you were doing it as a straight ally. 8 JF: Yeah, roger, one of the first things we passed, as student government president was, I passed an executive order that declared that the student government represented everyone equally and it was one of the first – My research, I hadn't been able to find any other documents, I mean, I'm sure there's a couple, but it listed based up on sexual orientation, gender identity, and of course it went through the standard stuff like, sex, age, student lifestyle whether they are civilian or Corps. We ended purposely with sexual orientation and gender identity, and that was like a huge thing. Strategically, we did that on purpose because we literally spent all of our junior year building up this controversy of having people start talking about it, breaking the ice, so that when we created the club, it wasn't such a – even though it was a huge shock, it wasn't as big of a shock. We went to Higher Ground, met a couple of cadets, saw a couple. It was really awkward because you walk in and you kind of like ignore each other. It's kind of like, Oh, I didn't just see this person here. We would do that, but we went a lot more often my senior year. We actually, as a club we would go up, and that would be like a club outing. We would also be networking because we would work a lot with the different universities would meet us up there and all the other kind of stuff. It was interesting, you'd find out, I actually met – so ironically, I know you mentioned how it worked with my military service. At the time, without mentioning names or rank, I remember being on Manhunt one night, and I saw an Army ROTC instructor on it, who was stationed at Norwich and worked there. It was kind of like the same thing. I didn't message him, he didn't message me. It was kind of just like, okay, log off real quick. I remember, at this time I was a work study at the Admissions Office. I used to work at the front desk as a, I want to say receptionist, but I guess, I don't know what the masculine term for that is, but I was there answering the phone and stuff and greeting people when they came in. He came in and he said, "Fontanez, can you help me carry some stuff back?" And, I was like, "No problem, sir," and I carried it back. He sat down and he asked me if I ever heard of this site Manhunt. By this time, I am terrified, my heart is beating, I'm thinking, I'm going to lose my scholarship, and I couldn't pay for Norwich without my Army scholarship. There was no way. And I was like, Sir, I don't think you can ask me that question, and I don't think I can answer that questions. Pretty much citing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and he was like, Okay, that answers my question. He told me, "I just want to let you know that I saw you on the app and clearly I'm gay too." He was like, "Do you plan on having a family one day? Do you want to fall in love and stuff like that?" And I was like, Yeah, I do. He was like, "Okay, you need to not make the military your life then." He was like, because – In my mind when I look back, I think when he said that, he never envisioned the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, because he had served under it for so long, but he was actually getting out of the Army, so he could be with his significant other and moving away from Vermont. But that was his tip to me, Listen, if you actually want to be happy in life, you want to have a family, you want to have a significant other that you care about and can care about you and you can live your life openly, do your initial service and get out because you can't do it while you are in. 9 SY: How did you feel after that conversation? JF: I don't think what he told me really sunk in as much as I was scared out of my mind that he knew. Even going through my senior year, thinking about it, the mentality always shocked me how some people just can't envision it any better. Great guy, but he couldn't see it getting any better. He just saw the worst, and I see a bad situation I want to make it better, doesn't mean – I'm an extremely controversial person at nature. I have no problem, I don't care who you are or what your position is, if you are not doing something right or if I feel like I am being wronged then I'm going to say it. I will try to be political about it, I will be respectful but like, you can threaten me, you can do whatever, it really doesn't matter. I mean, I remember sitting in the office of the Commandant of Cadets and yelling at the top – We were pretty much yelling at each other and another commandant had to come in and pull him out, but I knew I was right and he knew I was right. He just wasn't willing to admit to me that he knew I was right. SY: What were you yelling about? JF: It was about Pride Week. He didn't agree that we should have a Pride Week. He didn't think that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a big issue. He thought that everyone was fine with it, that society had changed. He quoted that he just got back from a deployment with the National Guard. He was like, We didn't have any issues with people who were gay on the deployment. We actually joked about them being gay and stuff like that. Did you just hear what you said? You just openly admitted that you were making fun of one of your soldiers on a deployment because of who they were. Just because you can joke with them, and maybe they laugh back with you, doesn't make it okay. We just got into the huge aspect of the culture of fear. I mean it was. The aspect of – It all came about because what we did to fund Pride Week we would go to each department, so we would go to Math and ask, Hey, can you sponsor an event? Like we had in seven days, we had over fourteen events. I want to say we had fifteen or sixteen events. Unprecedented. Some colleges like UVM and Saint Michael's and all the other colleges, they'd never even had anything like that before or to the level that we were having stuff. We had speakers coming in from all over the place, we had the Governor of Vermont come to an event. So we were just trying to get like, Hey, can you sponsor this event? We had a veteran who came in and he talked about how he was in the Navy under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, CID [criminal investigation division] would show up to the gay clubs and literally hunt them down, and he remembered like being in a club and someone coming in warning him and him having to run out the back door. So we got Veteran's Affairs to sponsor that event. We just had all these different things to sponsor, and we were trying to get the Corps of Cadets to sponsor an event. The commandant had a very religious and moral objection to it, not only the club but the lifestyle, so he wasn't willing to sponsor it. I said, "No problem, but at the beginning of every event, we are 10 going to list by name the organizations which support us, and it is going to be very evident that the Corps of Cadets did not. And, he was so upset about that. SY: He wanted it both ways, huh? JF: So he was like, You can't put us in the spotlight like that, and I was like, Listen, it's no problem, you can have your morals and beliefs but you need to be willing to publically stand by it. I was like, We will, yet again this is my real controversial part, I am going to put out a press release to everyone from CNN to NPR to – and I just listed all these different news agencies and they will know that you didn't stand with us. Then it escalated, because it was the mentality like, You are a child, we are the adults and you need to listen to us, and my aspect was like, I am a twenty-two, twenty-three year old tax paying citizen, don't call me a child. It would go on and on from there. SY: Let's step back for a second, and I wanted to ask you about the day you found out that Don't Ask, Don't Tell had been repealed, how you felt, and you had a meeting that day, didn't you? December 20th? JF: Yeah, so what we did was, well, so Congress passed it, as soon as Congress found out, they lost the majority in the House. They took a vote in December of 20 – so they took a vote on December, if I remember my history right, 2010, because they knew when January come around, they would lose the majority in the House. So this was literally the last time they could do it. So I remember, I remember joy, but at the same time, fear, because it was, like, now I have no excuse. Like, every excuse now has been removed from me actually being who I was. So at this point it came – like, the writing was on the wall. It was, like, listen, we have so much time to actually laying the foundation, if we want to get this club put out. And by this time we start networking, we start calling people. We actually started drafting executive orders to try to lay on the foundation, because, you know, the club just didn't pop up one day. It was pretty much two years in the working of just getting different clauses put into the student government bylaws, which would allow us to do stuff a year down the road that led to the club being successful and stuff like that. So after we knew the club was going to be founded, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the legislation passed 2010, they said they were going to give a year so the military knew how to respond to it. That spring of 2011, the – so this plays an important role, because I was going up for the regimental commander, I put my name in. And I was one of the top three who was almost going to be regimental commander. And I told myself if I got regimental commander, I could never focus on this fight. I couldn't do both at the same time. So after I wasn't chosen for regimental commander, I took that as a sign, like, listen, okay, this needs to be your role and your passion for the next year. So I remember sitting down that very 11 afternoon, because I was student government president with President Schneider, and I said, "Hey sir, I want you to know, I want to ask you, what is your – within six months the appeal's going to be up. What do we plan to do as a university?" And his answer to me was, "Well, we're going to wait to see what guidance the Department of Defense puts out." And I told him, "Sir, I think we're missing a huge opportunity. We've always been the first. We have ROTCs here, we don't have to wait for the Department of Defense." I was, like, "There are students here," you know, without coming out to him, I was, like, "You know, there are students here who are hurting. You know, they're suffering." And he said, "Okay." So then we went in the – we had the re-election for student government, and I didn't win, so at the inauguration of the incoming president, my last act as student government president was to pass an executive order which created the club. So the student bylaws for the student government allows a student government president to recognize a club up to 14 days; they have 14 days before the student body government, like, the Senate, had to pass that club. So there were only 10 days left in the school year. So we announced it that day so that the club would officially exist with full authority of the university throughout the entire summer, so we could strategically plan and set up. We had the full weight of going and saying we're a university club. So we announced it then, which of course you can imagine being shocked, like, sitting in – we used to do the inaugurations on the top floor of the Wise Campus Center, so everyone being, like, you know, holding their breath. But then we used the summer to start working with different news agencies and they did different articles about, you know, the first gay club at a military college. We used that time to do a lot of different strategical stuff when it came to planning conferences, and, you know, how are we going to do the club fair, and stuff like that? What type of videos are we going to do? And we came back, and by that time – we also used that time to, like, lobby our Senators, because, you know, by this time, though they weren't out, there were different elected officials in the student government who were gay, so we knew who they were. And you know, we went up to then, we're, like, listen, this is time for you to actually stand in defense of who you were. So we lobbied them and we utilized them to lobby their other friends. And by the time we came back, we had a unanimous vote, not one objection. And then like you said, we met on the same day the appeal ended, we met in the Kreitzberg Library. I was told Dean Mathis was really, really skeptical; she was more scared and more concerned for us than anything. She's, like, "Listen, Josh, if you can get five people there, it'll be a success." We had over 25 individuals there; top officials from the university, civilians, Corps of Cadets, straight, gay, bisexual. And it was just a good time. And people started talking; I mean, I remember one civilian stood up, and she's, like, "I've been at this university four years and I literally thought I was the only person here like me. To walk into this room and know that for four years, I actually wasn't alone; that I had people who were just like me. I had a family here." And she just broke down in tears. And 12 that meeting that day was probably one of the most memorable things in her life, you know? There was such a movement for her. And it just relieved so much weight off of her. And it was just a stepping stone. That meeting was really the stepping stone because we did it in a pu– and we did. We strategically chose the location. We wanted it to be in a library, you know, demonstrating knowledge. We made sure none of the blinds were closed. We wanted to make sure everyone knew what we were doing. We had a booth at the club fair, so everyone knew when the meeting was. Everyone was welcome. We had a newspaper reporter there, she did a news article on it. So yeah, I mean, it was definitely well thought-out, but it was just a starting point, because that was at the beginning of the year. And like I said, just that year went through the roof. So it was definitely a great starting point. SY: And yeah, I guess I want to talk about Pride Week, and I want to also talk about the response to – what was the response to that first meeting? JF: So the first meeting wasn't bad. It was kind of, like, real neutral. Because our aspect was, we initially started the club of – so a lot of people had different opinions. So a lot of people said, like, I want to be part of a club. But I'm not ready to be out. So they wanted the club to be held in, like, you know, a secret room where only you would be invited if your friend knew you were gay, or something like that. SY: Okay, great. JF: So no one would know. And then we had the aspect which I sided with, which we just asked if we struggled a lot with was, hey, this is our first year of the club, it's very controversial, we have to be public. SY: Right. JF: So it was, like, the aspect of, we still made sure we took precautions to make sure people who weren't out still had an avenue to come and talk with us. You know, we did some things behind the scene. But we moved our club meetings to the Wise Campus Center, that open – it was literally a full wall of glass. And we did it purposely during chow hour. So everyone had to walk by and had to see the club happening. You had to see people getting education on – you know, anti-bullying, anti-harassment, safe sex, the different political movements. How to get involved. You know, we had speakers from different places come in and talk to us and stuff like that. But no one could deny it; no one could say, "I didn't know." No one could say, "Why didn't you tell me?" Or, you know, "If I just knew." SY: Right. 13 JF: So the responses were mixed, because some people were, like, "Well, you're throwing it in my face." You know, I remember we had a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps who was a student there, he was a MECEP [Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Education Program]. And he said at a meeting once, he said, you know, "I have no problem that you're gay. You just need – the fact that pretty much that I have to see that you're gay, that you throw it in my face, that you make it public." SY: (inaudible) [00:09:08]. Because it seems like there are a lot of people who said that about Pride Week. They were, like, "Well, there's nothing wrong with being gay, but why do they have – why does it have to be a whole week? Why do they throw it in my face?" So what's your response to that statement? JF: I guess the best statement is, so we had a Pride Week, so that's one week out of the year. But we look at all these other weeks that are based around the heterosexual culture. We have Junior Ring Ceremony where you and your date walk under the sword arc, or you have Regimental Ball where you do pretty much the same thing. You dance, and you do this. We have the Winter Carnival, and all these different Valentine's Day, and just event after event after event. And Pride Week wasn't – the majority of Pride Week wasn't even about just for individuals who identified themselves as being homosexual. A lot of the knowledge behind it was, they were extremely controversial topics no one wanted to talk about. So we have this university full of 18-year-olds, depending on how long you're taking to graduate, 26, 27-year-olds, but who are extremely uncomfortable to talk about safe sex. So we had multiple seminars about safe sex, you know? What it means to actually be responsible and use a condom, and the different apparatuses out there for safe sex, including abstinency, so abstinence. So we covered every base. We had classes out there about bullying, which is not just an issue that happens – it wasn't even focused on a heterosexual versus homosexual kind of thing. It was just bullying in general. One of the events was an arts and craft event, which, ironically, was the most attended event. Because oh, I can get free stuff? I can get free food? OK, I'm going to show up. We had a movie about religion accepting all cultures, not just homosexuality, but different religions and different walks of life in a wide spectrum. We had the prom. We had a dance. So, I mean, it was just a wide, wide spectrum of events. Now, we purposely did say it was going to be a Pride – because there were, on the other end of that spectrum, there were different things that dealt directly with the homosexual community. I mean, we definitely were depending on some of the speakers we brought in, such as our veteran speaker, when he spoke about his fear living under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and how his life had changed and stuff like that. But it was that aspect of, one, no one had to attend any of the events. 14 None of these events were mandatory at all. It wasn't any Corps of Cadets, you know, we have to do an afternoon training event where we march the entire Corps of Cadets down and they have to sit down and they have to listen about how difficult their life is going to be now that they have to treat everyone equally and with some dignity, no matter who they love. You know, they weren't giving up their Saturday afternoon to march down to the football field to sit and watch a drag show, or something like that. There were options. And I think more importantly, at least to me that spoke was, you know, the university – and I'm sure it will always maintain this line – that it never did anything to prevent an individual from being gay, but they never took steps and they never gave options for individuals who were gay. There were no options. And that's what we gave during Pride Week, was a unified effort to show that there were so many options. But at the same time, no matter if you were gay or straight, there are a lot of things that affect us all, like, bullying, alcoholism, depression, safe sex. Those go across it. So a lot of individuals just took it back and were like, OK, I don't need to go to these events, because I'm not gay. And some people didn't even show up who wanted to show up because they were so afraid. You know, the university had meetings after meetings about what happens if protestors show up? What happens if there's violence? What happens if someone gets jumped? You know, anything like this. But – SY: Did the university make any effort to keep people safe who were coming out? JF: I mean, they did. I got a lot of threats. Both my junior and senior year, I had a camera outside my door, my dorm room door, because I'd get threats. People would slide letters under my door or send me emails or Facebook messages, or cut things, you know, because we used to have our schedules, our door cards, and they'd cut it up, or they would throw trash at my door and stuff like that. Or, like, throw the entire – SY: How did you make sense of that, and how did that make you feel about Norwich? JF: It made me feel like I was doing something right. I mean, if people don't act out – I mean, there's always resistance. You look throughout history, I mean, there's always going to be resistance to change, right? If I was doing something right – if I wasn't doing something right, I'd probably be the most popular kid on campus. If I just went with the flow, you know, I disputed the lines of traditions, and this is how the old Corps was, and this and that, I'd probably be the most popular person in the world. Anytime anyone ever did something like that, it just motivated me. I knew I was doing something right. SY: And how did you feel, you know, how this fit into the idea of the citizen soldier? How did you feel like you fit into their idea? 15 JF: I mean, it's the aspect of, you know, what is citizenship? Unfortunately, I think a lot of the Corps of Cadets focus on the soldier aspect more than they focus on the citizenship aspect. And it makes me funny, because it's, like, okay, yeah, we're soldiers. But then sometimes it's like we're soldiers until it comes to discipline and, say, physical fitness. Because, like, you know, people talk about, like, you know, there's the alcohol policy on campus. So yeah, I'm a soldier, but then when it comes to following the rules, it's, like, well, I'm a college student, you know, don't get too crazy with that soldier stuff. And then it's, like, you know, well, physical fitness, which is one of the pillars for the university. And it's, like, well, at the same time, I'm a college student. Like, this is the time I'm supposed to live and stuff like that. Well, to be a soldier, you need to be physically fit. So we focused a lot on the soldier part, like, wearing the uniform, training the freshmen, you know, the rank structure, the saluting and whatnot, which are great; great disciplines, great lessons for life, no matter if you go military or civilian, it's a great foundation. And a lot of aspects, we do forget about the citizenship aspect, in my opinion, and we don't focus on it a lot. And I think that is the constant struggle between the academic professionals at the college and the Corps of Cadets in the Commandant's office at the university. Because I think one of the things that really made me the person I am is my education, is having professors, like Professor Miana and Professor, you know, Dr. Newton, who taught me so much in life. And definitely Dr. Newton, when it came to just politics in general, and being who you are, and the ability to articulate what you mean in an effective way, but at the same time being strategic. And there's always butting the heads, and I think they really do butt heads a lot, because you have, you know, well, what's more important? Sergeant's time training or actually doing your academic work? What's more important? You know, that parade we do on Friday, or making sure that our students go to an extra study hall session? And there's that constant thing. But at the same time, I mean, even citizenship on the aspect of – you know, I used to tell when I was battalion sergeant major, I used to tell my NCOs, I would, like, listen, got it. You have sergeant's time training. Now, what's going to do your cadet more – prepare them better for life? Are you going to sit there and have them remember all these dates in the Rook Book and in two years, they're not going to remember a single thing, because upper classmen aren't required to remember that? Or is it more important to understand, like, you know, at least 30 of your cadets are going to raise their hand and promise to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. Have they ever even read the Constitution? Other than the first amendments in our Bill of Rights, and most of them probably couldn't even tell you all of them, you know, could they even tell me what the Constitution had in it? What does Article 1 cover? What does Article 2 cover? You know, which one's more important? There was always the mentality, well, this is 16 how we did it when I was a freshman. This is how my father used to do it when he was here as a cadet. And we really do, we do miss the citizenship – and through that whole struggle of founding the club and Pride Week, and all the fallout and stuff like that, and the strategic planning over years, you know, I used to sit down with Dean Mathis, and I would sit down with her at least three to four times a week, if not daily, depending on the week. And I used to sit down with her, and my line to her would be, it's, like, "Dean," you know, "I sit back and I really do wonder, you know, if Captain Alden Partridge was here today, would he be proud of what he saw?" SY: What do you think he would say? And what do you think he would be and what do you think he wouldn't? JF: I think on the aspects of us as a university, I think we have some great values. I think we have some great foundations. I think we've put out some great leaders. I think that's what he would be proud of. I think he would be proud of the tradition, and the university still being there. You know, the university does have a very high academic standard, and it does. Every time Dr. Kelly would sit down with us and he said, there's no reason why our retention rate, academically, shouldn't be higher, and that's what we need to strive for. And the Corps of Cadets, even from my freshman year to my senior year, the focus on academics was improved greatly. And they do, they put out some great, great leaders throughout the world. But I think it would be – he would be ashamed on – for an individual who fought so hard to have women go to college, you know, you look at the archives, or you hear President Schneider talk about the archives, and how hard he tried to get women to come to college, to see professionals in that college discriminate against individuals for whatever reason. Or for the mentality of – you know, our college was founded on the mentality that he left West Point because he didn't like that, the mentality, the leaders could only come from that one avenue, that we weren't putting out civilian leaders simultaneously. To see such closed-mindedness. And that's what I used to tell them. I'm, like, listen, our college is great, because we are the first. The first Corps of Cadets to have women, the first Corps of Cadets to allow African American. These were extremely controversial things in the time. So why wouldn't' we want to be the first to have an open LGBT organization on college? You know, that is where I feel he would kind of shake his head, and say hey, what's happened? You know? And trying not to get so political, but a huge feedback we got was, do all the AARs [after action reports], because you can imagine Pride Week went up to the board of directors and back down, everyone did an AAR. And a lot of it had to do about the alumni and the funding, and the threats that came from funding from alumni. 17 SY: I'm glad you said that because it looks like nationally, Norwich's Pride Week got a ton of incredibly positive attention in the press. JF: Yes. SY: And within Norwich and some of the alumni it was, pardon my language, a shit storm. So what happened after the club fallout? JF: Well, here's what – I mean, simultaneously, like, even when Pride Week was happening, I used to get Facebook messages from alumni all the time. And they'd be, like, "Hey, you're destroying the university," you know, "You need to put a stop to this right now," and all this other kind of stuff. But the ball was rolling. So Pride Week wasn't just like a random event, right? We didn't just randomly say, OK, this week we're doing it. Like, over in January, we got approval from President Schneider to hold the event, like we had a full outline, we went to General Kelly, we went to President Schneider, we had a full event. They approved it all. Got funding. Now, our shield, on the strategic aspect was, we got two sitting Congressman, a sitting Senator and the Governor of the State to all support us. So President Schneider couldn't back out of it by this time. And then we got CNN, MSNBC, NPR and stuff like that to also do articles on it. So it was happening. And we purposely did it that way, and strategically did it that way, that no matter what type of pressure we got, it was going to happen. But they didn't tell the alumni. And that's something they personally take blame for; we didn't tell the alumni. But I remember sitting down – I'm trying to remember his name, unless it's Dave Whaley? Dave – no. I'm trying to remember who's the Head of Alumni Relations. But I remember – I can't remember his name now. But I remember him saying – I want to say this was right at the end of Pride Week when we were doing all the AARs, and then we knew it was just – I mean, the president had to go and put out a video because people were threatening not to come to Alumni Weekend; people were threatening not to donate, and it was crazy. But he – I remember the Head of the Alumni Relations said, "It's not the fact that you had the event, or that it was a gay event. It's the fact that you did it too soon." And pretty much what he was telling us was, "We're not telling you not to be gay. But the alumni aren't ready for you to be gay and the alumni aren't ready for a club like this. And because the alumni aren't ready, you shouldn't do this event." And he gave me a metaphor about a highway, like yeah, "We all have to travel on the same highway, and you guys just came out of the exit without thinking about the consequences, so quickly. And you cut off the vehicle in front of you and it caused this huge wreck." And my response to him was, "Well, sir, I remember a couple of years ago we had the second in the hundred-something year our university has existed, second female cadet Colonel. And that individual got a lot of hassle as well." And I 18 was like, "The alumni were not ready for that." I was like, "The alumni – she got so much harassment, I remember her very first meeting as a cadet Colonel, she said, 'I only think I got this position because I am a woman.' And the room went quiet. And I stood there in shock, I don't believe she just said this." So I told him, I was like, "I will not allow you sit here and put these people back in the closet because the alumni aren't ready for them. This is their life." Yet again, this is on the top floor, right outside the president's office, top floor, and I said, "I will not allow you to do that. They have their lives." I was like, "You cannot tell a 19-year-old to go back in because someone he's never met before isn't comfortable that he's gay at a university they attended 20, 30 years ago." I was like, "That is completely inappropriate." And yet again, I was like, "We are not living up to our values." You know, and we used to sit there when we did events and stuff like that, we'd list the different values of the university. We'd list down, this event is covering this value, you know? To not just act, but also to think, and things like that. But yeah, I mean it was – SY: It was really pretty brilliant. JF: So yeah, I mean, it took a while. I mean, I always used to tell Dean Mathis I find it funny that Norwich gave me the education to eventually cause them all this problem, all these problems. SY: Yes, that's right. JF: Because a lot of it did come from the academics that I learned from Norwich. I mean, at the least, they can at least know they were very successful in educating their student body. And knowledge is power, which yet again, they should be very proud of. But yeah, but I mean, so another result of it was, yet again, they waited until I graduated, because they knew if I was still there it wouldn't happen. But they literally waited until after I graduated, and President Schneider announced that the following year they wouldn't be holding a Pride event, that he felt – pretty much he said it caused too much hassle, like no club should have so much attention on them because it's not fair to the other clubs. Though, you know, yet again if I was still at the university, it would have been – I gave the students who were still there some tips and came back for Alumni Weekend and had some very nice conversations. But they waited until I was out the door to make that announcement, and they did that purposely. SY: And there hasn't been a Pride Week since? JF: There hasn't, no. The club still meets, they'll actually be meeting today – today's Thurs– no. No, they actually do have a – I'm trying to remember if I just saw the Facebook – they're meeting Thursday. So they still meet on Thursday. 19 SY: I'm going to interview Meche when we actually can line up our schedules. But he told me it seems like there's – he's really upset that the club's losing momentum. JF: Yeah, it is. I mean, so for a club like this, it takes a really, really, really strong – it takes a strong leader, because you have to be willing to be controv– as much as I hate to say it, you have to be willing to be controversial. You have to be willing to stretch the limits. You have to be willing to say, hey, this isn't right. And yet again, some people, they really do get tied up on rank, right? Like, okay, the cadet – the Commandant is a Colonel in the Vermont State Militia, I can never question that authority. I respect the authority, I'm not going to be disrespectful. But at a certain point, there's a lot of different avenues where I can question it if it's not being conducive to my life or to my education. SY: That's where I think the whole civilian soldier thing is interesting, because it seems like one side of Norwich teaches you to follow orders. And another side of Norwich teaches you critical thinking. And those two sometimes collide, right? JF: Oh, they do, yes. Very much so. SY: Yes. And so I guess in your time since Norwich, how do you think this, what you learned in Norwich, which, in some ways, is how to push to sort of improve and change a military system? How has it served you since you've left? JF: It served me pretty well, I mean, as soon as I graduated, I got some good news. We got invited to the White House. So we were able to go to the White House for a social there. I mean, it was – I thought it was kind of, like, I was like, I thought it was kind of a hoax, because I started getting some hate mail sent to my home address and then I got a letter, big card stock, saying, you know, from the White House. I'm like okay, this is kind of random. And yeah, it was an invite, like you know, we're having the first national LGBT Social at the White House, we would like you and a guest to attend. I'm like, no! And then I got an email, you know, from the head, like yeah, we need all this information because Secret Service has to do a background check on you. And I was like, okay, I was like, great! I was like – so I contacted a really good friend of mine, Sue [Follen?], she's a former Captain, she's a West Point grad, she's really involved at West Point. I was like, "Hey Sue, I'm going to the White House. Can I wear my uniform?" And she says, "Yes." She's like, "Because you know, if it's at the White House, it's not a political event, so you can still wear your uniform." We had JAG look into it, that was great. Perfect. So you know, brand new Second Lieutenant, and I got my dress blues on, I invited Rob Morris who's a Navy pilot now, straight ally, one of our best. He was actually our Coordinator of Allies for the club. I said, "Come on, man, you definitely deserve this." He 20 came, great. We met people from – there was a bunch of military people there we met. We got to witness the first same-sex engagement proposal at the White House. SY: That's neat. JF: Yeah. We got tons of pictures, like, we went in the China Room, we went in the First Lady's room, the Lincoln Room, the Green Room, just taking pictures, all that kind of stuff. And President Obama came out and gave a speech. Came up, you know, we were in uniforms, so he came and shook our hands, he thanked us for our service. But, I mean, we just met people, I mean, we met authors for NCIS from California, to lobbyists, the director of the – I don't know his official title, but he's, like, the advisor to the president when it comes to the AIDS epidemic, both in the United States and worldwide. So we got to meet with him and talked with him, and just made great connections. So that was a great experience. But from there there's a national organization called OutServe-SLDN [OutServe-Servicemember Legal Defense Network], so it's an international organization that represents LGBT soldiers and veterans. So we have – there's organizations and there's clubs, chapters. Anywhere there's a military base. So every state has a chapter. We have chapters in Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, England, anywhere where there's a military presence, there's a chapter. So I met with them and I started getting involved with them. And then just about a year ago, I got invited to serve on the board of directors. So at 24 years old, I sit on the board of directors of an international nonprofit organization. We work with the White House, with Congress, the Pentagon, State legislatures, of course other nonprofits, like HRC and stuff like that. So I get invited to different events all the time, depending on my travel and stuff like that, I get to make some of them. But we get invited to the Pentagon from time to time. But now we're actually working on – because even with the repeal in place, there is no discrimination law protecting LGBT soldiers. So you can serve openly, but you can still legally be discriminated against, and nothing can happen to the person who's discriminating against you. So we're actually, as an organization, we're working with Congress and different DOD individuals to actually get in the EO policy LGBT. So one of the things that just happened was in July, I want to say, if I'm remembering my data properly, Secretary Hagel signed – added LGBT into the Military Human Rights Charter, which is the first step to getting the LGBT, or LGB since they still don't identify transgender as service members – SY: (inaudible) [00:34:04] in there, yeah. JF: Yeah, into the EO policy. SY: That's (inaudible) [00:34:07], right? JF: Yeah. So, I mean, it's helped me a lot, working out like I'm just – I mean, I'm about to go 21 down to Austin in a little bit to – in a little bit – but in a couple of days to start working and volunteering with HRC, now that my training is a little bit more steady. So it's been good. It definitely gave me the education, the foundation, the courage, the drive to do what I need to do to meet my goals and passions. SY: So I just want a couple more questions, and then you must be exhausted (inaudible) [00:34:44]. So first of all, I bet there were some gay alumni who contacted you, right? I would imagine that you've had positive encounters from alumni? JF: Yes. Yes, I mean one of the most positive – so when the news first broke out that we were going to have a Pride event, I remember one of my first messages I received was from a Board of Fellows, and she contacted me, and she was, like, "I want to start off with letting you know I'm extremely proud of you. Extremely proud to call myself a Norwich alum this day." She was, like, "I also want to warn you, though, that you're about to go through some hell." She says, you know, "Through this, I just want to let you know that I want you to stay strong. If you ever need someone to talk to, let me know. And I'll be there to help you, whether it's through a phone call," or, you know. And then we had just this past – I want to say it was just this past Alumni Weekend, this past one that we just passed, or maybe it was the one before that. A transgender Corps of Cadets member contacted me. So when she went through the Corps of Cadets, she was a he, and she just got interjected into the old guard. So she's saying, like, "I'm extremely proud of you guys," you know, "I'm going to this huge" – it's going to be, I mean, 70-something going into the old guard as a female, but went through the Corps of Cadets as a male – SY: This is Georgia? JF: Yes. SY: Yeah, I mean, I did interview her. I did. JF: Yeah. You know, so she contacted us. What was another really positive one? Even more recently, I had positive one. I was at the HRC dinner in DC, so thousands of individuals. And they hold it at the conference center there in DC. And this guy comes up to me, he says, "You're Joshua Fontanez, right?" And you know, by this time, I'm still in my dress uniform, this was – oh, when was this? This was recently. This was, like, this was in September of this year, so years after this all happened. So I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "I'm on the Board of Fellows at Norwich." He's like, "I just want to let you know that even though it happened years ago, I still remember when the articles first came out. I'm extremely proud of you still. Keep up the good work. Keep in contact," like he handed me his business card. So yeah, we got a lot of positive support. And that was definitely one of the things we talked about, you know, when we talk about it strategically, is how do we get more alumni involved when it comes to the positive 22 aspect? And unfortunately, it was, like, yeah, of course we have a lot of pressure when it comes to alumni not liking organizations like this, or liking a movement like this or liking events like this, and they have financial influence to try to slow it down or stop it. So how do we find the alumni who actually have the money to push it along and stuff like that? SY: Well, one of the largest donors we have right now is Jennifer Pritzker. JF: Yeah. SY: So, I mean, you know, there's some hope in that direction, I would think. In terms of the LGBTQ. JF: Yes, because I remember, I think the Pritzker fund, the donations actually went up from – that was, like, one of the things – I think that was one of the things that really did save us, is their donations went up as this club got more notice. And that was one of the things that we were told. So that was definitely a saving grace in that aspect. SY: Yeah. And she gives millions of dollars to the university. JF: Yeah. SY: Another question I have, and this is, like, me putting my academic historian hat on, and like, we both know that, like, Norwich's gay history when, like, you know, your club had its first couple of meeting on September 20th, right? JF: Yeah. SY: And I wonder if there is any way to sort of capture some of these stories of the, like, many, many closeted years of Norwich's history. So if you can think of any alum who are up to talking with me about their experiences when they were here in classes, decades, you know, in the decades before this, that would be great. JF: Yeah, definitely. And I – SY: And have you heard any stories? Have you heard any stories that you can tell? JF: I haven't heard a lot of stories, so my stories have always been, like, second-hand stories, so, like, definitely to get the names of the individuals you want to talk to, the two people I would say talking to is Dean Mathis, because, I mean, she was there when it was still two colleges, you know, when we had the off-campus civilian college. And she tells stories all the time about 23 students coming up to her, begging her for a club like this, and her always telling them, I mean, and this was the one thing she always regrets, is she used to tell them, like, "Listen, I'm scared for you." Like, "It's not that I wouldn't support you, that I don't think the university needs it," she goes, "I don't think I could protect you." You know, "I think you would physically be assaulted," or, you know. And that would be her advice to them, it's, like, not that I don't want to support you, but my advice to you is to stay safe, and I don't think you can safely do this. So she could probably give you some good names, I mean some really good names. And at the same time, President Schneider. Because President Schneider use to tell, I don't know, I forget the alumni, but he used to tell me, "We have an alumni who works in the Pentagon who used to, I want to say he used to be in the Navy, and now he's just a civilian contractor in the Pentagon. So he'll bring interns in and stuff like that, and they'll work for him for a couple of months, and at the end, he'll tell them, like, 'Hey listen, it really doesn't affect your internship, but I want you to know that I'm gay, and that we worked together for this entire time. So now that you go through your life, you know that, one, there are successful gay people out there, and we're just like everyone else.'" And then I think the alumni – I don't know if you've been – I'm sure you have been – in the main building, is it Jackson? Jackman. It's only been a couple of years, I'm already forgetting – my memory – so Jackman Hall, they have the long Corps of Cadets pictures, where they used to put the whole Corps of Cadets and they have the long ones, I guess the photographer, whoever used to be the regimental photographer for that, who actually came up with the idea to do the photograph like that is gay, and is open. I can't remember his name, President Schneider used to mention him from time to time in our meetings, when we had our one-on-one meetings together. So those are two individuals I would say definitely sit down with and talk, because they can give you, like, 10, 15 years ago, you know – I can tell you a couple when – SY: I'd love to get 40 years ago. JF: Yeah. SY: You know? I would love to do that. But I, you know, and this is the problem, of trying to turn over a queer history, and it's hard to do. But, you know, it would be great if I could get somebody from the '50s or the '60s to talk. But I don't think that'll happen, sadly. JF: I mean, with timing, Alumni Weekend, or as you hit up one alumni, maybe they give you a couple other names. I mean – SY: Yeah, yeah. 24 JF: There's definitely that domino effect out there. SY: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, so I'm just wondering, my last question, any other people I should talk to? Any other students that were active with you at the time who you feel would want to be interviewed? JF: So right now, and she just got back from her study abroad from China, Rickie [Feitner?]. If you try to look up her Norwich email, her real first name is Rebecca, but everyone calls her "Rickie." She was extremely, extremely active. She was a freshman my senior year. Extremely passionate. Dr. Newman is an individual I'd talk to. She currently doesn't work at the university, she works in Delaware. The head of the Civic Center – SY: Oh, yeah, I've already met with her. JF: OK. Perfect. Nicole. SY: Dominico. JF: Yeah, Nicole. Who else? The – Dr. Kelly. He's – SY: Dr. Kelly, oh, yes? JF: Because he's in the engineer department now, if I'm tracking correctly, still. SY: Yeah, no, he is. He's still here. Was he very supportive? JF: Yeah, I mean, he was. Because he was always that father figure, like, he was very – oh. He always had that aspect of, like, he knew – it's not necessarily like he agreed with the lifestyle, but he knew it was the right thing to do. And he used to have this story about, like, you know, I don't know if it was his sister-in-law, but she had a wife. And he said, "I've never seen two people ever show so much love for each other or so much care for each other, than these two." SY: I think it's his cousin. JF: It's his cousin? SY: She's (inaudible) [00:43:51]. JF: OK. So yeah, he used to have a family member, and he used to tell that story. 25 SY: Yes. JF: But him and his wife showed up to the prom that night, and he said, like, you know, "In all my years here in Norwich, it's the first time I ever saw two same-sex individuals actually dance together, with each other. And they didn't care that I was watching." As a Commandant, or head of Student Affairs at the time, you know, one of the top officials, you know, for the university. I mean, he was extremely, extremely supportive. He was always one who never spoke quickly. He used to think before he spoke. You could just look at his face, and you know he was thinking. He always took that time to think before he spoke, which unfortunately, in society today is a lost art. I'm trying to think of other students, I mean, I can email you a list of other students. SY: Yeah, why don't you email me, just when you think about it. JF: Yeah. I mean, I can get you a list, but I want to give you full names. I already have, like, four or five people in my head, like, both allies and individuals who identified as either being gay or lesbian. I'm actually thinking of people who were on both sides of the issues, because I definitely want to have a full 360 of the event and the issues, and stuff like that. I mean, it was. There were some individuals who were gay who didn't agree with the club, or who didn't agree with the movement, and who were very content on being in the closet and this being an issue that was never brought up. So I think they definitely deserve to be heard as well. SY: And I really do think, you know, 20, 30 years from now it will be, some historian is going to go into the archives and be, like, look at this moment on this military campus, right? Look at the controversies, right? So the more people I can talk to who can speak to the issue and all the complexities about it. JF: Yeah, and definitely on the historical aspect, I said, like, I'm sure you have or you will talk to President Schneider, because I remember he got a call from VMI. And the four-star there pretty much called him and said, "Listen, I have – because of your college having this club founded, students want to found one at my college. And I have no clue on how to react to this. How did you deal with this?" I got an email from a girl in Taiwan who wanted to know how we could help them found their club. We mentored both the West Point and the Air Force Academy with getting their clubs started. We sent students down to a private school in Massachusetts to do lectures with them on how to be supportive of LGBT students, and stuff like that. So the scope of just how much instantaneous in one year we affected multiple universities and high schools and stuff like that was astounding. 26 SY: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Do you think you to some degree you shifted the culture of the university too? Maybe not even in terms of gay issues, but in terms of (inaudible) [00:46:44]. JF: I think so. I think, I mean, it made people – it called a lot of people out on an issue. Because, I mean, a lot of people, I would say the cultural aspect undoubtedly, because I remember everyone used to be, like, you know, in public, because you know, it's taboo to be, like, oh, "I hate" – to openly say, like, "I hate a gay student." No one would openly say that and keep their job. And I remember Dr. Kelly got every faculty member – so not the academic staff, but all the other faculty. So all the Commandants, all the Sergeant Majors, all the support staff, and he brought them down to the Milano Ballroom and had a meeting. And afterwards, I went to Dean Mathis, and went, "How was this meeting?" She's like, "Josh," she's like, "You don't believe the beehive you just smacked." She's like, "An individual who I literally work" – because her office was combined with one of the Commandants' office, because they were redoing his office. She's like, "He sits there every day, sees you come in and talk to me about this club and about your movements, and about this stuff." She's like, "He is probably one of your least supporters." She said, "Behind closed doors, he doesn't believe this club should exist, he doesn't believe in your lifestyle, he doesn't believe in what you do." And she said, "Let me tell you this right now." She's like, "General Kelly put them all on notice." She was like, "That meeting officially was their official warning to HR. If they do anything" – because the big mentality really was, their concern was that a Commandant would turn their back. Like, say, like hypothetically, I was getting jumped or something like that, that they would turn their back and not do anything about it. Or, like of an event happened and a Commandant – because if the Commandants had to be on duty during these events, like if they had to show up, that was their biggest fear, is, like, if they would see something happening or know something was going to happen and not do anything about it. Which is kind of a shame to say if, you know, a 40, 50-year-old adult who the majority of them had prior military service. SY: Yeah. JF: But he put them all on notice that day. And I mean, it's the mentality, this was our faculty and staff. It was like, now you – it wasn't even the student body, you know, LGBT members were scared of. It was their own professors, their on Commandants, their own mentors, you know? I think we destroyed a big culture of fear. We definitely established that students can make a change, and students can question and still be successful. But yeah, a lot of stuff when it came to bullying, when it came to acceptance, I mean – and I always find it funny, because some of our individuals who were completely against us in the gay community would have never came out unless there was this controversy. It was, like, some of these individuals who were, like, "Oh, I know you've been gay for a year," or two years or three years. "You never had plans on coming out, not until this" – "I don't even care if you were against us," I was like, "But you came 27 out." So I'll take that as a win, because I know you may not thank me now, but in five years when you find your significant other and you're extremely happy, you know, you're going to thank me for that, 'Hey listen, four years ago I came out,' you may regret why you came out, or the stance you took when you came out. But you're out." So it's like, I'll take – SY: People evolve, right – JF: Yeah. SY: I mean they feel when they first come out, it's better than when— Here's where they (inaudible) [00:50:15], I'm sure they changed their mind. JF: Oh, like I said, I have complete empathy, because I know, I was in their shoes. Like I said, I was in high school making fun of individuals who were out. So, I can – I never held that against them, because I knew the process of what I went through when I came out. And I knew the process, I know the fear, I knew the pain. I knew the loneliness that can be there and the reaction of human nature, I want to be – you know, if it was cool, if it was okay and accepted, you wouldn't be a minority, you know? People don't make fun of the majority of people, you know? So therefore, you want to be in the majority, you want to be the accepted person. You want to be the cool side of the lunchroom, or whatever. So you naturally migrate towards them. And unfortunately, unless you have individuals who constantly remind you or keep you accountable, you do give up some of the aspects of who you are, or what you believe in, to assimilate to that culture. SY: Yeah. Did you get physically attacked at any point? Or just a lot of threats? JF: Oh no, just a lot of – I was a big muscular guy, I mean, I could – SY: Right. JF: I could handle myself. SY: [That's good?]. JF: No, like, and I was never fear – I mean, there were, I mean, like I said, there were definitely some staff members who were extremely afraid that, you know, that I would be beaten up, or if, you know – I was told never to walk around, like, at night, you know, alone. They had the cameras outside my room and all this other kind of stuff. But I never had fear, I mean my mentality in life has always been, like, I'm destined for greater things than being beat up, or 28 pushed down some stairs, or something like that. I'm, like, you know, that was never a fear of mine. SY: I don't know if I have any more questions, any last things to add? We covered a lot. JF: I think we did. I mean, it's definitely – I enjoyed it. SY: You enjoyed the interview, or just other – JF: Oh, I enjoyed Norwich, I enjoyed the interview, I enjoyed the events, I mean – SY: So you did this, yeah, and that's what's going to be great, that you really did enjoy Norwich. Even through all of this, how do you feel – I guess that's it. How do you feel now when you reflect upon your four years at Norwich? JF: Oh, I'm extremely proud of – I mean, I would go back again. People tell me all the time, like, I mean, I have a lot of coworkers from all the different military colleges, whether it's Citadel, VMI, West Point. I think I'm the only one who says, like, yeah, I'd go back and do it in a heartbeat again. Absolutely. Met a lot of people. I don't know, maybe it's just my first – because I'm not sure, I met some people from Norwich who said, like, "No, I'd never go back," I mean, between the knowledge I gained there, the connections I gained, the friendships I gained, you know, the high-speed pace that was between, like, okay, have to balance classes. I mean, I literally would leave my room at 6:00 in the morning for PT and usually not get back until 8:00 at night, just because between classes, meetings, sitting in the board of director's office, with President Schneider, and you know, all the Commandants, and voicing the opinions of the student body, whether it was through student government or the Corps leadership, or working with volunteer organizations, through Nicole's office, or working with Greg and student activities. I mean, I loved it. It offered so much. That's why it was shocking when people say, like, "Oh, I'm bored at Norwich," or, "There's nothing to do." I'm like, "There's absolutely an amazing amount. Norwich gives you the potential to be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. You just have to be willing to actually tap into that potential, tap into the resources that are there, utilize them properly." And I mean, what you can do, where you can go is unlimited. And some places don't give you that opportunity. And, I mean, Norwich gave me the opportunity, and I feel that I utilized it to the best of my ability. SY: Well, that seems like a good place to end. Thank you for talking today. END OF AUDIO FILE
Transcript of an oral history interview with Dr. Carlos F. A. Pinkham, conducted by Jennifer Payne at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, on 9 January 2014, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Carlos Frank Armory Pinkham graduated from Norwich University in 1965 and later returned to the campus to teach in the College of Math and Sciences. His interview includes many details of his academic career as well as recollections from his military service and family history. ; 1 Carlos Frank Amory Pinkham, NU '65, Oral History Interview January 9, 2014 Interviewed by Jennifer Payne CARL PINKHAM: Vermont. JENNIFER PAYNE: And your (inaudible) [00:00:02] class? CP: Nineteen sixty-five. JP: Ah, did you have a nickname at Norwich? CP: Not really, no. JP: No? The yearbook has you as Pink, but I imagine -- CP: Oh, yeah, Pink is -- Pink is -- if anybody used a nickname it was Pink. Yeah, mm-hmm. JP: Oh, what made you decide to choose Norwich? CP: It was very easy. My father taught here, and so as a poor university professor this is the only place he could afford to send me (laughs) because I got tuition free. JP: What was his name and what did he do? CP: Vernon Curtis David Pinkham. So, again, four names. It's a tradition in our family. JP: What did he teach? CP: He taught economics. JP: So, you came to Norwich pretty much straight out of high school. CP: Yes. JP: And were you interested in science then? CP: I have been interested in biology ever since I was able to think. So, I knew when I came here what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do when I was a kid. JP: Really? CP: Yeah. I wanted to get a doctorate in biology. At the time that I came here I wasn't sure what field in biology. It was really a choice between evolution and marine biology, but I knew that I wanted to do that.2 JP: Wow. So who was your roommate when you got here? CP: Oh, boy, when I got here -- I don't remember. I do know that he never finished and I don't remember his name. JP: Do you remember any of your roommates? CP: Sure, Joe [Koons?] [00:01:50] was my sophomore year roommate and he never finished, and then Don Graves was my roommate in my junior year; he did finish. And Bob Priestly was my roommate in my senior year. JP: No kidding? CP: Yeah. JP: That's great. Now I know you've looked at these questions. Is there anything in particular that you want to focus on or start with? CP: No, not really. Just go ahead and fire away and we'll progress as ever we can. JP: Yes, OK. Your activities when you were here were humongous. You were in everything. You were corporal, master sergeant, correct? Major biology -- you were in the biology club, one, two, three, four president -- president twice; geology club, one, two, three, four; honor tank platoon, three and four; German club one, three, and four Vice President; AUSA three and four; mountain and cold weather; winter carnival committee; regimental ball committee; Epsilon Tau Sigma Vice President. CP: That's the honorary society -- the academic honorary society. JP: And you were in Who's Who, also, I noticed in the yearbook. You were on that page, but the list doesn't stop. You were in the varsity club two, three, four; class honor committee to cadet cadre two, three, four; dean's list one, two, three, four; DMS, which is -- CP: Distinguished military student. JP: Wow. What was your GPA? What was your -- CP: I was second in my class -- JP: Wow! CP: -- and the person that was first in my class, Harry Short, and I competed for that position all four years and his is a sad story because he beat me and legitimately so; he was a very smart person. He went on to med school, got his MD and in my fifth year of graduate school, I found out that he had just been killed in an airplane crash that he was flying himself. So that was probably one of the saddest things that had ever happened and has 3 ever happened in my life -- to lose this very dear friend who was my arch competitor, but still a person that I had a lot of respect for. And really it was -- another aspect of that is that I -- up to that point I kind of thought of those of us who were in this top echelon as being untouchable. In other words, somehow we were just -- our lives were special and therefore they would not be expendable and that woke me up to the fact that in fact that was a very incorrect assumption to proceed with. JP: So what do you remember most about Norwich? CP: Oh, (laughs) there's so many things. I remember, and this is going to go on to one of the other questions, William Countryman, my favorite professor, and it's hard to pick a favorite professor because there were certainly three that I had -- William Countryman, Bert Wagenknecht, who was the botany professor at the time in biology, and of course, the ever traditional and ever present Fred Larson, who played a major role in my interest in geology. So, these are the three people that vied for my preferences as the favorite professors, and Bill -- but Bill because I had him more often than all of the others. I think he won out, but he was a very special professor anyway. He was smart, knew how to teach, and knew how to keep his classroom in stitches, which is something that is very important for a good teacher to have. It's something that I never developed as a teacher, I have to admit. JP: How did he keep you in stitches? CP: Oh, he just had great stories that were always able -- that always fit in to whatever lesson he was talking about and he had a great sense of humor. He was a very wonderful fellow. I ended up working for him, actually, when I came back here for a number of years because he went into private consulting and I worked for him. That's the story we can get into a little bit later. JP: Yeah. Because you went to the military after, but what was the hardest part? It seems like you probably did very well. Were you ever disciplined? CP: No, no. Should I have been? Yes. (laughter) JP: For what? CP: Oh, there were a couple of times I think when -- well, the one time that I remember specifically is when I was the executive officer of the third battalion my senior year. I think I had a soccer game. I think that's what it was, and so I went on the soccer game without thinking about the fact that I had to make sure there was somebody who took my place in formation because the battalion commander I knew was not going to be there. And so one of our class cut ups, who was just -- went on to become a great guy -- probably because he was a class cut-up, took over the battalion at the time and he made a pretty good farce out of it from what I understand, and I was about ready to get some demerits and I think my dad stepped in and prevented that from happening. I don't know, but I know I never got them.4 JP: What did he do? CP: Well -- JP: The farcical -- CP: Oh, what did he do? Oh, he just got up and mocked the protocol, the commands and everything. I don't know. I don't know exactly what happened. I just heard that it was pretty farcical, so -- JP: Norwich cadets cutting up? CP: Right, right. JP: No, say it isn't so! So what was your least favorite? Did you have a least favorite class here? CP: Well, I suppose it had to be English. And the reason for that was that I hated writing; I didn't know how to write. And, again, there's a story about how that can be -- how that turned around, but after I got out of grad school, and so I'll hold that until later. But at the time I hated the writing aspect of English. I didn't mind the reading aspect, the reading of the different literary assignments, that was fine, but, boy, I just did not like writing. JP: OK. What was the most important thing that Norwich taught you? CP: There are several things, but the first thing I learned, I guess, is that nothing ever lasts forever, and that was a lesson I learned in rook school, and it was a lesson that I think a lot of people learned in rook school because if you didn't learn that lesson, you couldn't get through rook school. That's a valuable lesson to learn if you're really being confronted by things that are difficult at the time. It's good to know that it can't last forever. The second lesson, and I think this is one that has probably, Norwich teaches more than anything else, and I have not seen it as something that is grasped by the powers that be as something that they need to promote, and that is that done properly, if you allow it to do it to you, allow Norwich to do this to you, you discover that your limits are way beyond where you thought they were, way beyond spiritually, way beyond physically, way beyond mentally because Norwich has a tendency to push people. It was pushing people when I was a cadet here and it still does push people and in ways that many other universities don't. And one good proof of that happened my sophomore year. In the eighth grade -- I've got to go back a little bit -- in the eighth grade is when we moved to Northfield because dad took the teaching position that year, and in my homeroom I went into the first day, and of course being an eighth grader boy, I was very interested in girls, and I saw silhouetted against the window this very pretty, cute blonde and I said, "Well, that's kind of a neat girl." And so I asked about her and found out that she was going with somebody else and so being an honorable person I decided I probably 5 better not interfere. But a little while later I heard that someone had said that she was interested in me, which of course was all I needed to do. So I approached her and we struck up a relationship that lasted through the sophomore year of high school and she eventually broke off with me about that time -- at that time because she thought I was pretty much so a namby-pamby, which I was, and then -- but I always had a crush for her and the sophomore year, New Year's Eve, I had a date that didn't come through and so on just a whim I called her up because she was a townie as well, obviously, and asked her out to New Year's Eve and she didn't have a date that night, so she accepted. And from that point on we were a couple and she has now been my wife for almost 50 years. JP: Awww, that's so sweet. CP: Yeah, so basically she just liked what she had seen -- the change in me that was -- that Norwich had brought about. JP: What's her name? CP: Christine. JP: Christine. CP: Yeah. JP: Wow, so Norwich helped her fall in love -- CP: That's exactly correct. And she'll admit that, too. I'm not making this up. (laughs) JP: Did the words "I will try" mean anything to you as a student? CP: It means -- it's hard for me to kind of express because I think I always felt that way, and I always was a little bit disappointed with it because I want to do more than try; I want to succeed. And I think that probably of all of the things that Norwich did for me, its motto was not one of the things that I carried with me throughout my career. I mean, I just knew I would try. Maybe that's why Norwich and I were such a good fit, I don't know, but in any event. JP: Well, you were obviously successful from an early time. Do you have any funny stories about life or people at Norwich? CP: (laughs) I don't know whether I want to tell one of them. Well, I guess probably the story I will tell is that the infamous panty raid -- JP: Oh, yes. CP: Roy [Bear?] [00:14:58], Dick Herbert, and myself had heard about this thing happening but we were at my house that night. And we finally decided after the news had come that 6 it was probably interesting enough that we ought to go over and take a look. So we went over after it had been done and interestingly enough we were watching -- after most of it had been done -- just to watch and at this point I have mixed emotions about whether I should have been involved or not, but at any event, one of things we noticed is that the police and the fire -- well, the fire department was using a lot of fire hoses on the few that were left and they were doing most of the damage with their fire hose that was finally attributed to Norwich cadets. They were breaking windows with the water and everything. And so we were standing around, and of course we looked like Norwich cadets because we had short hair, and one of the policemen came up to us and said, "Are you guys from Norwich," and I said, "No, not me, I'm from Northfield. I'm a townie," and that wasn't a lie because I was, but at that point in time we recognized maybe we better get out of there. So we got out and came back to my house and eventually got back into school. You know, they were checking everybody coming back in at that point in time and we had not been involved in the raid and so we -- this is our junior year -- so we were let back in, and again, I think it was partly because my dad vouched for me and said yes, they were at home at our house, and that was true. So, that's one of the episodes that I think is kind of humorous. JP: So you were questioned along with everybody else that had gone? CP: Yeah, sure, sure. JP: Interesting. Were there other panty raids? I had heard there might have been annual -- CP: I wasn't aware of it and certainly nothing as big as that. I know that one made national headlines and (laughs) -- JP: Yes, yes it did. What did you do after graduation? CP: Well, I was commissioned in armor, but because of my grades and because of other good letters of recommendation from my profs and performances on the GREs, et cetera, I was allowed to defer to active duty to go to grad school. And this is during Viet Nam so I was very happy with that. I wasn't going to argue that and so I had applied to the three -- by then I knew that I wanted to do evolution -- I had applied to the three universities in the nation at the time that were giving doctorates in evolution -- Harvard, University of Illinois and UCLA. Was accepted to all three with scholarships and decided I needed to get far away but not too far away. So I chose the middle of the two, University of Illinois, to go to grad school, and went to grad school there and had a great experience and learned and awful lot. And had -- in those days you had four years of total deferment to active duty to get your doctorate -- and four years to get a doctorate in biology is really difficult if not, you know, you have to really be smart, even smarter than -- I shouldn't say even smarter -- I worked hard, I wasn't smart, I just worked hard -- and smarter than me. So at the end of the fourth year I still hadn't had my degree, but what I did -- there were two things that happened. I found out that if I had a doctorate I could switch from armor to medical service corp., which is what I had originally put in for anyway, and so there was caveat on that, though. I had a two-year obligation, active duty obligation, in 7 armor. If I switched my branch then I would have to have another two years, in other words, a total of four year obligation. So this is where I think my Norwich training came in really, really helpful in about two tenths of a second I had the decision. You know, two years of which one would have to be in Viet Nam in a tank versus four years of which I would be applying what I had learned state-side in a research institution. It was a pretty easy decision to make and so I accepted the caveated offer to go to medical service corp. The other thing I did is we got in that fourth year you had an option on when to be put on active duty, and so I took the furthest one away from when I applied, which actually gave me almost five years of graduate study in grad school, and I cut it so close that on Wednesday night I defended my thesis, Thursday morning I boarded the plane for Fort Sam, officers basic course. JP: Wow! CP: Yeah, it was close. JP: Wow. CP: So, that was a very fortunate thing for me because getting into medical service corp. was fundamental to a lot of what happened to me from that point on. JP: In what way? CP: Well, because after officer's basic which is, you know, a three month assignment, I was assigned to Edgewood Arsenal and to the biomedical research lab there and my first assignment was to do research on a nerve agent poisoning -- the mechanism of a nerve agent poisoning, organophosphorus, the nerve agents, and to do that I had to kill cats. They were anesthetized and then we exposed them to nerve agents and monitored what was happening to them with some fairly sophisticated equipment and deduced from the responses what was going on. Well, you know, I'm not opposed to research of that sort but it was not something that I was really comfortable with and it turned out that the guy across the hall from me had just -- we were living in apartment houses at the time and so this is for married couples -- and so the guy across the hall from me had just gotten out of being the executive officer for the human experiment platoon. These were humans that had volunteered to undergo various kinds of experiments, most of which were with psychedelic kind of drugs. So it was kind of a difficult job to be in charge of them. And because he still had some active duty time, he was offered a position with the newly formed ecological research branch. Now his specialty was aquatics. He was a fisheries guy, marine and fresh water fisheries, and so he kind of fit right in and I'll explain why that was newly formed here in a moment. But he told me about this, and he said that they were looking for a person who had specialty in land and my, in addition to a doctorate in evolution, one of the -- the major area in evolution that I had worked on was mammals, mammalogy, and so I had a lot of experience with mammals as well as with reptiles and amphibians because one of my major mentors was Doctor Hobart Smith, who was probably the world's leading herpetologist at the time. So I had a lot of good experience that would put me into that position. So the next day I went over and talked to the newly 8 assigned director of the ecological research branch, Scott Ward, and told him what I was interested in and what my qualifications were and the next day I was reassigned to his branch. He had a lot of pull at the time. Why did he have a lot of pull? Here's why. He was a very sophisticated politician for one thing, but what he was heading up was a really dynamic and important endeavor at the time. Basically, Nixon, who has been maligned for a number of different -- well, for one thing, and that's Watergate, but really did an awful lot of good stuff during his presidency. National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, diplomacy with China, et cetera. The list goes on. One of the things he did was he signed an executive order that unilaterally ended the open air testing of offensive, active -- of offensive and defensive biological and chemical weapons, and restricted any further research to just defensive research on biological and chemical weapons in labs. So, there were two places -- a number of places around the world where this research had been going on, two in the United States. One was in Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the southern end of the Great Salt Lake desert, out in the middle of nowhere, which you would expect to be a place where this would be conducted. And there's some stories about that that I'll get into in the future, and then the other one was 17 miles northeast of Baltimore on Carroll Island, which is part of Edgewood Arsenal, an island -- a peninsula that jutted into the Chesapeake Bay. It was called an island because it was separated from the mainland by a channel of water, cooling channel from a power plant that was right there. And because they had stopped the open air testing the question was logically raised, was there any impact of the testing on the environment? Now Carroll Island it turned out -- well, both Dugway Proving Ground and Carroll Island formed these two groups to research this. On Carroll Island it turned out there were two parts to it. There was one part next to the mainland, and then there was an intervening large saltwater marsh, and then another part where all of the jutting out into the bay where all the testing had been done. And the two parts were fairly comparable to one another, so we had a very good control and a very good experimental area to do our studies on. So we started the study of that and that was the foundation of the Army's environmental ecological research effort, and so I was in on the ground floor of that, and that played a major role in my military career because -- well, one of the things that happened while we were there is as a result of the National Environmental Policy Act, we started getting into environmental assessments and environmental impact statements, one of the first groups to start doing that. And so, again, the procedures we developed and techniques and everything were eventually implemented -- became implemented into a lot of the Army approaches and regulations. To get a little ahead of myself I think it's important at this point to explain what happened at the end of the four years. I'm going to come back to Edgewood. At the end of the four years I was -- obviously my obligation, active duty obligation, was over and I thought, OK, this is it, I'm going to get out of the service. And I wanted to come back to Norwich and teach, quite honestly, and so I applied here but there wasn't a position available, and I really didn't know much about applying anywhere else, and I tried but I wasn't successful. But I had been offered a job at the sister organization out at Dugway Proving Ground as a civilian working, doing the same thing, extending what I had done at Edgewood. And I loved the job, I loved the people that I was working with both at Dugway, and by then we had formed this extended team where Dugway and Edgewood worked together, but I hated the environment of Baltimore, just didn't like the humidity in the summer, as a Vermonter I 9 couldn't handle it. So we took the job out at Dugway, and again, I'm going to come back to Edgewood, but I've got to finish this entry into Dugway because it's kind of a fascinating story. So, I had been out there many times and new I would love it, and so in order to make the final decision I had to take my wife and my two children out, then I had two boys, I now have three. So we left Baltimore when it was about 98 degrees and 150 percent humidity, not really, I mean, the air was just soaking. And we got on the plane and flew out to Utah and about 30 minutes out of Salt Lake City the pilot came on board and said the temperature in Salt Lake City is 110 degrees at which point my wife turned to me, she said, "As soon as we get off the plane we're turning around," because she was thinking 110 degrees with all of that humidity that we had just left behind, and I knew better. So I let her get off the plane and she looked around and she felt the air and she says, "I love it!" So I knew that we were sold on going out to Dugway. So, returning back to Edgewood, because we had these two wonderful control and experimental areas, we had a lot of wonderful data comparing two different community structures, those of let's say a species of trees on both places, fishes on both places, snakes on both places, amphibians on both places, mammals on both places, et cetera. And we had these wonderful databases. But at the time there was no way to really compare them because all of the mechanisms that were out there at the time, all of the methods that were out there at the time, were focusing on diversity, on measures of diversity, and we weren't interested in measures of diversity. We were interested in how alike are these two communities or how different are these two communities. So, the guy across the hall who introduced me to Scott, his name is Gareth Pearson. He eventually went on to become one of the directors in one of the labs of EPA, very successful career. JP: EPA is? CP: The Environmental Protection Agency. So Gareth and I sat down one night with this problem and a bunch of paper with some of our data on it spread out on the floor in his apartment and a six-pack of beer. And by the end of the six-pack, we had solved the problem, and we had developed an index that would compare these two communities in a very -- I've got to say clever way -- and in a very effective way and started applying that our data and then of course published it and this index, the Pinkham Pearson Index, is now regarded as the primary way to compare community structure. So we were very fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. I'm sure if we hadn't come up with it, somebody else would have. It's one of those things that's fairly obvious once you look at it, but, you know, we were there at the right time. JP: That's wonderful. I was hoping you would talk about that. CP: So we had a lot of fun. We did some great things. Great in the sense of they were fun things and wonderful to do. We started the -- we were the -- we, Edgewood, actually, the team that I was part of at Edgewood, really established the concept of the installation environmental impact assessment or statement where basically you go in to an installation, an Army installation, and you identify all of the resources on and around that installation and all of the activities on that installation that could impact these resources, and identified ways to mitigate the impact so that the installation could continue its 10 mission. And eventually out at Dugway as we continued the effort, because by the time I was at Dugway it was such a large effort that we needed to have both camps involved in this process. Another colleague of mine that I met at Dugway, David Gauthier, whom I also kind of took on as a person that I would work with the rest of my life, David and I were the co-editors of a seven volume -- became the co-editors of a seven volume treatise on doing ecological surveys at military installations, and one of the volumes was doing all of the procedures involved in doing an environmental assessment of an installation. All of the different topics you've got to cover and all of the ways you can cover them, it was a fairly extensive document. And still is -- its descendants are still being used in the environmental program in the military. So, I really enjoyed that part of my life. We got to go and I got to see lots of different parts of the United States. Never got away from the United States, but some of the really interesting installations where testing was going on of one form or another, whether it was vehicle testing or artillery testing or whatever, we got to go to because they were part of testing evaluation command at the time, which Edgewood Arsenal was part of, and that's where most of the environmental documentation was happening. One of the things -- and again, it's a matter of being at the right place at the right time, very quickly or very soon after we started our effort at Edgewood there was an operation at Edgewood that had been going on for years and their procedures, their environmental procedures, were just terrible, and we told them that they were just awful and that they would have to do something about them and they snubbed their noses at us. About six months later EPA caught up with them, newly formed EPA caught up with them, and the directors, whom we had said you better do something about this, ended up going to jail. JP: Really? CP: Yeah. So that all of a sudden gave us the notoriety or the fame that we needed to have to get everybody's attention and from that point on we got to do some pretty neat stuff. And going from coast to coast and seeing things, you know, I saw my first rattlesnake, I saw my first copperhead and things of this sort which were fun. In the wild, you know, turning things over and finding them there, which is part of our technique, and developed further techniques for looking at -- finding whether or not a military operation had impacts. I think one of the fun ones was Redstone Arsenal where a government operated -- a government owned, civilian operated (GOCO) facility had been operating during the Second World War manufacturing DDT. Every time they had a bad batch they just threw it out the back door. So although the facility had been destroyed, long gone, this batch was still there. Now what happened is that Redstone Arsenal called us there because they knew that there was this stream that was entering a bayou or a backwater of the Mississippi that didn't have any life in it and they wanted us to find out what was going on. So what we did is we used a technique which, I don't know whether we developed or had been used by others, but in any event, you go up and every time you find a branch in the river, or in the stream, you sample both sides and when you do that, you know, one, every time we went there, one branch was fine, the other branch was dead. And we kept following it back up until we found this huge area, a two or three football field size area of old DDT, and it became one of the nation's hazardous waste facility -- sites -- that had to be cleaned up. So it was, you know, it wasn't anything that the people there were 11 trying to cover up or had been responsible for, it had been done a long time ago and we were able to find that. Another program that I think was a lot of fun is that my boss, Scott Ward, was a falconer and this was in a time when falconers were -- he was a falconer when it was legit to be, OK to be, a falconer. But then the Endangered Species Act came along, which again, was another Nixon thing, and that prevented falconers from being -- you know, without having a license. You had to be licensed to be a falconer and had to have a legitimate reason. Well, he was a veterinarian and so he got his license. He was a wheeler-dealer and he made sure that he got his license and then he started working with peregrine falcons and their recovery. As you may know, about that time DDT, again, here's this DDT rearing its ugly head, had been bioaccumulating in predator species, the peregrine falcon being one of them, so that to a level that the eggs were thinning, the shells were thinning and the parents were breaking them in the nest as they were trying to sit on them. So, there was a real decline in peregrine falcons. In fact, the peregrine falcon south of the Arctic had gone extinct. So, Scott was involved in studying their recovery and to do so he became the coordinator of the North American peregrine falcon banding program, and he would go to a number of different places, Greenland, Hudson Bay, I think Alaska, and band fledglings in the nest, and then we would go to Assateague Island in the fall and in the spring and trap peregrine falcons to see if any of them had been banded to find out where they were coming from because at that point in time we really didn't know very much of any -- the peregrine falcons that are now south of the Arctic are all derived from peregrine falcons that were in the Arctic. It's a different subspecies but basically it was the only opportunity is to take these fledglings and bring them back here, and that was a Cornell program, did a wonderful job, and breed them in a captive breeding program and then reintroduce them to the wild. But knowing we just didn't have any information on what their flight pathways were, where their migration routes were, and so Scott was instrumental in coming up with that information. And so I was able to go with him and, you know, this is a military assignment. (laughs) JP: It's a great job. CP: Somebody had to do it, right. And spend a week or two weeks in the fall and in the spring on Assateague Island trapping peregrine falcons and birding and all sorts of stuff. So that was a lot of fun. We got to know a lot of interesting people because Scott made his way through the people who had influence at the time. I think one of the more interesting things is that, for example, we would often capture peregrine falcons with -- peregrine falcons -- he would also do it on Carroll Island -- capture either hawks or accipiters or falcons and they would have feathers in their beak or we would find kills in the woods, and part of our study was, you know, what had they killed? And so he would take these feathers and sometimes just one or two feathers they pulled out of the corner of their bill and send them off to a gal at the Smithsonian Institution, I can't remember -- I think her name was Roxy or something -- and she would identify it just from a single feather what the bird was. So that was part of our ability to get some additional data. What are they preying on when they're at different places in their migratory pathway, et cetera. So, that was another, you know, it was just a lot of fun things that we got to do and we would seine for fish. 12 JP: And we're back. CP: OK, so I'm trying to think of -- in the back of my mind there's one more story I want to tell and I can't come up with it right now. So those were fun days. We really had a great time doing all that sort of stuff. Oh, I know what it was. Another story was with Chandler Robins. Now, Chandler Robins is, I think he's still alive, one of the greatest ornithologists in the country. He wrote a book on birds of North America and Scott knew him well, and so I remember one night we had been out doing some night surveys and he had a recording of a bird that he couldn't -- all he had was the song and so we got on the phone the next morning and called up Chan and said, "Chan, I want to play something for you. Can you tell me what it is?" So we just played it for him over the phone. Chan says, "OK, so let me see. It was probably about nine o'clock at night, it was raining slightly and the sound is coming from the middle of a marsh, am I right?" And Scott says, "Yes," and so he says, "Well, it's a Black Rail," which fits all of those things. JP: Wow! CP: So this guy really knew his stuff. (laughs) That's the kind of stuff that we were exposed to for all of this. It was a lot of fun. JP: Did you photograph it? CP: Oh, no, no because it was at night. But I photographed a lot of birds. In fact, because I spent so much time going around doing this sort of stuff, my life list of North America north of the Mexican border is about 420 birds, 420 species. That's not anywhere nearly as many as it could be if I were a serious birder, but just because I have travelled so much, it's a lot larger than a lot of birders do have. JP: That's a lot of birds. CP: It is. JP: And you were outside and making the world a safer place. CP: Hopefully so. JP: That's pretty amazing. CP: Yeah. JP: Wow. I'm always amazed by you guys. CP: Yeah, it's fun what we get to do.13 JP: What about the Oxford Round Table? I know I'm jumping ahead, but I want to make sure we get that. CP: All right, so the reason -- I want to also hit my military career because I think that's important and, oh, we're doing fine. So let's hit the military career and then we'll come back to the Oxford Round Table. JP: Absolutely. CP: After I got out of Edgewood, I told you I was thinking about getting out of the service, my brother, my oldest brother, who at the time was a colonel in the Reserves, said, "No, you've got to stay in," and he explained to me why I needed to stay in. He said, "The benefits that you would accrue for retirement and for Space-A travel and medical coverage, et cetera, are just fantastic. You've got to stay in." So I did, I decided to stay in. And to get to the end of that story before I come back I stayed in for 47 years or whatever it was, I mean, 37 years. I retired at 60 from the Reserves and when I retired it was in '06 and I was the senior, maybe we should say old man of preventive medicine science officers and as such I was the mentor for about 700 preventive medicine science officers in the Reserves, the National Guard around the world. And from Norwich, this is when I was doing this, I sent out a weekly newsletter. Every Saturday I would come down early in the morning and I would work until one or two o'clock in the afternoon putting together this newsletter of all of the events that were important to preventive medicine science officers that had happened in that week and sent it out to them. And it got to be such a big thing that many of the active duty preventive medicine science officers were subscribing to it as well. JP: What was it called? CP: The Preventive Medicine's -- Reserves Component Preventive Medicine Science Officers' Newsletter, very imaginative title for it. JP: But very useful. CP: But it was very useful. JP: Extremely useful. CP: Yeah, it was during the Iraq war and during Pakistan as well. The beginning parts of -- I mean, Afghanistan. JP: So what kinds of things would be in it, for example? CP: Oh, there would be health reports from around the world, alerts about outbreaks of different things. There would be announcements of upcoming conferences that -- one of the things that preventive medicine science officers -- most preventive medicine science officers are in the Reserves are not assigned to a unit. They are what is known as 14 individual mobilization augmentees. They're on their own basically and they have to get their 50 points a year on their own. Because all of us have advanced degrees, we don't fit into most units and if there is a unit, it's probably across the country that we could fit into, and some of the people fit into those units, they just had to travel and they did their two weeks of active duty. And so it was very important to be able to get these people, all of these people for retention purposes if nothing else, to recognize all of the opportunities they had to get points and part of my role in this was to provide these opportunities -- show them the opportunities that they had and make sure they were taking advantage of them. JP: That's terrific. CP: So that was another side of it. And unfortunately, I think after I left I found a successor and I think he, after a year or so, found that the job was so demanding that he had to back out and I don't think anybody else took over. But it happened during a time when it was really important too because we were so widespread and some us of involved in conflicts around the world that it was important for us to have that at that particular time. I'm sure it would still be valuable today, but I don't think anybody has followed up on it. But then that's another thing where Norwich guys have a tendency to see a need and fill it. Another thing, which also is a Norwich story, I think, is to get my points, one of the ways you can get points is to be a liaison to West Point, and what that means is basically that you are helping to guide the applicants for West Point from Vermont or from whatever state you're in, through the process so that they either are successful or not. Well, it turns out in Vermont I think we have a higher percentage of people that get in for reasons which are not worth going into here than most states. But you still, one out of ten, one out of 20 would make it. So, one of the advantages of that is it gave me an opportunity to direct the nine or 18 failures to Norwich which many of them did come here as a result. So that was a good recruiting opportunity as well. And Norwich -- West Point preferred to have of all of those senior military academies, they preferred to have either West Point or Norwich personnel fill those positions because they knew that they would do a good job and a serious job. So, let's see, what else is here? All right, we can go on to the Oxford thing. So, I, as I've stated earlier, had always been interested in evolution and ever since I was able to remember, I recognized that the beauty around me that I was fascinated with in nature, the butterflies, the flowers, the trees, the frogs, whatever I was attracted to at the time, was just not by chance but brought about by a creator. Now I grew up in a family with a Christian influence and background, but I myself, I personally never understood who Jesus Christ was and his importance to me, and just recently I kind of figured out a good way to explain that. As a kid I had understood that Christmas was all about me. And Easter somehow had something to do with this person called Jesus Christ but I wasn't sure what it was. And quite honestly I really went through childhood, school, here, graduate school, and well into my military career until early into Dugway assuming that. I now know that I got it totally backwards and in fact Christmas is all about Jesus and Easter is all about me and you and all of us, the rest of us who need to have the salvation of Jesus. Now the story, I mean, I'm not going to go there because I'm not sure that's appropriate for this but I just want to set the stage for this. So I had always felt that this creator must be really awesome, but because early on, and I don't know why, 15 I understood because I'd been reading well enough, you know, extensively enough, I understood the evidence for evolution and the fact that evolution was a mechanism. So, I began to become convinced that that God used evolution, we'll call this creator God, used evolution to bring about us, to bring about the universe, to bring about everything, and so I spent a lot of my time, in fact, I thought when I get out of grad school that that's what I would focus on but the military took me in different places. And I wanted to see if I could understand more about how evolution worked and how a creator might have brought this about. So when I got out of Edgewood, went to Dugway out there, there was -- obviously this is Mormon country and Mormons proselytize and they tried to proselytize Chris and I, and Mormons are wonderful people and my boss is a Mormon and I have an awful lot of respect for them, but we were invited to a Mormon gathering and treated wonderfully and they were a very friendly group of people and as we were going home, my wife and I were talking to one another -- no, we weren't talking to one -- we were very silent and one of us, and we don't remember to this day who said, "What did you think of that," and the other one said, "Well, my spirit was troubled," and the other one agreed that that was the case. And so we began looking at our roots and it turned out that at that point in time the chapel at Dugway -- now, let me explain something about Dugway. Even though I was a civilian because it was a remote post civilians were allowed to live on the installation, so we were living on the installation. So the chapel had just undergone a change in chaplains and my wife had started going -- after this incident she started going -- and she came home after one Sunday service fairly early in the process and said, "You got to listen, you've got to come and listen to this guy because he's talking about the evidence for God and for belief and, you know, the science of it all," and I said, oh, come on, this guy can't know what he's talking about. So, I went and come to find out he did. He had some very good compelling evidence. And so that started me on a year and a half of questioning, of investigation, of seriously considering the possibility that, in fact, this God that's talked about in the bible is, in fact, the same God, creator -- Lord God creator of the universe that I had been thinking about all along and worshipping myself. And after a year and a half of reading the bible, of seriously going to church, of going to adult Sunday school, of talking with people, et cetera, I was finally convinced and turned my life over to Jesus. So, from that point on I thought, well, OK, from here on I'm going to get back on to the track of this thing and it didn't happen, it didn't happen. I still continue the environmental movement and then about -- well, six years, six and a half years into being at Dugway my -- oh, I got to do the science fair. Don't let me forget to do the science fair. My wife's mom started showing symptoms of Alzheimer's and her dad began to try to deal with it. He was retired at the time. She never did work. And he was having some difficulty and as time went on it became increasingly obvious to us that Chris needed to go back and help her dad take care of her mom and it was a good time because at that particular point in time we had progressed enough in our understanding of what the Word says, the bible says, we felt that we had an obligation to honor our parents and come back here and so at the same time I had been working with a colleague of mine that we rode to work with. By then we had moved off the installation and we were living in a small town called Terra, Utah, which was ten miles east, roughly east, of the main gate Dugway Proving Ground, and it was across -- the ten miles were mostly across Skull Valley and the road was ten miles of absolutely arrow-straight road. So you got in your car, if you were awake it didn't matter because 16 you just aim, lock the steering wheel in, and ten miles later you were at the front gate. And so we had a lot of time for discussion as we were doing this and we had come up with an idea for -- we were both avid gardeners -- we come up with an idea for preserving, allowing us to start our garden early using some -- he was a chemist and I'm a biologist -- using some very well known, well established properties of water and when it freezes it gives off heat called the heat of fusion and that heat could protect your plants from freezing. They do it in orchards, for example, by spraying water. So we came up with a device and it took us a little while to come up with it, but we came up with a device called the Wall O' Water Plant Protector. And so I figured, alright, this is going to give me my key, we can go back here and this is going to provide enough income, but it became obvious to me that this was going to take awhile for this to grow and so I had been going to officers advance course with three people. One of them was a chaplain that had been involved with my coming to the Lord. Another one was a person that I met in Salt Lake City in Utah. This is Salt Lake where the course was, who was a business major and so the business major heard about what we were doing because one of the nights we had to talk about something we were doing and I talked about it and he said, "Oh, this is a great idea. I want to help you make this happen." So he became the president of the company and he got things rolling as far as the business side is concerned. And so I was convinced that this was going to be my key to being able to come back here. Well, as I said, it very quickly became obvious it was not. It takes, like any new idea, almost any new idea, it takes a long time to get going and I decided well I better consider trying to find a job back here. Well, it turned out that Chris had been flying back to help her dad for just a little while and on the same flight she ran into Roy Bear who was flying out Midwest for something, I can't remember what it was, and they got talking, of course they knew each other from here, and he said, "Well, you know, I have been teaching anatomy and physiology in summer school, and I just don't want to do it anymore. So there's an opportunity for Carl to teach that." Well, I had never, you know, my major was at the population level or above. I mean, my focus, and I had not really had much in the way of physiology. But I, you know, this is an opportunity, I couldn't refuse this. So I put in for it and I got the job and that was important because it filled in a part of my education that was lacking because I started focusing not at the population level and above in the levels of complexity, but at the species level and below in levels of complexity. So, it really rounded out my education by forcing me to learn the material. You know, if you want to learn something, teach it. And so all of that played a role in -- as I was going through and teaching I was seeing things that played into very nicely into this idea that, you know, there really is a creator behind all of this. And so in the middle of all of this I suddenly get a letter out of nowhere. I have no idea, and I've asked them and they won't tell me where they got my name, but I got a letter saying that the Oxford Round Table is having a session on faith and science, the great matter, and would I like to be involved in it. And my initial reaction was I'd like to be and I've been thinking about this a lot and I've got a lot of thoughts on it, but, boy, do I have time to put something together and my three sons said, yes, you've got to do this, Dad. And so I said yes and I put the paperwork through Norwich and they said yes and so I was invited to go to the Oxford Round Table and make a presentation. And that's when I had to formally put down all of my thoughts. Since that time, and that was published online and since that time I've had a chance to present it elsewhere and to develop the thoughts a lot more 17 and the evidence now is even more compelling in my mind than it was even when I did it at Oxford. The primary thing that we have to recognize is that -- and this is something that makes sense if there is a creator behind all of this, is that science now fully recognizes, there are very few scientists who don't agree with this, that the universe began with an event called the Big Bang, 13.82 billion years ago and that accompanying that event the universe was imbued with about 20 fundamental forces constants and masses whose values are such that if they weren't exactly what they were we wouldn't be having this recording and that does two things. It says A, there's a beginning, so if you've got a beginning logically you've got to have something who begins it. An uncaused cause as it's sometimes referred to, and, also, that that beginning was accompanied with some very suspicious characteristics. Now, science by definition, and properly so, eliminates -- it doesn't eliminate. It admits it cannot investigate miracles. It is just not designed to follow miracles. Science can give us insights that I think can help us to understand whether or not miracles are possible, whether or not there is a God. And the point that this revealed at the time was that we have enough information, science has enough information about that moment of creation or of coming into existence of the universe, let's not call it creation at this point, that it has to be explained or it can be explained only by invoking infinity because only with infinity can you get all of these 20 or so values coming together with their precise values. Presumably they're independent coming together and having a situation where you would have a universe come into existence because the probability of this happening is so, so very, very tiny, all of them with their values. So, there are about eight ways of the sciences come up with explaining this and all eight of them can be reduced to this use of infinity and I say there are three ways that we invoke infinity. Science embraces two. One is that the universe is infinite and we're in the part that works with these constants, these values, or the other is that there's an infinity of universes and we're in the one that works, or that the universe is created by an infinite mind. And quite honestly, at this point anyway, we cannot distinguish among those three. Each of them is arguably just as logical as the other. There are many scientists who would say that the third one is not acceptable and I would challenge them the way Ravi Zacharias and other people challenge them in that maybe they have some personal biases that they need to look at seriously. But be that as it may, I, in looking at this and accepting this, discovered that there are eight phenomena that keep recurring again and again at what I call essential conditions that in the evolution, in the progress, the evolution from the Big Bang to us whether it's cosmological or chemical or biological evolution, there are requisite conditions that have to occur and every time you find a requisite condition, you identify a requisite condition, there are eight phenomena that are associated with it that happen, that are met, and so it makes me wonder if there's this pattern, is there something behind the pattern? And that's where all this comes in and obviously I believe there is, there is a creator God behind this. JP: So this paper generated quite a bit of -- CP: Quite a bit of thought and discussion and continues to. Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the other reasons we wanted to come back to Norwich, to continue on in this vein, was that I had as part of the coming to a belief and a faith in Christ, and being at a military installation, it was logical that I would find Officers Christian Fellowship. Officers 18 Christian Fellowship is a fellowship, as it states, of officers in the military and this is the Army -- the US branch of it, but there's worldwide groups called by different names, who embrace Christian faith and use it, try to use it, in their life and in their leadership roles. And so I encountered it and became convinced that was something that Norwich could benefit from. And so one of the reasons we came back was to form a Christian fellowship at Norwich using Officers Christian Fellowship as our basic model. So we came back in 1982. Chris preceded me by about four months and so we -- I arrived here in March -- permanently arrived here in March of 1982, getting ready to teach that summer school course, and I began immediately looking for a student that would be interested in forming a Christian fellowship and I couldn't find any. I looked and went to the chapel, asked around, I was having no luck. And one day I was walking on the upper parade ground, I don't remember why, but I was walking on the upper parade ground towards Jackman on the western side and I saw a cadet coming toward me and the Holy Spirit said to me, "You see that cadet? He's the one I want you to talk to about starting a Christian fellowship." And of course my reaction, my immediate reaction, was yeah, sure. I'm so concerned about this that I just created that thought in my mind, and I said I'm not going to pay any attention to it. But the closer I got to this cadet, we were walking towards one another, the more I felt the Holy Spirit saying, "Do it, do it," and it got to the point where I knew that if I hadn't done it I would be in disobedience to God. I would be disobeying the Holy Spirit and so I stopped him. I said, "Young man, you probably are not going to understand what I'm about to tell you and you're going to think I'm nuts, but the Holy Spirit just told me that I'm supposed to talk to you about starting a Christian fellowship at Norwich," at which point he stopped, I mean, he was stopped. He kind of went, "You're kidding me," and kind of fell back, took a step back, and he said, "As I was coming towards you, the Holy Spirit was telling me that I've got to talk to you about starting a Christian fellowship at Norwich." So, that started the Norwich Christian Fellowship. The cadet's name was John Pitrowiski and we started a fellowship that was in 1982, and that must have been -- I'm gathering, I'm thinking it might have been in April, I didn't put the date down. And so that was still in the days when I think Norwich went further beyond May. I think they went to late May or beginning of June, and so it wasn't very long but he had a couple of friends from classes beneath him, Joe Saltsman being one of them, who wanted to be part of this. And so it continued from that year on. And so last year we celebrated our 30 th year together and it's been a great trip helping Norwich students who are inclined to follow the Lord and find out about Officers Christian Fellowship, et cetera. So John Pitrowski, I lost track of him because he was a senior and he graduated a month or two after we formed the fellowship. And I had assumed that I must have done this in the fall of '83 because, you know, I had to have had a longer year. I had almost a year with him before he left that was my assumption. So I went through all of the year books from '80 -- let's see, '82, it would be '83 on. I couldn't find his name so I -- you know, did I somehow get his name wrong? But I asked Joe Saltsman and he says, "Yeah, I remember John." So I knew I had it right and one day -- actually, about a year before our 30th, it all of a sudden dawned on me. I said, "Do you know what? Is it possible that he was in the class of '82?" So I got out the '82 yearbook and sure enough there he was. Come to find out he goes to a church in Waterbury very close to the church I go to.19 JP: You're kidding. CP: He's been around all of this time. JP: Oh, no kidding. CP: So, on the 30th, which was his 30th reunion of course, we got together and had a big celebration. JP: That's wonderful. Do you have time for STEM? CP: Sure, sure. What happened is as I -- when I was in the eighth grade at Northfield I entered the state science fair with my shell collection. Now, in this day and age you couldn't do that and that's not really important to understand, but one of the things that I had really gotten involved with as a kid, and why I was considering marine biology, is I loved shells. I loved the animals that made shells and I loved shells themselves because I'm kind of artistic and I kind of like art stuff as well. And shells are very beautiful, they're geometric, they're colorful, they're wonderful things. So I was naturally attracted to them. So I entered that in eighth grade, won first place in the state science and math fair, and then again in my senior year I did the same thing, only I did some research and did some dissections and had some studies that I had done. Again, not the kind of stuff that we now do in the science fairs, but at the time it was. And again I won first place. So I was kind of sold on science fairs. So from that time on I offered to judge in science fairs. So at the University of Illinois, in Utah I judged, in Maryland I judged, I think, and I'm not 100 percent sure whether I did or not, but I know at the University of Illinois I did and in Utah I did. In Utah, because I was coming in from Dugway Proving Ground I was coming in as an Army judge and it was part of my assignment, my military points to do this as a military judge. So I did it for a year or two and one of the guys that I was doing it with had been working with the Army Research Office and their program of judging the International Science and Engineering Fair. So he'd been part of the Army judges for them. And he said, "I'm going to have to get out of this. Would you like to take my place?" So I said, "Well, yeah." So that year the international fair was in San Antonio and I went there and became a member of the Army judging team, generally about 30 judges every year from the Army would judge the International Science and Engineering Fair and give wonderful prizes. We sent students to the Plum Blossom Festival in Japan or the Fortnight in England, in London. You know, when the Army judges came around the students took notice. So it was a great assignment and a great opportunity and they treat the judges really well. Afterwards they have a big shindig for them with lots of cheese and lots of hors d'oeuvres and lots of wine and stuff, and I said, boy, this is a deal! So I became sold on that and did for the next 25 years served in that capacity almost every year. A couple years I didn't make it and in the last five I was the Chief Army Judge in charge in all of those 30 judges and also got some other assignments related to that. I became the Army judge for the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, which is a similar kind of thing done at about the same time of year, but rather than having a poster session, which is what the International Science and Engineering Fair poster presentation judges. The National Junior Science and 20 Humanities Symposium has a platform presentation. So it's a different -- you can, you know, sometimes the same projects can be in both but there are different ways of presenting the information. So, that convinced me that, I mean, I was already convinced, but that certainly drove the nail home that I was very much still interested in STEM and then I came to Norwich and of course the science fair was being held here and so I immediately became a judge in the science fair and recognized that Vermont State Science and Math Fair was not, it was one of the two or three states not involved in ISEF, and said, you know, I've got to get it involved but I just do not have the time to teach and to do the Vermont State Science and Math Fair component that would get us involved with ISEF. But I made a pledge that I would, to myself, I guess, that once I retired from the military in 2003 because that was when I turned 60, that I would make an effort to get us involved with ISEF. And at that point I had been working with Mary Hoppe and, oh, come on, I'm drawing a blank here. We'll have to get that back up. What's her name? [Martha McBride] Anyway, who had been the two directors, working with them to kind of be an understudy. And so the next year I said I'm going to continue this process as an understudy and I'm going to link us up with ISEF. Now, the main thing about ISEF is you send, at that time, one winner on to international -- from your state fair, on to the International Science and Engineering Fair to compete there, but that requires money and of course the science fair had no money. I mean, it had very little money that they were -- the major initiative that I saw I had to do with come up with a way of getting money and that has become a really time consuming operation. We raise in terms of actual awards and prizes and trip money, we raise about $25,000 a year now and it takes a lot of time to do that even though I have -- almost all of that is coming from established partners, as we call them, because every year you have to renew it, you have to send out emails, you have to send out letters, you have to follow up on them. Some of them follow up themselves, some of them you have to follow up on. You have to record all of this so you know what you did because we have over 120 partners. It's trying to keep all of them straight. You know, what conversation you had with which one three weeks ago is just, you know, you've got to keep accurate records of that. So it's a very time consuming process. But we are really making progress, we are making headway. We are getting more and more students involved in science fair projects and of course the problem with our country -- one of the problems with our country today -- is that many of our students look at Science Technology Engineering and Math, STEM, as being over their heads, over their ability, and we want to make sure that students understand that in many cases that's not the case. It's that they haven't had the opportunities to get excited by it. For example, when I was in the science fair as a senior, that was during the space race and I remember going from the state science fair to the New England science fair and that was during the New England science fair was the -- we heard over the speakers an announcement that the US had successfully sent our first astronaut into orbit. And so those were exciting times and those are the kinds of things that get people's kids' imagination going. Well, we needed something like that because let's face it, if we're going to retain our position as strategically as number one in the world, we have got to have a good Science Technology Engineering, and Math. I had recognized, having been travelling a few other places in the world that the US, high school STEM scores were very woefully low and yet, here we are number one in the world. How can that be? Well, there's a number of reasons, but one of the reasons is, what I had discovered was happening at Norwich, is that between 21 high school and graduating from college the role of the university in this country is to push our kids. It's really important that we push our kids and make them learn the stuff that other kids were learning in high school elsewhere around the world. And, for example, in Japan they're pushed hard, they do well in high school and they score well, but my oldest son, English as a second language teacher in Japan, so we went over to visit him and it turns out that their college over there is almost a lark. And so we can catch up with them and we do catch up with them and we pass them. Certainly other reasons for this is we get a lot of influx from the best of the foreign countries as well, too. I'm not trying to downplay that. But it became obvious to me that we really needed to do something positive and we need to do something positive to encourage our young kids to discover that science, technology, engineering, and math are wonderful and they're exciting and they're full of all kinds of challenges and opportunities and experiences that you're not going to get any other way and I think we're beginning to get that. JP: That's wonderful. You have done so much and you have been -- CP: I've been blessed. I haven't really tried to do this or do that. It's just that things have fallen in my path and I think because of Norwich I don't hesitate, I don't pull back from taking advantage of them, but I really have been blessed with lots of opportunities, lots of fun stuff. JP: You have done a lot of really amazing things. The Pinkham Pearson Index alone, notwithstanding the other stuff. Do you have any relatives at Norwich besides your dad? CP: My oldest brother, the one who said that I should stay in the military, in the reserves, David, who lives in Montpelier, he's still around. He's 87 I think. He was in the Second World War and after the war he came to Norwich for two years in engineering. He actually showed me a paper he wrote on nuclear power (laughs) that at the time of the Second World War was still a concept, and then he transferred to Cornell to finish his degree in engineering. So he's part of Norwich. I have two of my three sons attended Norwich and youngest, well, the middle son went to Vermont, VC, Vermont College, when it was part of Norwich and my youngest son came here and majored in psychology and actually has gotten a masters from Norwich in the masters degree, online degree program in criminal justice management or administration. JP: What's his name? CP: Kristian Pinkham. JP: Kristian Pinkham. Amazing. The Pinkhams at Norwich. CP: And the middle one is Kreig Pinkham. JP: With a C or K?22 CP: K. All my three sons are with K's. Kevin is my oldest. He's an English professor carrying on the family tradition of teaching down at Nyack College in New York, and Kreig is the director of the Washington County Youth Service Bureau, which is really responsible for homeless and run away youth in the state of Vermont. And my youngest son is a DEA agent in El Paso, Texas. JP: Wow, that's amazing! Gosh, I want to ask you a little bit about what advice would you give a rook today about how to survive and thrive the way that you did? CP: Well, the first thing is, again, remember -- and I still tell them this -- the two things that I think are important. One is that nothing lasts forever and so you can get through the rook school, the rook experience. If you keep this in mind it will keep you sane. And secondly, that if you allow it to, Norwich will push you and will help you to develop as an individual, but you've got to go along with the flow. You can't resist the flow. You've got to take advantage of the opportunities that it provides. I think that's really important. And of course, obviously, the students that I come into contact with through Norwich Christian Fellowship, I say to continue to develop your spiritual understanding, your spiritual walk, your spiritual self. And as a teacher I think I made it clear in my courses. On the first day of course I said, first day of class I said, "You've got to understand that I am a Christian and my worldview is formed by that -- is informed by that. I will not mention anymore about it in class. You will hear an awful lot about evolution in class because I'm an evolutionary biologist and if you feel that there is a problem between the two, I'm more than happy to talk with you about how that problem is not real, but that's got to be done outside of class." And so I made it clear in all of my classes that that was something that I -- that they needed to know about me in order to be fair and open. JP: Wow. How do you define leadership or have you already, do you think? CP: Well, to be honest with you, I've not given a whole lot of thought to what leadership really is, but on the spot I would have to say that leadership is a willingness to lead and a willingness to -- openness to see opportunities and to think creatively about these opportunities and how you might use them. And that's a good question because it brings up another story that I think I would like to relate to. And that is the story of the Russian scientist. Shortly after I left Edgewood as my individual mobilization designee assignment, I was assigned back to Edgewood from Dugway. And the two weeks that I was at Edgewood, my boss had -- because he was a North American peregrine falcon banding program coordinator, had gone to Russia, not during that two weeks, but he had earlier gone to Russia and met with and formed a working relationship with his Russian corresponding -- his Russian equivalent, and he and another Russian scientist were scheduled to come to the US during this two weeks that I was going to be assigned to Edgewood Arsenal, to Scott's group. And so this was during the Cold War, but there was some efforts at detent and this being something where there was no weapon system involved or anything like that. It was something as regarded by the government as being worthwhile. So I was invited by Scott to help him get his -- he had just bought a dilapidated Southern mansion in Maryland to get it up kind of a little bit in shape for this 23 meeting. And so I helped him do it and the Russians came and we spent an evening toasting one another and going through bottles after bottles of vodka and, again, my Norwich training came through because I was able to drink two Russians under the table. I'm not overly -- well, yes, I'm proud of that. Let's face it. I don't drink that way anymore, but at the time there was a value to it because when I was at Norwich, I drank like a Norwich student. So, anyway, in the process of that evening, we had a conversation and it was very obvious to me in this conversation that something was wrong, and I'm going to explain what was wrong, but I've got to go back just a little bit. In grad school finished all my courses except for one, population genetics. Population genetics was taught by a newly minted post-doc who had the audacity to expect his students to think. Well, I was a good student because I was fantastic at rote memory, I wish I still were, but at that time I was really good at it. And I wasn't used to a course where they said think and I got a 48 on the final exam and he was good enough to give me a D in the course. I had been essentially a straight A student and that shook me up as you can well imagine. And so I had to ask myself, is thinking a skill that I don't have? Is it something I'll never have or is it a skill that can be acquired? So I started researching thinking, creative thinking, and discovered that it is a skill that can be learned that every human being is born with it but quite often the school system teaches us out of it. In my case it was perhaps the school system, but more important, understand I love my father and he was a wonderful person, but he was an old guard, old school military guy. It was his way or not. So very quickly I learned it didn't do any good to think, it didn't do any good to explain things to him, my side of the story, because there was only his side of the story, so I stopped learning how to think. And so I got to this moment in grad school, this crisis moment, and discovered that I didn't know how to think. From the studies, however, from taking courses and everything I learned how to think and that's why I've got several patents and I've been able to come up with the Pinkham Pearson Index, et cetera. But as I was talking with these Russians, it became very obvious to me they were suffering from the same problem I had been suffering from. It was dangerous for them to think. So the only way they could come up with any thought whatsoever was to just randomly go all over the place and hope that somewhere sooner or later they would stumble across something that was useful and relevant. At that instant I knew we had won the Cold War. It was clear to me that they were fighting an impediment that would just prevent them from doing anything that we had to worry about. And, in fact, that's the way it turned out. JP: That's a nice -- that's a good story, big picture, little picture. Is there anything else that you would like to say? Anything about the Citizen Soldier or -- CP: The Citizen Soldier is a very, very important concept and I'd like to think that I embody it. The reason I feel that way is because I think I embody it, but the soldier doesn't always have to be, obviously, a fighting individual in the sense of a combat. Combat service and combat service support are two very, very important aspects of the military and you can be in combat, and my hat is off to everyone who is in that position, whose life is at risk, willingly puts their life at risk for their country and for their comrades, but there's also a role for those of us who are a little bit less brave, like myself, who want to serve and have a gift to give to the country but can give it in a way where the risk to life 24 and limb is not anywhere nearly as great as it is in the combat arms. So, I think the Citizen Soldier is a very important aspect that we need to be aware of and promote. And I'm proud to say I'm a part of Norwich which founded the concept. And I generally don't miss opportunities when I'm talking with youngsters to point that out to them. JP: Is there anything else you'd like to add? CP: Probably, but I can't think of it right now. I think that's about it. JP: That's about it. Thank you. CP: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for the opportunity, I enjoyed this. This is fun. JP: This has been fascinating and I think it's going to be fascinating for people to hear. I think it's going to be very interesting for people who are interested in the different things you've spoken about and to hear you say them. So thank you. I'm going to hit stop. I need to do a little intro. And we're back with Carl Pinkham. CP: So the parting Norwich story while I was a student has to do with three events that happened my last three days at Norwich. On Friday I was commissioned a second lieutenant in armor. On Saturday I was married to Christine Waite who has been my wife for almost 50 years and on Sunday I graduated. JP: That's a busy -- CP: That's a very busy time. (laughter) JP: That's good. CP: That's it. JP: Thank you. END OF AUDIO FILE
Transcript of an oral history interview with W. Russell Todd conducted by Joseph Cates at the Sullivan Museum and History Center on May 16 and May 19, 2016, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project. W. Russell Todd graduated from Norwich University in 1950 and was president of the university from 1982 to 1992. In his interview, he discusses his thirty-two years of active duty in the U.S. Army as well as his experiences at Norwich University. ; 1 W. Russell Todd, NU '50, Oral History Interview Interviewed on May 16, 2016 and May 19, 2016 At Sullivan Museum and History Center Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: This is Joseph Cates. Today is May 16th, 2016. I'm interviewing General Russell Todd. This interview is taking place at the Sullivan Museum and History Center. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. OK, first tell me your full name. RUSSELL TODD: William Russell Todd. JC: When were you born? RT: I was born on the first day of May, 1928, in Seattle, Washington. JC: What Norwich class are you? RT: Class of 1950. My father was 26. My son was -- I'll think about that. JC: Well, we'll get back to that. Tell me about where you grew up and your childhood. RT: For the first year of my life we lived in Seattle, Washington. Dad had a job with a lumber company out there, getting experience to come back to work for his father, who ran a lumber company just outside Milton, Massachusetts. So I grew up for the first nine or ten years in Milton, Massachusetts, a very nice place, right on the edge of where Mattapan and Milton come together. There was a lot of traffic. Well, just for an example, during that period of time I came up with my dad to his fifteenth reunion, and the difference in traffic between where we lived and what we found up here was considerable. When I got back to school on Monday the teacher said, "Russell had a day off. He's now going to tell us what he saw." Well, nothing came to mind, and I stood and told them that I had seen something they had never seen, miles and miles and miles of dirt roads. Now I live on one. (laughs) JC: Was that the first time you were ever at Norwich? RT: Yeah. JC: What was your impression of it when you first saw it? RT: It was a very interesting period of time. It was just before World War II affected the United States, and many, many people were sending their sons to Norwich -- rather than perhaps better prepared schools -- because they could get a commission. They assumed that everyone was going to go to war, and the opportunity of getting an education and a commission together at the same time really appealed to a lot of people. Our football team got everybody we wanted of great quality. We won all the games in that time 2 frame. And we had some very, very fine people who came back in 1946, the year I entered the university, and they made a big impression on my life. JC: I'm sure. I assume the buildings were the same. There weren't any new buildings between the time that you went and -- RT: As a matter of fact it was 1941 I believe, and two buildings on the main parade ground were being dedicated. One wasn't quite finished, and the other was, and two new dormitories shows you an example of what I was saying, how it was a golden period in Norwich's history. But saying that, the opposite is true when the war ends. You remember that we had, what, 15 cadets come up here after the Civil War. They all got off the train, (laughs) yeah, we don't think much about that. It's happened each time there's been a war. The incentive, or the idea, or the concept of perhaps having to serve didn't appeal to a lot of people at the end of wars. JC: Right. You kind of have a boom before the war and a bust after the war. RT: Yeah. JC: What made you decide to come to Norwich? RT: I think probably that trip did, that and the fact my dad was always talking about it. He would make us on Saturday nights -- eating beans and franks -- to sing Norwich songs around the table. (laughs) JC: Do you remember any of those Norwich songs? RT: There's a good one. What is it? "Oh, My First Sergeant" "Oh, my first sergeant, he is the worst of them all. He gets us up in the morning before first call. It's fours right, fours left, and left foot into line. And then the dirty son of a buck, he gives us double time. Oh, it's home, boys, home. It's home we ought to be. Home, boys, home, in the land of liberty. And we'll all be back to Norwich when the sergeant calls the roll." JC: That's wonderful. (laughter) I've heard in some of the oral histories "On the Steps of Old Jackman," but I haven't heard that one before. (Todd laughs) So when you came here with your father, was that during homecoming? RT: Well, homecoming and graduation were the same period of time. It was fascinating to me. It was a cavalry school. They had all kinds of drills that we went to and watched, and prizes were awarded. People loading up the water-cooled submachine guns on horseback and racing around, then taking them down, and putting in ammunition blanks, and firing -- you know, first, second, and third prizes kind of thing. Oh, yeah, that impressed me. Then, of course, the parades were fun to see. But it took about three days to get through graduation and homecoming as a single entity. JC: When you came to Norwich what did you major in? 3 RT: That's an interesting story. As I said, Norwich was having trouble at that time recruiting people, and I got recruited by the president of the university. We met in Boston, and he asked me all the things I was interested in, and to him it looked like I should be an engineer, and he wanted me to take an exam that would carry that forward. Well, I took the exam, and I became an engineer, and about the first part of the second semester I discovered you really had to do the homework. I really didn't like that much, and I wasn't doing very well, so I changed my major to history and economics. I really found that fascinating. JC: Well, tell me about what it was like being a rook here. RT: Yeah, another interesting thing. I was sold on the rook system, and my dad had always talked about it. When he brought me up here, people would drop off their suitcases, and go right out onto the parade ground, and start being ordered around by the corporal. I thought that was great. I never seemed super. But I didn't have many followers on that. I was very anxious that my father leave, and get out of there, and go home, and I convinced him to do that. But after, oh, maybe a month the class, who had elected class officers by that time, called a class meeting, and we all got together -- I've forgotten where now. "We got to stop this. We got to tell these guys we're not going to put up with this nonsense. We've got to show our power." I stood up and said, "Gentlemen, this isn't what we want to do. We want to put up. We want to show him we can do it," and I got booed right off the stage. However, they eventually made me class secretary, so I didn't lose all my friends that day. (laughs) JC: Now let's talk about post-war Norwich, because you did say there's kind of a bust. There isn't as many people. RT: Yeah, I think we had 200 in our class, and there was no really classes of Bubbas. Norwich toward the end of the war, when they were really desperate to get money to pay salaries to the faculty, had a high-school level. I think it was two years, the high-school level, and many people went into that and came up here, and that toward the end made some income for the university. But what it did for us, as an incoming class of freshmen, we had our officers, lieutenants, who were younger than we were, but they'd been here two years. You know, that didn't sit over very well either. That was difficult. JC: And the cavalry was still here at that time. RT: It was, yeah, for the first two years of my term and tenure at Norwich, at that point. JC: What do you remember about the horse cavalry? RT: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, let's just put it this way. The first person I visited in Northfield when I came back as president was my old sergeant [Kenoyer?], who we hated. He was tough. But on the other hand, we really liked him, and I felt very, very sorry for him, and I really wanted to see him. His son had won entry into West Point, and 4 about two nights before he was to report in he and a bunch of his buddies were in an automobile accident. I think they were hit by a train and killed. Sergeant [Kenoyer?] was never the same after that. He continued to ride horses in the parades in Northfield and that kind of thing. But he was a character. His education was perhaps at the level he was working, taking care of the horses, and taking care of the riding. He was a good man, but, for example, I had a roommate named George Pappas who was scared to death of the horses, and some of the horses knew it. They knew when you were afraid. And old George would step into the stable area, ready to put on the harness, and that old horse would just back him into the wall and lean on him -- oh, you win. Then, of course, [Kenoyer?] would come by and say, "Kick him in the neb with your knee!" Well, no one was going to do that, trapped in there. So George, he decided that he would skip equitation classes, and instead he took 10 demerits for every single class that he was supposed to be at, and he spent his first semester walking around the parade ground on Saturdays carrying a rifle, doing tours. Many things can be said about George. That's a whole other story of absolute wonder. But it was difficult. We only went down once a week actually to use them, but there really wasn't a hell of lot you can learn in one-hour time once a week. But toward the end of the freshman year we were out trotting around in the neighborhoods, etc. I remember one time one of the captains in the Army ROTC program there, officers, Army officers, lead us on a parade, and we went out across the railroad tracks and up into the hills. And on the way back the horses got the idea they themselves would like to jog back to the stables, and we came charging down that hill totally out of control. Some of the horses and men went all the way to downtown before they came under it. I went through the football practice. (laughs) It wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. Now there were some people here, including a classmate by the name of Bob [Bacharat?] [00:13:18] who really was a polo player. He came from Switzerland. I think that's the reason he came to Norwich was to be able to play polo, and we played polo in that time frame with people like Miami who flew their horses up here. Now, I never saw the plane, but we were told all this and a few years earlier, before the war, that Norwich was playing the big colleges and winning. Toward the end of the first year we played something called broom polo, which they'd throw out a basketball on the floor, and then you'd have to hit it with a broom to get it to go to the goal. Those kinds of things were fun to watch. I remember one time George, my roommate, in skipping class went up into the stands, which are on the south end of the hall, but up above in a balcony, and he opened the window and got a snowball, several of them, and put them up there. When somebody would go by, the stove down on the floor -- there were four stoves in that place -- they'd get red hot, but they really didn't make a hell of a lot of difference when the temperature was 30 below or whatever it might have been outside. And the horses, when you'd take them from the stable to the riding hall, would fight you all the way; they didn't want to go out in that cold. But George, on one occasion, dropped snowballs on those red-hot stoves, and you can imagine, they hissed. As the horse went by, this great hiss came out, and the horse would throw the guy, or run for the far -- I went hell bent for election to the far wall. And when he stopped, I went right up onto his neck and was hanging on. Sergeant [Kenoyer?] came over and gave me hell, you know, "You didn't take control of that horse." (inaudible) [00:15:36] There are people lying down all 5 around, and the horses are running around. Well, there's a certain romance in having the horses, so long as you're sitting in the stands watching a polo game. (laughs) JC: Had you ever ridden a horse before? RT: No, never. JC: So you didn't have any experience with horses. RT: Neither did anybody else. Yeah, yeah. They were wonderful animals though, for the most part. JC: Now you said a lot of the people that were there before the war came back after the war to finish up. RT: Mm-hmm. A lot may be too much of an adjective to use, but Alumni Hall was essentially filled with non-married veterans, or veterans who hadn't brought their wives back. Civilian clothes and having nothing to do with the military. The rest of the dormitories were filled with 200 and whatever it was cadets, and the very few upperclassmen like the one I mentioned who came up through the high school route. We didn't have a lot to do with them, and they were very serious about their studies in the classrooms, very serious about their studies. The fraternization took place after the first of the year when we could go into a fraternity house, and I remember the older veterans -- older, 22 maybe -- who were in Theta Chi, where I was, were a remarkable bunch of people and very, very much appreciated. They didn't always come to dinner with us, but they were in the house and participated with it. They ranged all the way from a parachutist in Europe to a lieutenant colonel in the air force. So that's a big gap. But they were great guys who made fraternity life reasonable. JC: Well, tell me about Theta Chi. Why did you choose that one? RT: Oh, yeah, the same old story, the same reason I came here. My dad was a Theta Chi. Why, of course that's what I'd do. This is my father's fraternity, you know. JC: So what were the fraternities like? RT: They weren't too bad. When General Harmon eliminated them, I thought it was the right thing to do, because there weren't fraternities at other military colleges. And when they were started I really believe they were very useful. They were much more an eating club, and since there wasn't a mess in the university in the 1850s. If you look into some of the old records you'll see at graduation time they invited the alumni back to have dinner, and they had dances. They had inter-fraternity baseball and football, etc. We were trying at my time, in my fraternity, to replicate that. It wasn't perhaps as successful as it might have been. It was great fun to beat SigEp in baseball or something. But it was a different part of the university. I remember one time when I was a corporal, and one of the men in the rank under me, in the barracks, was in the fraternity. We get down to the fraternity, 6 and he would give me a hard time for giving him a hard time. It wasn't what I thought it should be, but it was a good time. I mean, don't misunderstand me. Well, it was a fraternity. (laughs) The girls came in by train, if they were away. Carol came up several times on a train to spring break, or a winter carnival, and that kind of thing. That was good sport to have a place where we could party. There was no drinking - baloney, there wasn't. (Coates laughs) I remember one time we were having lunch, and one of the seniors, one of the veterans that had come back, was the president of the house, and he said, "Our Theta Chi member on the faculty, old Professor Woodbury, is going to be our chaperone for the party. Does anybody know Professor Woodbury?" "I know Professor Woodbury. My father told me about him. I've met him once." He said, "Good. You and your date will sit in the living room with the Woodburys while we're down in the basement drinking." (laughter) It wasn't much fun that night. We had the bars hidden behind sliding doors, or doors that pulled down, and all this kind of stuff, so if we got word that there was someone from the faculty coming we could close it up and all sit down, smile, and look like there was no alcohol in the place. JC: Can you tell me a little bit about winter carnival and some of the dances that you all had? RT: They were good sport. Much of the fun though centered around the fraternity at that time. Yes, of course we went to the dance, etc., but before going to the dance we probably went to the fraternity, and certainly after the dance we went to the fraternity, and that was really good sport. In my senior year my roommate, Rollin S. Reiter, from Ohio decided that in his fraternity they were going to have a special Christmas party. Now, it didn't make an awful lot of sense, because it was right at exam time. We took exams right in that time frame, so he really had to work to get these guys. They were going to do it in tuxedoes, not in our uniforms, so that slowed it down a little, too. But one of the guys, Chubby Jordan, who has since passed away, he was a brigadier general in the Massachusetts National Guard later on, an ex-marine. He didn't want to go do it, so they convinced him that he had to do it, and they would get him a date. When he went to the fraternity house, he was introduced to the worst looking girl in the place, and he immediately started drinking beer and avoiding her and all this. It wasn't even the girl they were going to match him up with, and they just were teasing him something awful. When he got very sleepy they put him on the pool table, laid out flat like in a mortuary and put two lit candles, one at either end of him on the pool table. It was a sight for sore eyes. (laughs) JC: I bet it was. Now you were on the rook committee while you were there? RT: Yeah. In my sophomore year I was the head of the rook committee, elected by the class. During the summer period of time I had to get together with the printers and the university and go through this business. There were big posters that said "Beware, Rook, Beware," and then they listed all the things down. We'd get them printed up here by John Mazuzan down in the Northfield Press, and then we'd sell them to the rooks at $1 apiece. I don't know what we did with the money, in the class coffers I guess. Yeah. I remember that President Dodge, who had no military experience previous, but was a very, very well known scientist and had been the dean of one of the big Midwestern schools in that area, 7 he was brought in by some hefty people on the board of trustees. He didn't fit. He didn't understand us. He was a great academic and did some very fine things for the university. But he called me in one day, as head of the rook committee, and said, "When will this period end?" This was right after supper. I said to him, "Sir, it's very clear. It's right on the chart." He said, "I want it to end at Thanksgiving." I said, "Sir, I don't think you're talking to the right guy. You should really be talking to the commandant of cadets, your left-hand man." He said, "Well, I don't know if I can convince him," and I thought, oh, my God, what have we got here, you know. (laughter) He was a fine gentleman, but the minute it was possible for the alumni to discover that General Harmon might be available, in May of my senior year, Dodge was gone. The alumni just -- it wasn't working the way they wanted to see it work. JC: So Harmon was not president any of the time that you were here? RT: His inauguration was held at the same time as my graduation. It was one thing. He had been here for maybe a month, and I remember that we had a football banquet, and they invited General Harmon to come. And he stood up and told us all that he had been here as a cadet, and he had come back in 1935 as the commandant of cadets, and he loved and understood this university, and he was going to make it famous, you know, kind of, "Yeah!" Just the kind of story we needed. Then he told us a story that just curdled me. It was a dirty story. I'd never heard some guy stand up in a dinner and tell a dirty story. It sort of surprised me. He had that reputation. As a matter of fact, one time later in my career, when I was in the army, I was asked by my boss if I would go back to Hamilton, Massachusetts, where I had lived at one time and see Mrs. George Patton, and tell her that her son-in-law -- as a brigadier general -- was about to be sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He was married to one of Patton's daughters, and he is now a bachelor. I was to go with three sets of quarters' plans and say, "Which of these, General, would you choose, because we at Fort Knox can now get the house painted up and ready for you, and all this kind of stuff ahead of time?" Well, Mrs. Patton agreed. When the time actually came general orders was late in his itinerary and couldn't be there, so she said, "Why don't you and Carol just come to dinner, and we'll talk about this? I will pass your message to Johnny when he comes through next week, and your leave is over." So that was just fine. But we had a quiet period in that Mrs. Patton was at one end of a long table, and I was at the other end, and Carol was in the middle, and there was a little old maid with a bonnet on her head, and an apron moving around quietly around the room. Everything went silent, and I said, "I can handle this." I said to Mrs. Patton, "Mrs. Patton, do you happen to know General Harmon?" And she said, "Indeed, I do, Russell, and he's a very disgusting man." (laughter) Now as it turns out, she gave an award right after that, she gave an award at Norwich of a similar pistol of General Patton's famous (inaudible) [00:29:38] to the leading cadet. But she was clear. (laughter) JC: Yeah, I've heard stories about General Harmon. RT: He did a great job. He stayed too long, but he did a great job. 8 JC: Well, what clubs were you in when you were here at Norwich? RT: Yeah, I went out for football. I'd come from a little school in Wenham, Massachusetts, where we played six-man football, and if one guy was sick, it didn't look like we were going to play, you know, kind of thing. I went out for football in Beverly High School, and that was danger. I mean, I wasn't up to that. When we got to Norwich I said, "I'm going back out for football. This looks like --" They were mostly freshmen. There were some veterans that came back, and there were some very good veteran players who came back but weren't interested in playing football. They wanted to study and have a family life. So Norwich had a terrible football team during that period of time. About the second day of practice Joe Garrity, who'd been a friend of my dad's who I had known, put his arm on my shoulder as we walked back to the locker room and said, "I've got a job for you." And I thought to myself, I'm going to be quarterback for the freshman team. And he said, "You're my manager, how about that?" and I said, "Oh, OK." Later in life, when I became president, the alumni director here, Dave Whaley, took me out to visit various alumni clubs. In Chicago a fellow named Hale Lait, who played football and was co-captain in his senior year, started to walk up to us, and Dave says, "Mr. Lait, do you know General Todd?" Hale Lait says, "Shit, he used to wash my jock." (laughter) And it was true! We had a big laundry over there. JC: Were you in any other clubs while you were here? RT: Yeah, I'd have to think upon it. We had an international relations club that I became president of at some point of time under -- oh, come on, his name is skipping me. I'll come back to it. But we brought I people to speak on the issues, and then Norwich formed an alliance with the other colleges where we were all working together, and that was sort of fun working that out. Oh, incidentally, when I was manager for the freshman team I had to write all the letters to the other schools and make all the arrangements, all that kind of thing. It sort of surprised me that the university wasn't doing that; the athletic department wasn't doing that. JC: Did you have a favorite professor when you were here? RT: Yeah, and I just told you I couldn't remember his name. (laughter) Sidney Morse. JC: Oh, OK. RT: Old Sidney Morse was a terrible lecturer, but he was a genius, you know. He understood American history, and that was his forte, and he also was a wonderful human being and understood us. He really got me to dig in and start getting decent grades. He would lecture, but he would have side comments on this thing, and there we are taking notes left and right. I never wanted to miss a class under any circumstances. He invited some of us -- one of them being me -- over to dinner, and he was just a great sport. He was not a big man in stature, but a big man in intellect. JC: Was there a professor you particularly didn't like? 9 RT: Oh, there were some who I'd rather not name who I didn't appreciate or think that they were at the level they should be. JC: What was the favorite class you ever took here? RT: I guess it was history. That's what I worked at. Let me go back to what I didn't like. We lost -- somehow, I don't know how -- one of the economics professors, and President Dodge brought in somebody in mid-semester, and this guy had written many books and was well appreciated around the world, but he was terrible. He couldn't remember any names, he refused to take any attendance, so people didn't come. You could answer him back and forth. I was told, I can't vouch for this, I was told by the people that say they did it. They invited him out the night before his final exam to join them for dinner in Montpelier, and when the time came, they picked up the tip, and went down to the railroad station, and put him on a train going to Montreal. (laughter) I believe it was true. But he just wasn't accustomed to teaching at our level in that circumstance. He was someone that should have continued writing his books. He was essentially a sociologist, but that was a while. I got called in by the dean for skipping class, and the dean was a great guy at that time. I was a little embarrassed by it, but the class was mostly veterans in this particular -- in economics. You know, they had their way. They weren't required to come to class. If they didn't come to class it chalked up one of a series you could have freer, but cadets didn't have that, so I just played like I was a veteran to old Mumbles [McLeod?]. That's what they called him, Mumbles. When the dean called me in, I got right back on it. JC: Decided you'd rather go back to class. RT: Yeah. JC: Did you ever get in much trouble when you were here? RT: Not really. I came close a number of times. Well, let me go back and talk about Carol. Carol and I met one time when we were in about the ninth grade. She was in Beverly, Massachusetts, and we were living in Hamilton, Massachusetts, at the time, and the Congregation youth groups met at a third place, Essex, Massachusetts. There were lots of people of our ages. You know, these groups didn't know each other. And I spotted her. She was -- wow! Wow, yeah. But I never got to speak to her before we broke up and went back. A couple of years later in Beverly High School -- we'd moved to Wenham, and Wenham didn't have a high school, so I went to Beverly High School. Todd with a T and Wyeth with W happened to have lockers opposite each other on the wall, and I said, "My God, there's that girl." I went over and spoke to her, and she invited me to her birthday party, and that'll show it all started with us. But it came to a point in our sophomore year when I had changed from engineering into history and economics. I had to make up some subject material that I didn't get in the first part, and I went to the University of New Hampshire trying to make it up. I went down on the weekend to her house in Beverly, and I stayed with her aunt 10 who lived next door. She was on my team. But Carol when we were -- she said, "Let's stop this tennis game for a minute. I want to talk to you." We walked up to the net, and she said, "You know, I'm through with this relationship. You're never going to be serious about anything you do in your life; you're going to be a perennial sophomore. I want to do more with my life than you are going to do, and this isn't going to work out." OK, I'll show you. I came back and studied like hell for the last two years I was here and sort of caught up. But it was interesting, when I was invited back at graduation time to be the officer who commissions everybody, and at that time the university ordered a master's or a PhD, you know, honorary to the speaker. Loring Hart didn't tell me whether I was supposed to say anything or not, so I had in my pocket a little thing I would say. It went something like this. It is indeed an honor to be here. I represent my classmates in this ceremony, and I'm very proud of the way Norwich is moving. But I would like you to know that 25 years ago, this very day, I received a letter from the committee on academic degrees and standings that read to this effect: "Dear Cadet Todd, The committee has met and has agreed to allow you to graduate (laughs) based on the circumstances that were not your fault." (laughter) So, you know, that's the way life went for me. I dug in and did relatively well. But another interesting thing about that. I don't know about anybody else, but I had a picture in my mind of VMI, and the Citadel, and all these places as being superior to Norwich in their military training, etc. But when I got in the army I discovered that 50% of them were duds, and it just changed my life around and my feelings about my institution. Yeah, it was strange. JC: When you graduated from Norwich what was the first -- you went into the army. RT: Yeah. JC: Did you go straightaway into the army, or was there a period? RT: Well, some of us -- I think it was 12, maybe as many as 15 -- received an opportunity to go into the regular army, not into the reserve army. I was one of those. About half of my classmates who were given that ability to do that chose not to do it, so there were a number of us that went. Upon graduation we received our commission in the United States Army Reserve, and then two weeks later I was brought into the regular army with another commissioning thing, which happened to be by my father's Norwich roommate, Colonel [Rice?] in Boston. He was running something in Boston for the army at the time. That was sort of fun. Then I went immediately off. We graduated about 15 or 17 May or something, June rather. On the second day of July, I reported in to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Light at Fort Meade, Maryland, as one of these people you had a regular army commission. So there wasn't any time -- there was time enough in between that the family all went down to Cape Cod for a two-week vacation, but I graduated and went into the army. JC: Now did you get married before you were in the army? 11 RT: No, no. No, no. I was still trying to get back in Carol's good graces. Before I left -- well, I went, as I said, to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Now the army was doing something really stupid at that time. They had been told to reduce the army's personnel requirements, and rather than reducing in any reasonable way, they chose to take one-third of every squad, one-third of every company, one-third of every battalion, one-third of every regiment. It was a paper army. It couldn't really operate well at all. But when the war broke out in Korea they took from those drawn-down forces and sent them over as individual replacements, supposedly to go into units that also had the same kind of vacancy that was created now. So we had almost no reasonable training while I was in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment before going to Korea, and these people went into units for which they were not trained. The army was really messed up, really messed up. General Abrams one time in discussing this with a group of officers, after he'd become chief of staff of the army, had tears running down his face. "No army should ever do that to its people. There is no excuse for it, and as long as I'm chief of staff I guarantee you that our units will be ready to fight, if we have to fight." You know, oh. It was a terrible mess over there. So before leaving that unit in which I had a miserable career for that short period of time. For example, it wasn't two weeks later that the post's military police battalion left Fort Meade and went to Korea. Company A of my organization, of which I was a lieutenant, became the post's military policemen. Now, we know nothing about being the post's military policemen, not a thing. There wasn't anything in ROTC, there wasn't anything that lead us to believe. What I knew about policing was I'd seen in movies, and I hid behind the "Welcome to Fort Meade" sign in my sedan, and chased down someone that was speeding, and discovered it was the chief of staff of the post. At midnight I went over and had a bed check in the post's prison, to see that there weren't any knives in there. But I got called in and said, "Hey, come on, get off it. You can go to jail for what you're doing," you know. (laughs) It was crazy. I was trying to do my job as I knew it, but no one was there to supervise me in any way. JC: And how long were you doing that? RT: I left there in September. I went in in July, left in September, and got to Korea in late November, first having leave and then going to the West Coast, going through the checks and balances of travel over there. Just about that time MacArthur announced that the war would be over by Christmas, and as a result the army slowed down the number of replacements they were sending over. This was just about the time that the marines invaded Inchon, and it was followed up with the 7th Division behind them, and trapped the North Vietnamese soldiers below us. It was really a magnificent maneuver. So we were just sitting around in California waiting to get orders. Every weekend we'd go into town, and we'd go into some bar and then talk out loud about how we've got to go, and waiting to go to war, this kind of thing. Somebody would pick up the bar tab. (laughs) Then we crossed the Pacific during a hurricane, and that was something most unusual, as you might imagine. The piano broke loose in the lounge. It had been a troop transport in World War II, and they converted it to be a troop ship but for families to go to Japan or other places. At that time these ships were the property of the army, it wasn't the navy. 12 I remember distinctly there was a captain on board, mostly lieutenants, but this captain on board was a ranger, and he'd a big, puffed-up chest, and walked among us, and told us to stand up straight, and "Take your hands out of your pockets." When he'd get tired of doing that he decided we should have bayonet drill, and issued the bayonets, put them on our rifles, and went up on the deck. Oh, God. I said, "I'm not playing this game." There was a ladder still going up the funnel, in wartime where they had a station to look for submarines, OK. I went up there while everybody else was screaming and hollering down below and got away with it. It's a wonder I ever went anywhere in the army. (laughs) JC: So what was Korea like? RT: Well, let me describe it. We arrived the day before Thanksgiving in Inchon, got off the boat. There was a long, long tidal process; the ship couldn't get close to the docks or anything else. So they threw the nets over the side, and we were to go over the side of the ship and climb down into a small boat to go in. But we had all our personal gear with us. We were carrying great bags of stuff. I had two bottles of whiskey in my bag, and some damn fool says, "Drop your bag into the boat." I did. (laughs) But as a matter of fact, they took our uniforms away from us at that time and said, "We will hold them here, because if everybody goes home at Christmas it won't affect you for a while, and you'll be in a regular army uniform." But we got on the boats and went on the shore. They fed us what was left over from the Thanksgiving dinner, and a lot of canned fruits, put us on a train, and sent us up to North Korea. Each of us, each lieutenant, was on an open freight car, you know, enclosed but with doors on both sides, and each one of them had a little stove in it. It was cold, and we headed north, and every time the hospital train came south on that one track we would pull over maybe an hour before it came by, and then stick around and get back onto the thing. In my one car I had 27 people. Those cars were small. They were Japanese-style freight cars, and they were small. We had nothing but straw on the floor and a sleeping bag, but it was a summer sleeping bag, not a winter sleeping bag, and the stove didn't really heat the thing at all. There were slots in the side of the thing. Anyway. We didn't have any ammunition, and we would get shot at on the train. Now, nobody I know of got hit, but it made quite an impression. But still they didn't issue us any ammunition. There was a major in charge, and he was in the last car, which was a caboose kind of car, tight, a good stove, etc., etc. So whenever the train stopped we as lieutenants would run back and sit in his car with him and then take off again. Many of the soldiers would get off and run in to find somebody in the little town we stopped in and buy rot-gut whiskey. Boy, they were in trouble. One of the people in the car behind me, I was told, went blind on the spot. Maybe he was cured later, but it made an impression. We finally got to the capital of Pyongyang, and they put us on trucks and took us to what used to be a hospital. We went on about the fourth floor and were on cots, or on the floor, kind of thing, and at midnight that night some captain in the army came in and said, "OK, everybody out. Get down on the truck below. Let's go. Get your gear together." Well, we all didn't get there first, and the last of us were turned around and sent back. That batch was never heard from again. The next morning we were loaded on trucks and sent up. But before going they fed us a good breakfast. We went down into 13 the basement of this place -- it was steaming and dark down there -- and we had breakfast on some slate or granite tables. Steam is pouring out of the coffee pots, etc., and I filled my cup with coffee and took a big drink to discover that it was maple syrup. I went forward that day sick as a dog, sitting at the end, at the tail of that truck yurking all the way. I'm sure all those men I was traveling with, "Look hey there, look at that lieutenant. He's so scared he's puking," you know. We went on and eventually we came to a stop, and the captain who was leading this convoy came back and told us to get off the trucks and go into these schoolhouses that were available, right immediately, I mean, just saw them and said, "Take them." We went into the schoolhouse, and he turned around and went back to get "another load," quote, unquote. We never saw him again; he never came back. Here we are with no ammunition, carrying guns, living in a schoolhouse, and the Chinese are moving in on us. They were moving down the mountains on both sides of this thing, and then there was a tremendous, tremendous loss of life up the mountain further, coming toward us. The 38th Regiment that I joined after we got out -- I get the men out, and then I jumped on a mess truck headed south, all trying to find where the headquarters for the 38th Regiment was. The 38th Regiment was part of the 2nd Division, and it lost in about two days, coming through a real tight trap -- there was a river, there was a road that wasn't wide enough for two tanks to pass, and then there was a mountain again on the other side, and the Chinese are up on both sides just raking the convoy. One truck stops, you know, they've got to push it off the edge to get the convoy going again. Now I wasn't a part of that, but I joined the company that did, and when I finally caught up with my unit, it was because I had stopped in from the schoolhouse when I saw the 1st Cavalry Division people pull on in close to us, so I went over and inquired. I walked into the TOC, the tactical operation center, and there was a major sitting in front of a map, on a stool, making little marks on it. I waited a while, and he didn't notice me, and finally I said, "Sir, could you tell me where the 38th Regiment is?" and he turned around and said, "No, but where's the division? Where is the 2nd Division?" I said, "Sir, I have no idea. We're trying to find it. We were left off down here." He said, "I don't know where they are. If you --" It was that confusing. They lost something like 4,000 men coming out of that gap. Now, I wasn't affected, not at all, in any way. I was scared to death at times, but then after that I joined the 38th Regiment. When I went in to meet Colonel Pappal -- yeah, something like that -- he shook hands with one, and passed me a bottle of whiskey with the other one, and said, "Son, you're going to need this." I reported in to the battalion commander, and he at the time was meeting with his staff in a little hutch where the Vietnamese -- the Vietnamese -- the Koreans built their houses of mud and mud brick, and they would cook in an open room attached to the house, and the smoke would go under the floors and heat the house. We were sitting on one of those floors, warm and toasty, and they were passing the bottle of whiskey around this circle as we talked about (inaudible) [00:59:47]. By that time the bottle of whiskey got pretty hot. (laughs) It was a very strange circumstance. When he finally got to it, the battalion commander said to me, he said, "Todd, you're going down to A Company." I said, "Sir, and who commands A Company?" He said, "You do." I had about as much opportunity to learn infantry tactics and lead a rifle 14 company as nobody at all. My buddy who I was traveling with who had some experience in World War II in combat in Europe, came back and went to the University of Illinois, and then came into the army the same as I did, through the (inaudible) [01:00:34], he was sent down to a company that already had an experienced commander. You know. Nobody was thinking. I sent the first sergeant back to division headquarters, he got commissioned, and he came back, and essentially he told me what we ought to be doing. Then we did it. Until MacArthur issued an order, that probably came to him to do it, that said all armored officers that had been assigned to infantry units are to be returned to armored units. So I went down to the regimental tank company of the regiment where my company commander, before coming over there, was an infantry officer who was aide to camp to the commanding general who gave him the tank company in the 38th regiment who didn't know a damn thing about tanks. It was really screwed up everywhere. At a point when I was running the rifle company, I was told that a replacement was on the way, flying in, and he would replace me as company commander. Oh, great, that's good news. The guy showed up, and during World War II he had been in the air force as a bombardier. He had absolutely no infantry experience. He had joined the nearest reserve unit to his home when he was discharged. It really wasn't working out. Where we got replacements, the adjutant would go down and say, "Has anybody been through armored training?" Nobody. Nobody. So there wasn't anybody to send to the armored company except the people that came in (inaudible) [01:02:41]. So we were training these guys, but we weren't -- there were some old sergeants that really knew what they were doing, and that's we made. We eventually had a pretty good tank company. I remember my sergeant was a gruff, old son of a bitch. I walked up to a formation he was holding one day, and his back was to me, and I was walking toward the platoon. And I heard him say "The kid says we got to --" I said uh-oh. "Sergeant [Beach?], come with me," and we went in to see the company commander. I told the company commander that I couldn't resolve this one. He said, oh, very well, I'll assign someone else." Sergeant [Beach?] remained behind. Wow, I've done it. Sergeant Beach comes out. I said, "What happening Sergeant?" and he said, "I'm going to be the lieutenant in charge of the other platoon." Ahhh, God, you know. (laughs) It just wasn't the army I knew later on. Yeah. It was a very sad arrangement. It really wasn't until General Walker was killed in a jeep accident, and he was the 8th Army commander, and they sent General Van Fleet over to run it, and we by that time had moved 125 miles to the rear. We were running as an army. Word got out very quickly that General Van Fleet's orders were "I don't want to see your plans of defense, I want to see your plans of attack." And everyone says, "Sure, sure, General. You look at them, and you'll be all alone up there." Well, by God, he took that army and straightened it out and moved it forward and stopped the Chinese, without much additional support. It was amazing to see that happen. I'll never forget that, that one man deciding that he's going to turn the army around and you'd better fall in line. I did have one experience before that happened when I was with the tank company, and I was in a jeep riding down a road, and the division commander had decided that since we had all these losses, and we're all screwed up, that he had a way to make us all feel proud of ourselves and identify. The methodology he used was that one regiment would have a mustache, another regiment would have sideburns, and another 15 would have goatees. Crazy, just crazy. But I'm driving down the road, and an assistant division commander, a one star, is coming this way, and he went right by, and I saluted, and then he stopped and hollered back at me. I jumped out and ran down to his jeep. He said, "You're not obeying the division commander's orders." I said, "Sir, what do you mean?" He said, "You shaved." I said, "No, sir, I've never shaved." (laughter) God. Yeah. But General Van Fleet really pulled that into order, and he relieved a lot of people. He relieved my brigade commander, gave us a lieutenant to be the colonel's slot in the brigade, who turned out to wind up with four stars in the end. They made the mechanism work. JC: Amazing. Now, you were awarded the Medal for Valor in Korea, weren't you? RT: Yeah. I got a Bronze Star for Valor and a Silver Star for Valor, neither of which I really want to talk about much. I think somebody else would have done better to have them than me. I mean, I was pleased, happy to receive it, proud to wear it on my uniform kind of thing, but there was a lot of that going on to bolster up morale of everybody. JC: Is there anything else you want to say about Korea? RT: I don't know. At the end it was a pretty good experience. When we had gone into a stalemate, we started a rotation system back to the United States, and it was a point system. If you came within a certain period of time, then you could go back at a date specific, so we all knew when we'd be going back. There were points for the kind of job you had and all this kind of thing. It was interesting, I went back to Japan, spent a few days in Japan. When we got on the boat I was assigned -- as I had on the way over -- to a large stateroom, and I think there were 12 of us in it, and up and down cots. It was the same gang I went over with. You know, the timeline of where you engaged in combat were the same for all of us, in different units, and that was really pretty special. Two of them, only two of them, didn't come back, and they were both infantry officers. To the best of my knowledge, from the 38th Regiment that I was familiar with, the lieutenants didn't go back whole. The majority of them were killed. Those that were wounded were wounded seriously enough that they didn't come back to the unit. So it was us armored guys that, essentially, came back together, went over together and came back together. Stopped in Hawaii on the way back, pulled into the port, and there's all these hula girls down on the thing, people with big signs, "Welcome Home, Veteran." I said, "Hell, I'm not a veteran. That's a guy that sits outside the post office trying to sell pencils." (laughs) That came as a bit of a shock to us. But, yeah. JC: Well, once you got back to the United States where were you stationed? RT: Before I got back to the United States, on R&R in Japan, I knew of my rotation date. I called Carol, who by that time had finished her year after Smith at Radcliffe, taking the first year of the Harvard Business School program at Radcliffe -- business school faculty, business school-devised location, Radcliffe. I called her and said, "How about meeting me in New York City on such and such a date at the Biltmore Hotel? We'll meet under the clock." Now, meeting under the clock, there'd been a movie about that whole 16 business. So she did, and we went to my family's house. They'd moved to Scarsdale, New York, at that point. I asked her to marry me. She said, "Give me a couple of weeks." So I went back to visit my family. They're not my immediate family, my grandparents in Quincy, Massachusetts, and my other grandparents in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I went to -- my uncle, my mother's brother, ran a hardware store that had originally been his father's, and he said, "What are you going to do about a car?" I said, "I got to get one." I sold my car before I went over. He said, "Well, I've got a good friend who's honest, and I think we can get a good car." So I went over that afternoon and bought a car and called Carol, and I said, "I bought a car today." She said, "A convertible?" and I said, "Yes," and turned it in the next day and got a convertible. (laughter) I'd do anything to make sure she's sweet. She said yes, we were married on the nineteenth of June of that year, and she obviously had to quit her job to become an army wife. JC: So where did you all go after that? RT: The first station when we returned, and I'm talking now about the same group of army officers that went over and came back together, also went to Fort Knox, and we lived in newly-built quarters that were built by a civilian contractor on the edge of there, which were great for a newly-married couple, but they certainly weren't anything special. George and Joanne Patton lived next door to us, a small world, yeah. I've lost my train of thought here now. (break in audio) JC: And we'll get back started. All right, so we were talking about Fort Knox. RT: Fort Knox being a first assignment together in the army was really great. So different. I mean, Fort Knox was organized. Everything was working well. People were happy. Not that we weren't working hard, because we really were. My first assignment was to a training division. It took the number of the division, the third, and replicated it and then trained, basic training. I was in the 2nd Brigade headquarters working on the planning and that kind of thing. I really was disappointed that I wasn't one of the company commanders, but it turns out that that was a tough job. In the tank company, the guy that headed the tank company had more tanks than a tank division, and it was a mess to keep them all straightened out and going around. So one day I went back home for lunch, and Mrs. George Patton, Sr., was sitting in the living room of our house talking to Carol. She had come down to Fort Knox because George and Joanne had just been married, and Joanne got some kind of disease when they were on the honeymoon in the Caribbean. And I reintroduced myself to Mrs. Patton, and we sat down and talked. She asked me what my job was, and I told her. I said, "But I've got to go. I've got an appointment this afternoon to see the commanding general. They're looking for an aide to camp to the commanding general, and I really don't want that job. I really would prefer to get an opportunity to command a company in the division here." She said, "Russell, General Collier is a very, very fine man. He has a 17 fine family life. He is a very, very successful soldier who commanded the 2nd Armored Division at the end of the war in Berlin. You could learn an awful lot working for him." So I went over, and I got the job, and for the next two years I was the junior aide to the commanding general. I did such things as travel with him when he went to different places for different purposes. My buddies all got a hold of me when they found out I was going to do this job, and all had things they wanted changed at Fort Knox, and I was to be their agent in telling the commanding general how he could change the place. Very early on we went out of the headquarters, down the steps, into the car, went past the post theater. I thought, well, here goes. I said, "Sir, do you realize that on this post now an officer must be in his full dress uniform in order to go to the movies?" He said, "Yes, I know that, and it will remain that way." I didn't have many new ideas for him after that. (laughs) He'd go over to the armor school, and the people that are teaching in the combat kinds of business would say, "This is what we're doing now, General, and what do you think? We'd like your approval of it," and I'd sit in the back of the room and listen to what was going on, and understand it. I would hear the people that had served in combat talk about what you ought to do, and I got a great education. Also, every year there was something called the Armor Warfighting Conference. Twice I was there for that. They bring in all the people that belong to the Armor Association, or were serving in an armored position, all the senior people, and they'd talk about what the army ought to be doing in armor. One of my jobs was to go into the airport in the general's big sedan and his chauffer and pick these guys up and drive them back to the post, and I'd chat with these guys, and it was really fun. I got to know an awful lot of people, army commanders, army staff members, and all this. I really felt pretty special that I'd had this kind of an opportunity. Then we also had at Fort Knox in that time frame an armor board. This armor board, when General I. D. White was the commander at Fort Knox -- before General Collier -- that the chief of staff of the army was not pleased with the way the chief of ordnance was managing the tank program and gave the responsibility to the commanding general at Fort Knox. All the bigwigs gathered at Fort Knox to make decisions about what the next tank would look like, what the next armored personnel carrier would look like, etc., etc. Again, I sat in the back of the room, and young captains and majors, most of them West Point graduates who'd gone off to graduate school and were coming back and using their talents. It was a great, great opportunity for me. We were always invited to the house when the Colliers were having a party, and people would say, "Oh, you're going over there and pass the cigarette butts around with them, aren't you?" "No, we don't do that. We're part of that group." Mike Popowski here in town, his dad was one of those colonels on the post at that time. I really got to know all those people. Not that it was doing me any good, but I learned from them, you know. I learned how to act, I learned when to shut up. It was very useful, and it was a great time. The Colliers were magnificent to us. We had a child while we were living there -- it was Tom, and Tom got burnt badly in an accident at our house. He was crawling across the floor, and there was a coffee pot that started percolating, and he looked up and pulled on the cord, and it came over and broke open on his back. The Colliers came over and relieved us of our 24-hour duty, and they took it over; they sat with that baby. We were their family. It was amazing; it was wonderful. 18 Yeah. I began to really understand what the army was about, that it could be a good army. JC: Well, after Fort Knox where did you go? RT: Let's see. Oh, yeah. When General Collier left, he was to be promoted and going to go to Korea, and he offered me the opportunity to go with him, and I told him that I would much prefer to have a tank company in Europe. While I loved the guy and his family, I wanted a tank company in Europe. He said, "We'll take care of that," and he called up the commanding general of the 2nd Armored Division in Europe, the one that they call Chubby Doan, and told him the situation and that I would be on orders to go over to the 2nd Armored Division and a tank company. He said, "I'll give him a tank company." So, wow! You know, we made it, and off we go to Europe. We pull into Bremerhaven, which is the northern port in Germany, and they send forth a little craft to meet the boat. A sergeant first class climbs up the rope ladder and comes over and starts telling people what their orders are going to be, and I was ordered to something called the 13th Military Intelligence Group. I thought, oh, my God, something's wrong here. The colonel who was in charge of us all on the boat, for the boat trip, he got his orders, and he opened it up, and it's the 13th MIG. He said, "What's an MIG?" I said, "The best I know it's a Russian airplane." (laughs) It turned out that he thought he was going to the 1st Infantry Division for a regiment. Well, we got off the boat, and both of us went down to this intelligence group, went through two different fences, guards posted in towers and all the rest of it, and slept in an open bay area over the officers' club. There were a number of other offices there, and they said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I don't know. I'm here by mistake. I'm headed to the 2nd Armored Division." They said, "No, no, you aren't. We're all in the same business, fellow. Tell us where you're going." And I said, "No, no. I'm an officer, and I'm going to --" They said, "We understood an armored officer was coming, and he was going to go underground and behind the Iron Curtain, and report on the Russian movements." Holy Crow! That's not for me. So the next morning I went down and asked authority to see the commanding officer of the 513th [sic] MIG. He spoke with me, and he said, "No, you're going down. You're not going to do that; that's rumor. You're going down to the headquarters in Heidelberg, and you're going to be an intelligence officer in that headquarters." I said, "I'm not an intelligence officer." He said, "That's your orders." OK. So I went down to Heidelberg. General Jim Phillips was the G2 at the time, and I asked to see him, and I went right up to his office and told him my sad story, that I was going to go to the 2nd Armored Division -- and he was an armored officer -- "Now here I am an untrained specialist in your department." He said, "What were you going to do?" I said, "Well, General Doan in the 2nd Armored Division had accepted me to come and be in tank company." He says, "I'll talk to him about that," and he reached over -- they had a red phone system that red phones went to the different generals in different locations -- he picked it up and dialed 27 or whatever it was, and General Doan answers the phone, and I'm sitting there. He said, "I got a young captain sitting here that tells me he's supposed to be in the division. Tell me about him, what are you going to do with him?" Well, poor old General Doan hadn't remembered much about the phone conversation a couple of 19 months before or something, and said, "Well, I'm going to make him my aide." And he said, "Like hell you are. I'm keeping him here for that." (laughs) I did it all over again for another two years in the headquarters at [Usera?]. [01:26:32] It was a great experience. General and Mrs. Phillips were a mother and dad to us; they'd invite us to Sunday dinner, and little Tom would crawl around the floor or under the table, and General Collier would feed him peanuts or something. It was a wonderful time, and when the Colliers would take a trip and borrow the commander in chief's train, we went with them. It was marvelous. I saw all of Europe. I knew most everything that was going on in the intelligence field, and it was a great experience with wonderful people. But when he got assigned to go back to the United States, I took the Colliers up to the port to put them on. When I came back, this again on the commander in chief's train, I had the train stop in Mannheim, and I got off in Mannheim. I wasn't going to be stopped again and reported in to the 57th Tank Battalion and for the last year there had a tank company. That was probably the greatest experience of my life. It really was a good experience. We were hard training, we were well trained, good people. In the beginning we had a wonderful commander who was a major, and the division commander, General Doan, didn't want to put a lieutenant colonel in that slot. He wanted this man to get that experience, but eventually they had to pull him and let -- the lieutenant colonels were backing up. So we were out maneuvering and we came to the last day of the maneuvers, and the new battalion commander arrives, and we have this party in a beer hall. The new commander arrives, and one of the company commanders in Charlie Company walked up to the head table with two boots of beer. You know what that is? Glass things that replicate a boot. Big. He puts one in front of each of the two commanders and says, "Let's see who's the better man." This poor guy that has just got off the train coming down from Bremerhaven and crossed the ocean picks up his boot and starts to drink. The battalion commander we love drinks it down and wins the contest, and the new battalion commander was so tight from drinking that beer too fast his feet slipped out from under him as he sat at that table and went right down under the table. (laughter) That was his first day of duty, and he didn't improve much after that. We were all pretty cocky, the company commanders; we were doing a lot of good things. But he knew nothing about it. We told him -- we were told that he had served in a tank battalion in World War II, and that's all we knew about him. It sounded great to us, a guy with some real experience. Well, it turns out that he reported in to a replacement company, and they said, "Take this truckload of men and go forward to point A. There will be a sign on the road at so many miles or kilometers. Turn left in there, and that's where your unit will be." Well, he got down there and made the turn, then went up, and three Germans come out and say, "Achtung! Put him in the compound!" and he went directly to the prisoner-of-war camp. He never had any experience. He'd been a public information officer before, and he was terrible. He was so bad that in a morning meeting every time, when he would suggest something the other three company commanders, we'd sort of nod or shake no. And "Well, what's the matter?" You know why? We didn't get any leadership out of him at all. When it came time to leave there, I had probably the most frightening experience in my life. He stood up in front of the entire battalion officer group and said, "Well, now that Captain Todd is leaving maybe I can take command of this battalion." Oh, my God. 20 Oh, my God. He gave me an efficiency report that would sink anybody, but it just turned out that in that moment of time the army changed the efficiency report system whereby your commander rates you, and his boss rates you, and then a third person rates what they did. Well, the third person turns out to have been the fellow that had been recently the brigade commander, and he knew me, he knew my performance, etc., and he sent back the efficiency report to be redone. Ho. (laughs) Yeah. Those were good times though, good times. Scary times, but testing, really testing you. JC: Because you were right there in Germany during really the height of the Cold War. RT: Yeah. As a matter of fact, one time we were out on maneuvers, 200 miles from our base, when the French and British moved into Suez, because the Egyptians said they were taking over the canal. There we are sitting out in the woods saying, "Oh, my God," because the president had said, "Oh, no, you don't." Eisenhower said, "No, you don't. You can't do that. We give you a lot of money to bring your economies back from the war, and we'll stop it tomorrow unless you withdraw." But we didn't know all that, and my guys are saying "We're going to gyro to Cairo," you know, that (laughter) kind of stuff. We finally came back. But if we'd had to go, I haven't seen a unit that would be any more ready than we were. Yeah. It was really a great exper-- In a company command, everybody doesn't have to bypass the battalion commander who's a dud. But when you do have to do that, then you're really thinking on your feet. It was great. JC: What was your next assignment after that? RT: Would you believe back to Fort Knox? JC: Oh, really? RT: Yeah. I went back there to go to the Armor Officer Advanced Course, which was a nine-month course in there, in which they were teaching you at the next level. Now the course we took before at Fort Knox was a course we should have had before we went to Korea. I came away with a great impression of how good that was. It was excellence. When I saw General Collier working with the instructors and telling them how to handle this kind of thing. When I came back three years later, it was a well-organized organization. In fact, General Abrams had been there as the head of the command department. It was a first class education. I really and truly look back upon my Norwich experience as not up to that standard that the army was producing there. At the end of that course I had talked my way into becoming one of the instructors in the command department, and I was thrilled to death about that. On graduation day I'm sitting in my chair on the aisle, and as the assistant commandant went by my seat he stopped and said, "You're going to be working in my office." (laughs) So I then worked for Colonel Chandler, who was a first-rate soldier. He had been horse cavalry, in the Philippines, and was on the Bataan death march. He was really very much a gentleman, very much strong willed, and very much of a tutor, and I worked out of his office. My job was to arrange the schedules of the classes, and we had all kinds of classes -- enlisted classes, officer classes -- so that they would mesh how 21 many people, how many classrooms do we need, how many instructors do we need, on what day are we going to do it? I was bringing home page after page of long paper, and on the kitchen floor working out the details of making this thing work. It was great, but, again, there was an intermediary. There was a lieutenant colonel who was my immediate supervisor who, again, I thought to be a dud. On my first day of working there he said, "That's your desk right over there." And I'm, "Yes, sir." I went over to my desk. Now what do I do? Here I am, I found my desk. There was a major sitting at a desk facing me who never looked up. He was just scribbling away, scared to death of this guy evidently. A few minutes later he came over and said, "Well, here's the first project I want you to do. This is it. I want you to study this, and then rewrite it, and we'll discuss it." Fine. It wasn't five minutes later, he came over and said, "No, I want you to do this one instead." I went through about six of those before I understood what I was doing. I was hopeless that anything was really going to happen. That same day he came over and looked over my shoulder, and I looked up, and he said, "What are you writing there?" I said, "Well, sir, I'm writing myself a note so that I will be able to put these things in the appropriate order." He said, "Well, you're not saying it very well." (laughter) It was awful. My out was Colonel Chandler, and a major got assigned to the office, and he very quickly understood what was going on here and went in and talked to Colonel Chandler, and Colonel Chandler moved him out. Again, we got a very, very fine operating organization going. It was good; it was very successful. But, you know, every time there's some kind of a roadblock in your career, you've got to stop and figure out how the hell you're going to get around it. JC: What was after Fort Knox? RT: Twenty more years of -- let's see. I graduated from Fort Knox. I was selected below the zone for a promotion. Do you know what that means? JC: Uh-uh. RT: When you're considered for promotion a board meets in Washington, and everybody whose career appears between this date and this date is considered. Isn't that right? Well, what they started, and I don't know if they're still doing it or not -- I think they are -- they would go below this zone and choose certain people to be examined with this group, and I was lucky enough to do that and really jumped ahead. In the headquarters there was Major Howard from Norwich University. Major Howard didn't graduate from here, but he was an instructor when I was a student here. He was in another department, or I didn't see much of him. But when I came out on the below-the-zone list, there were two of us at Fort Knox that came out on it, and he called me on the phone, and he said, "Well, I thought Frank would make it, but I never thought you would." (laughter) So things are weird, but Leavenworth was an exciting time. I was a captain. The majority of people were majors and lieutenant colonels. A real shock of my life in the first day was seated at tables, and there's a blank card in front of you, and the instructor said, "Now write your name on it, not your rank. Write your name on that card." Well, the guy sitting opposite me was a lieutenant colonel, and I was a captain, and I don't know his rank. What do I call him? We were all calling each other by their first names 22 rather than you find in a unit. That (inaudible) [01:41:04] like that, I'm up against it here. So I worked hard, harder than I've ever worked, and at the end of the halfway mark in the course they gave us standings of where you stand in the course, and I was number five or something. I said, "I'm working too hard." Yeah, that was good, a good period in our life. We had Saturdays and Sundays off. I had a little golf group I played with on Saturdays, and Michelob beer was local out there. We'd buy a pitcher -- the loser would buy a pitcher of beer, and that was a big deal. That was a big deal. JC: So when did you go to graduate school at the University of Alabama? RT: Strange you should ask that. When I came to the end of the course at Leavenworth a general officer, a brigadier general, came out to the course to announce to the armor officers, to the infantry officers, etc., what your next assignment would be. About the third name he read was a good friend of mine, and when he read off where he was to go this guy went "Ooohhh." The general looked down at him and said, "What's the problem?" He said, "Sir, I don't think anybody in your office ever read my request." "Oh." He said, "Major so-and-so, come out here." The guy comes out from behind the curtain with a big notebook, and the guy flaps through it, and he looks down, and he says, "I don't know what you're complaining about. It says right here, 'Anywhere in the world but Fort Knox.' And you're going to Fort Knox, your second choice." (laughter) Then he got to my name, and he said, "I want to see you right after this." I thought, oh, God, what now? So I went in, and he was in his office. There was a temporary office. And he said, "We've got a problem here," and I said, "Sir, what is it?" He said, "Well, they've got you going to graduate school, and as the chief armor officer I want you to go to an armored unit." I said, "I have a choice?" He said yes. I said, "Where will I go if I go to an armored unit?" He thought for a minute, and he said, "You'll go to the tank battalion in Hawaii." I said, "Can I discuss this with my wife at lunch?" and he said, "Sure," and I came back and said, "We have decided that we're going to go to graduate school," and that's how that worked out. JC: So you went to Tuscaloosa instead of Hawaii. RT: Yeah. (laughs) JC: Now, what degree did you get at Alabama? RT: MBA. It was a good tough course, but it was in the process of changing the curriculum of business schools, and some of it was very tough. Part of it was very simple, but some of it was very tough. I established a schedule where I went in very early in the morning, got in there before 7:00 every morning, went down to the basement of the library where I had an assigned carrel and started working until it was time for a class to begin. I'd go up to the class and go back to the basement, eat my lunch in the basement, go home at 5:00, and hardly ever did any midnight work at home. We lived a good, wonderful family life in Tuscaloosa. Now, it wasn't all easy. There had been the problems of the colleges not admitting blacks, and the president of the United States pushing hard to make them do it. 23 Then there were the riots at Ole Miss, right at that time. The army sent down its chief person who determines whether the applicants will go to college -- army applicants -- and to which college they will go to. So we all gathered, and there were people taking nuclear physics, and [we have to?] discuss with him, and he talked it back and forth, etc. Finally one young captain in the back said, "Sir, this is all very interesting, but the army's practically at war with our citizens. What the hell happen-- What do we do? What are our orders, and what are our instructions here at the University of Alabama, if the same kind of thing breaks out on this campus?" This poor old duffer who'd been the president of some college someplace sort of shook his head and said, "Well, I hope you'd be on the side of the government." (laughter) That hit right in the heart of soldiers. But it was a good program. When I left I was going to be assigned to the headquarters in US Army Europe in the comptroller's office, and you're required to stay in that position for three years to make up for your being chosen for that job. They want to use your knowledge and experience. Just before I left they changed it, and I went to the US Army Support Command in France, which had 57 separate organizations that it commanded, to include a pipeline that came in at St. Nazaire and went out to all of the air bases and army refueling, etc., and repair of tanks, repair of everything. We took German factories over, used Germans. It was a very, very exciting assignment in terms of technology, but I got assigned to the comptroller's office in that damn headquarters, and I was one of three soldiers. The rest were all civilian employees, or French. One of the people that worked for me was from Yugoslavia; he'd escaped Yugoslavia. So it was a mixed up kind of place. We lived at a French house down by the railroad station. We didn't want to live in the government quarters, we'd done enough of that. We wanted to have an experience in France. From that point of view, it was wonderful. The job was terrible, just terrible. They expected me to know everything that they did in their routine because I'd been to this business program. Well, I had to really move fast to catch up with them. My boss was a man by the name of [Birossi?]. He'd been an Italian-American soldier in World War II who married an Italian and never went home, and when they created the support command then he stayed on in Europe and became a very important man in the headquarters as the budget manager of this very vast organization. I worked like hell to try and get it straightened out. They first gave me the responsibility of working the budget of a couple of the major organizations, one the tank rebuild plant, which was -- God, it looked like General Motors out there. I finally got frustrated with it all. We'd all sit in a room, roll out our papers, and bring in the guy, the comptroller, from that organization, and you'd sit facing each other with Mr. [Birossi?] looking over your shoulder, and you'd work out a budget for them. How the hell did I know? I didn't have any basis for doing it, but we'd discuss it to get it. When this was all over and calmed down I said, "This is stupid as hell," to [Birossi?]. He said, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "We've got the world's best information technology program right in this headquarters, those guys that are working the plants do it all by technical means, punch cards, and here we are sitting around trying to argue about a number on a sheet of paper that doesn't mean a damn thing." He said, "What do you suggest?" I said, "I suggest we go to talk to them, get onto their system somehow, and work this thing out that we can make a reasonable stab at it." He said, "OK, wise guy, do it." 24 Now, there was a lieutenant colonel in this overall office who was Birossi's boss, and I went to see him and told him, I said, "Now, I'm not competent to do this. There's no question about it. However, if you give me two of those young captains of finance that work down the hall from me, I can get this thing started and going." So he assigned these two guys to me, and we changed the whole system of how we did the budgeting of US Army Europe. I got some kind of an award for that. Then they put me in another job where I had all kinds of stupid responsibilities. I had a responsibility for efficiency of each of these many, many organizations, and I got permission to send people -- Frenchmen -- back to the United States to be trained in each of those depots to do it. Then we pulled all of this together right as the secretary of defense had initiated a program to improve work force relationships, his program, and they sent it out and said, "Everybody in the army, navy, and the air force will use these procedures." And my two-star boss said, "No, we won't. We're not doing that. We got a god system, we just got it started, and, well, that's the way it will be." OK, you're the boss. So six weeks later, maybe two months later, there's a message sent to the commanding general that said "We're sending over someone from the Department of Defense to look at your program." I got called in to the CG's office, and he said, "You got two weeks to put this program in place." Well, you know, I was put into a position where I got attention, and I could do what I wanted to do, and I could get help to do it, and everything just sort of worked together. It was a great experience. But, again, it's a case of speaking up and saying what you think is wrong and finding a way to do it. I went in on the train from Orleans into Paris to the IBM plant with boxes of punch cards in my (inaudible) [01:53:43] and brought them into IBM, and we worked it out with them to do it at first before we turned it over to our own organization. That's because if we screwed it up, we'd screw them up badly. But those two finance captains did all the work. I just plowed ahead. Another time, in that same job -- I really thought -- when I got there I said, "My career is ruined. My career is ruined. Who's going to believe that I was in a damn headquarters for a support group? No, uh. I'm an armored guy. No." But anyway, they came up with another program, again, out of the Department of Defense. This time it was to work specifically with -- I can't remember the name of it, but, again, it came out of the secretary of defense's office, and again I got the job to do it. But this time I had an opportunity to start from the beginning with it. It was a matter of saving money, and we were supposed to put out programs, out to our subordinate units, and help them find money and other ways of doing business (inaudible) [01:55:09]. We started with the laundries, a simple thing, and went into the laundries with the people we trained, and they would say to the laundress, "How can you do your job better?" They'd say, "Well, I've been working at this for six years. If we did this, and that, and the other thing," and all of a sudden we weren't doing anything but saying "How do you do it?" and then helping them do it, and getting their boss to agree to it. Well, then you had to take all this information and turn it over to another agency who would check your figures, and numbers, and back and forth, and everything. That all seemed to work out, and things were going along rather well when they put me in for an award as the civilian of the year for product improvement. I was called (laughs) into Heidelberg, and they put on a parade, and the commanding general and I are -- there were other people, for other reasons, being recognized that day. I'm standing 25 beside the commanding general when the troops are passing in review, and he said, "What the hell are you doing here? This is a civilian award." I said, "Sir, you signed it." (laughter) And off we went. I just kept working. Living there was great sport, except the French are crazy. We lived in a neighborhood, as I said, on Rue de la Gale, and the house was an old one. It was rent controlled, and we had to slip the landlord money on certain days, and you'd walk up to his house with a paper bag full of money. A door would open, a hand would come out and grab the paper bag out of your thing, the extra money for the -- crazy. In the neighborhood we never made close friends except in one instance. Our youngest daughter, Ellen, went to French school. The other two kids refused; they were smart enough not to do it. Ellen and her friend [Pascale?] (inaudible) [01:57:36] walked to school with her mother and Carol, over to school. The ladies walked back from school. After lunch, walked over, back to get, march them over, again, at the end of the school day. And they talked, and they talked, and they talked. Not a single word of English was ever spoken for three years between these two women. We get back to the United States and got a very nice letter from her, in English, and she said, "You never would have improved your French the way you did if you knew I had been a nanny in Great Britain and speak English." (Cates laughs) Now, that's the dirtiest, rottenest trick I can ever imagine happening. (laughter) When we had a problem with the house, you'd try and go out and find someone that would fix the faucet. Now, there are four sizes of pipe, and there are 12 sizes of faucets, and there are 14 sizes -- and they ask you which one do you want? You don't know. So somebody has to come and measure it and go back, and two days later you've got water running again. When it came time to buy coal, we went down to the place you buy coal, and it was a storefront on the main road, right in the main store, and he's got little glass canisters with different kinds of coal in the window. You don't buy coal that way anywhere else in the world. We went in, and he wanted to know how many radiators we had in the house, and how many veins each radiator had, and how many sections were in the stove, and then he could figure out how many tons it would take to heat the house. He didn't ask if there was any broken windows, or open doors, or boards off on the roof. They did it totally unscientific. Then when you come to that decision, then they say, "Now do you want it from Belgium? Do you want it from --" you know, down the list. We want anthracite from Belgium, OK. Then they come and dump it in the house with buckets in the window of the cellar, and the whole house is covered with coal dust everywhere. And it was expensive. Living there was not easy, but we made a pact that we were going to go once a month with the kids to Paris, every time, every month, and we did, and we traveled a lot. Not any great distances, but we loved parts of France. But the French were very difficult to live with. JC: Oh, I'm sure. I've been there once. (laughs) RT: The worst one was my father had a cousin who was, in relationship to Dad, it was about six up from him in the corporation, and he was the chairman of the board. We got a call that he was coming to visit the French company that was owned by the American company, and they were going to come down and see us in this hovel (laughs). And just about the time we knew that they were coming but not exactly when they were coming, 26 the French left us with a bit of a problem. When they put in the sewer system, they left the septic tank in the house, in the basement, made of clay, and it began to leak. Do you have any idea what living in that house was like? You couldn't flush a toilet. When I'd go off to work and leave Carol, they had a deal with these crazy guys coming in, and eventually they came in. One guy came in, and he took off the top of this thing, and then he went away. She chased him down, and he said, "Oh, you've got to hire somebody else. The union won't allow me to put the hose down in here and suck out what's left. You've got to find that guy." And it went on, and on, and on, and trying to live in that house. Fortunately we got it cleaned up before Uncle George showed up for lunch. (laughter) JC: Sounds like it was quite difficult living in that house. RT: It was very difficult. Every single day one of us crossed the street to the bakery that was directly across the street from us, and we'd order a demi pan, and bring it back for breakfast, or something else. And every single day that one of us went, my own experience was I'd walk in the door -- "Bonjour, Madame." (laughter) The only guy that spoke to us lived next door, and the reason he spoke to us was that nobody else in the neighborhood, or the town, or the city would speak to him, because he had been a butcher during the Nazi occupation and gave the Nazis all the best cuts of meat. We had no phones. It took three years to get a phone, and it was a three-year tour. If you got a phone, you had nobody to call; they'd all gone home. They're crazy, just crazy. (laughs) JC: So what was the next assignment after France? RT: Well, while in France the Vietnam War broke out, and people lieutenant colonel level in Europe were being pulled back to the United States and given a command in Vietnam. So I applied to get a command in Vietnam, and they said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, you haven't finished your tour for having gone to graduate school. You can't possibly go." This is talking to somebody back in Washington. Then another job opened up, and they needed a lieutenant colonel in an armored battalion, and I called them back again. I said, "I'll come back to this job after that. How about that?" "Nope, we can't do that. We can't do that." Eventually they said, "OK, when you come home from --" I put enough pressure on them. "When you come home from France, we'll send you to Vietnam." And when we came home from France, they said, "No, you're going to go to the Armed Forces Staff College. You've been selected among the army, navy, and air force to go to the Armed Forces Staff College, for six months. After that, we'll get you a job that will get you to Vietnam." Well, you know, it's frustrating, just terribly frustrating. After the Armed Forces Staff College they told me I would go to Vietnam, but first I would go to pick up 57 tanks that had just been manufactured of a new design, and I was to form the tank battalion in the United States, train it in the United States, and take it to Vietnam. When that day came, ready to go, we had three rounds blow up in the chamber back at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and they said, "Hold it. You're no longer on the list to go. But you are going to go to the Naval War College." I couldn't get to Vietnam! It was very difficult. 27 JC: What was the Naval War College like? RT: Terrible. The Naval War College, well, we called it the sleeping room. They had two major speakers every day, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. That was fine. I mean, I loved to hear them, and they did have a message, but it wasn't work. It was sitting there like you're turning on the television. There was no challenge to this thing at all. Now you could go and get a master's degree along with it from George Washington, but I couldn't, because I had a master's degree, so they weren't going to let me take that program. So they hired somebody the University of Massachusetts had fired from their Economics Department, an old man, to be my mentor and take me through a separate program -- nothing comes out of it other than a dissertation at the end. OK, I'll put up with it, but he was awful, and it was a waste of my time. You never had time between these people to really go to the library and do something. It was 20 minutes. What can you do in the library in 20 minutes? No, you don't. Everyone went and get good coffee, sat around and talked, etc. Oop, time to go back into the bedroom. There was nothing going on in terms of substance in the place. When I had my first time as directing my little group, I worked long and hard on the assignments, and came in the next morning and said, "OK, let's see. Now we had readings in this one, and then we had a differing opinion from this requirement, and then this one, and another one. Commander Jones, what do you think about this?" "Oh, shit," he said, "You don't think I pay any attention to that, do you? I'm in the George Washington program. I'm not going to do any of this." That was a general attitude. There wasn't any depth to what we were doing. One day the admiral in charge, who'd married a British lady and had just come back from another tour in London, said, "How would you like to have lunch at my house with a guest speaker, Todd?" I said, "Gee, that would be very nice, sir." I got up there to discover there were 12 or 13 of us at separate tables and he and the speaker was at another table. What did we do? We sat around and chatted, and ate his food, and left. He said, "How'd you like that?" I said, "What are you referring to, sir?" He said, "Well, the opportunity to be with the speaker." I said, "We weren't with the speaker. You were with the speaker." "Well, how would you handle that?" "I'd put in a round table, and we'd all sit around and talk." "What a great idea." Really, really bad stuff. So he did, and then he invited me to come, and I went, and he said, "How did that go?" I said, "Sir, that was wonderful. But if you did that in the classrooms it might help, too." "We don't have round tables in the classrooms?" He'd never been in a classroom. We didn't have one single naval officer who was nuclear qualified come to the course. They sent them to the National War College. We didn't have one single graduate of a senior college who was on the faculty. I could go on, and on, and on about how bad it was. But one day, in Vietnam, I was sitting at my desk outside General Abrams's office, and I got a call from the naval head in Vietnam. I'm trying to think of his name. I know it as well as I know my own. But anyway, he called me and said, "Russ, I got to see General Abrams." I said, "Well, he's tied up at the moment. Come on up and sit down, and I'll get you in just the minute I can break into it." He said, "Good," and he came up. We sat there, and he said, "I got to talk to General Abrams. They're going to announce this afternoon that I'm the new chief of naval operations, and I don't want him to hear it from anybody else but me." I said, "Oh, have I been waiting for this." He said, 28 "What are you talking about?" I said, "You can do something about the Naval War College that I couldn't," and I laid it out for him, and he fired the guy when he got back there. This is Zumwalt, Admiral Zumwalt. He fired the guy and changed all the programs. I mean, they were tough on him, and they've got a good school there now, or at least the last I knew of it, a very good school that has been accredited. But it was awful. JC: Did you finally get to Vietnam after the Naval War College? RT: Yeah, that's why I was sitting in General Abrams's office. I was to be sent over to be on the command list, which meant this list of people the army feels are capable of doing a job as colonel in a combat unit. They sent my name over, and then they called me back and said, "We've withdrawn your name." (sighs deeply) I said, "Come on, guys. This isn't fair." He's "Hold it, hold it, hold it. They're looking for an assistant to General Abrams, and we've sent your name in." I said, "Look, I've met General Abrams a few times. I don't think he was very impressed with me. I don't think he'll select me off of any list of yours." He said, "There is no list. We only sent your name." (laughter) So I went over there, and I sat for, oh, eight months I guess in General Cao Van Vien's office, who was the head of the Vietnamese armed forces, and I acted as a liaison between General Abrams and General Cao Van Vien, of which there was no requirement. Those guys talked to each other whenever they wanted to. But I represented General Abrams when General Cao Van Vien called the other -- the Koreans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, etc., etc. -- together on a Monday morning to have a meeting, and that was interesting, and I learned a lot, and I met a lot of people. Eventually the secretary of the staff rotated home, and I took his slot. You actually work for the chief of staff, but I read and decided which messages that came in that night would go into General Abrams the next morning, so I got to work very, very early and stayed very, very late, day after day after day, seven days a week. But I really loved working for the guy. Every Saturday morning we would meet with the commanders of the army, navy, air force, etc., the CIA, in the basement of our building, and it was general so-and-so, admiral so-and-so, etc., and Colonel Todd. And Colonel Todd sat in the back of the room and checked -- again, a great learning experience. Watching the interrelationship between these very, very senior commanders was a great experience. Then I went with General Abrams every Monday morning down to brief the ambassador. We'd drive down in his sedan. On Sunday I'd prepare a book for him that he'd go over, and then he'd have that in front of him. He never read it. He never sat in front of the ambassador and read it. I'd be on pins and needles all the time that he'd turn to me and say, "What the hell's this?" (laughs) But he was great. Then I got a command. I left the headquarters and went out and joined the 24th Division as a brigade commander, and I'd been there about eight days when it was announced that the brigade was to go home. (laughs) The next day I got a call on the radio, out flying around in my helicopter -- I had seven battalions in the brigade at the time -- from the corps commander, General Davidson, and General Davidson said, "Meet me at coordinates so-and-so," and we both flew into a point. He said, "I'm pulling you out of this. I've got a problem with the Royal Thai Army. The officer we have working 29 with them is not acceptable any longer to the Royal Thai Army. I need somebody tomorrow, and you're it." That was the craziest thing I've ever been involved in. Wonderful, wonderful Thai commander, who began his military experience at age five in a military academy run by the government. He finished his education in France. The French owned Indonesia. Thailand (inaudible) [02:16:30]. So there we were. Day in and day out, he and I would receive the same briefing. He'd get it in Thai, and his aide-de-camp would give it to me in English. We never ever, ever came to the same solution. We were generations in thought apart. For example, in World War II Thailand never declared war on anybody, but went to war against the Allied forces when they thought Japan was winning. This fellow was a captain in the Thai Army, and he did something very spectacular -- whatever it was, I don't know, very heroic. He was called back to the capital, and he was given the Royal Order of the White Elephant or something. They'd give out five for every war. This was something very, very special, parades, the whole business. He went back to his unit, and then the Thais decided that the Japanese weren't winning the war, and they changed and became our allies. Now you're not going to believe this. They called him back and took the medal because he was fighting on the wrong side. (laughs) I could go on forever on this. My brain couldn't absorb it. When I'd left that and gone back to the United States, I guess when this happened -- I don't remember where I was, but anyway, I wrote him a letter, and I said, "What in the world is going on in Bangkok? You were the commander of the 1st Division, responsible for the security of Bangkok. Your father-in-law is the dictator. They're rioting in the streets, and, to the best I know, nothing's happening." He wrote back to me, after some (inaudible) [02:19:06] time, and said, "Well, you just don't understand our way of thinking. The soldiers had killed some civilians who were rioting, so I went back to my BOQ and stayed there two weeks, and when I came back my father-in-law had been deposed, and the fighting was over." Huh? (laughs) And it wasn't that he wasn't a good soldier, and it wasn't that he was afraid of anything. No, we'd fly around in his damn helicopter and take it places I never would have gone. On the other hand, he had some VIPs coming over, and he said, "We can't take the helicopter today. I'm going to use it tomorrow for some Thai VIPs, and I don't want any fingerprints on it, I don't want to make sure there's no bullet holes in the thing. We'll just take this other thing." What? We couldn't come together. At one point, the real one that almost got me in trouble -- I think it was on Thanksgiving -- our base camp also had three units in it from the 1st Cavalry Division, and the Thais, and the Thais who were responsible for the security, and I was responsible to the US headquarters. Well, on the big army base, maybe 15 miles away, on Thanksgiving night everything went up in the air, flares, and shooting, and machine guns, and all the Thais thought this was great, and they all did it. He called me in the next morning, and he laid me out. He said, "No Thai would ever do that. Your Americans did this." Well, OK, I'll suck it up. "I assure you it won't happen again, sir." So come New Year's time, I put out to my staff with each of his units, where they normally served, to stay with them all night and record everything that happened in that TOC. Next morning he got me again when I went in there. I said, "Sir, before we say anything else, I suggest you talk to your TOC officer." He went down there, and those 30 guys, we made them record everything, and he discovered that it was his units that were doing it. What do you suppose his answer to that one was? JC: I don't know. RT: He called in his senior officers and said, "I'm resigning from the army. You've let me down." And he went back into his hooch and stayed there for about three days. I woke up at the end of three days early in the morning, and the whole goddamn Thai Army that was posted in Vietnam was out there in a formation. I walked out to see what was going on and stood behind him -- he was up on a platform -- and they all apologized, etc., and he forgave them, and they went back into the woods to their positions. They'd left their fighting positions to come back and apologize to the commanding general. JC: Oh, wow. RT: (laughs) You can find one worse than that, I'll bet. My goodness. JC: Want to stop again? (break in audio) JC: Let's stop here, because we've done about another hour and 10 minutes. (break in audio) RT: Let's -- (break in audio) [02:23:15] JC: All right, this is Joseph Cates. Today is May 19, 2016. This is my second interview with Major General Russell Todd. This interview is taking place at the Sullivan Museum and History Center. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. So when we left off last time we had gone through Vietnam, and you're ready for your next assignment. What was that? RT: OK. When the Royal Thai Army left Vietnam I moved out to a brigade, as I said earlier. But the time with the brigade was very unsatisfactory to me as a professional. It was a little more than a month, and that's not what I considered to be a command. So thinking about what would happen when I got home, I called to the Pentagon, talked to the people in armor branch. A lieutenant colonel sits on a desk and shuffles the papers for colonels and helps make the decisions. I told him I wanted to have a particular command at Fort Lewis, Washington, that I knew the command was about to change. And they said, "Oh, we've already appointed somebody to that port. But you are coming back to go to the Pentagon." 31 I had fought off the Pentagon earlier in my tour. When I was working for General Abrams I got a call from the Pentagon that said "We're bringing you back to the United States because a new position has opened up, and it calls for a brigadier general, and although you're only a colonel, we want you to fill that position." And I said, "Tell me about it." They said, "Well, you're going to be the army's first drug-and-alcohol-abuse officer." I said, "You've been watching what I'm drinking." He said, "No, this is what we've got in mind for you." And I said, "That isn't going to work. It just isn't going to work. I'm over here on a two-year tour, and if you want me to leave here, I'll give you General Abrams's telephone number, and you can call him and ask him to release me." Well, no, they didn't think they would do that. (laughs) So when I went back I went to the Pentagon, and there I went to work for a four-star general who I had met several times, because he traveled to Vietnam back and forth, General Kerwin, a wonderful, wonderful soldier. And when I reported in he told me that I was going to be the head of the department that he supervised for the Modern Volunteer Army. My job would be to coordinate all of the programs that were going on both at posts, camps, and stations around the country and around the world, and also within the Pentagon, to evaluate where we ought to be going. Well, OK. It wasn't my first choice. I had about, oh, 10 lieutenant colonels working for me in a very small office that didn't have any windows, and there was a lieutenant general working in the chief of staff's office whose title was the chief of modern volunteer army. So I was torn between two very senior officers who didn't agree with each other very often, and the job went on, and back and forth, and up and down, but a lot of answering letters from the Congress and this kind of thing, and then evaluating things that came from the field. Well, one day I was up in the next level in the Pentagon, because I'd been called by that lieutenant general, and he started chewing me out just something awful for reasons I couldn't explain. Finally he said, "I'm going down and see General Kerwin." My boss. What the hell's this about? So I was standing alone in his office. He went out a side door, and I said, "I've got to get to General Kerwin quick." So I picked up -- they have red phones that go between the very senior officers. I picked it up and dialed General Kerwin's office, and he has to answer that, no matter what's going on. And I said, "Sir, we got trouble," and told him what was going on. I saw him later in the day. He said, "Thanks. That really made a difference." From that moment on, he treated me like I was one of his best friends and had faith in what I was doing. Now, they did bring back in a major general who had just stopped commanding the 82nd Airborne Division, and he came in, and he was my immediate supervisor. But General Kerwin made a proposal -- not a proposal -- instructions to everybody about that time that said "Everybody that works for me in the deputy chief of staff personnel office is going to spend four years in this job." I could see my chances of getting a second shot at a brigade just going out the window. Carol and I had bought a house in Washington, the first home we ever owned. In France it was a rental, and everything else was army quarters. So this was special. She loved that house. She took a job in Washington, DC, in the personnel department, and then she had done a lot of that before, and that was sort of a big part of what she had done at Radcliffe after Smith, and she loved that job. In fact, everywhere we went she tried to find a job that would keep her busy and active. 32 So there we were, balancing back and forth. Now what do I do? Well, I'll go back to my old trick and call the people in my branch on the phone, and I called this young man early one morning before anybody else was in the office, and he happened to be there. I told him my plight, that I'd been really cheated in that one month I'd had in the thing, and General Davidson had said I was coming to Europe with him to command a brigade, and that didn't work out once he found out I'd never been in the Pentagon. "So I want a command, and I want to lay it out right now. I want you to start working on it." He said, "Sir, I'm not sure I can do that." I said, "Well, what time do you come to work?" He said, "Well, I'm in here by 8:00 every morning." I said, "Get in at 7:30 on Monday, because I'm going to call you every goddamn Monday I'm sitting at this desk," and I did. Eventually he said, "I've made an appointment with you with my boss, Colonel [Touche?], who oversees all the branches for colonels." I walked over, and it was my old friend from Fort Knox who had been the senior aide when I was the junior aide to General Collier. He had talked it over with the committee that makes these kinds of decisions, and they were going to put my name in nomination to go back onto the brigade commanders list. Great. A few weeks later I get a phone call that says "We put your name before the committee, and you are on the list, and you're number two." Uh-oh. I'm supposed to spend four years working for General Kerwin? (laughs) So a little later they call back and said, "Whoa. Wait. In the 2nd Armored Division the brigade commander has moved up to be chief of staff, and that brigade is open." I said, "OK. Now you guys call General Kerwin and tell him that you're pulling me out." They said, "Like hell we will." (laughter) So I went to see General Kerwin, and he sort of grimaced and (inaudible) [02:32:24]. He said, "You know my policy." I said, "Yes, I do, sir, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me." And he said, "I'll tell you tomorrow." So the next day he called me, and he said, "Against my better judgment I'm going to let you go to that command. But let me tell you this. The day that's over you're coming back to work for me." I said, "Yes, sir. Thank you." I ran home. (laughs) A little later, in time, the moving truck was in front of the house. I'd gone home, checked out of the office, done everything appropriately, and gone back, and there was a phone call waiting for me at home. General Kerwin. He went on to say what he really wanted me to do, wouldn't I know, is that -- "Sir, we've made our deal," and he says, "OK, but remember, I'm going to get you when you get (inaudible) [02:33:21]." And that was very pleasing to me. I loved the idea of working for him. But, again, it was a matter of just working your way through the system. It was terribly important to my career and to me. People were telling me that "You don't have to do this" kind of thing. You know, "You've done all those kinds of things." But no, that wasn't the career I wanted. So I went to the 2nd Armored Division and took over the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and that was a real fun thing. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of good people working for me. Some of them went on to become general officers later on. The first thing that happened was they told me that the brigade in one month is going to move to Germany on Operation [Forger?]. Does that mean anything to you? Well, in the Cold War we had built all kinds of home hutches and places to store tanks and materials that take a lot of time to get into the theater. If they said, "OK, the balloon went up. Come over here," you wouldn't have had any -- you'd have to wait for your 33 tanks for a month. So they had all those vehicles and stuff over there, and every year we went over and exercised the idea of flying over -- not me, the army did. It was my brigade's turn, and it was just great. I had planned that thing for every possible contingency, in my mind, and we laid it out with the staff. I said, "Now if this happens, or that happens, or this happens, this is what we'll do. Plan A, B, C, and D." And damn, I figured everything except it was going to snow at Fort Hood, and the air force wouldn't show up. (laughter) So we were about two days late getting there, and it slowed things up. But we went out on maneuvers for about a month and a half, and that was a great experience. I'd done it as a company commander when I was stationed in Europe, but as a brigade -- when I went over I've been detached from the 2nd Armored Division of the United States and attached to the 1st Infantry Division, when I got over to Europe. There for the first time I met a fellow named (laughs) -- I met someone, a senior officer, a brigadier general who, because my brigade wasn't part of his division, I had to go through the ropes of him looking over my shoulder for the first three weeks of what we were doing. It wasn't easy. Eventually he and I had a good reputation among each other, and then we're good. It worked out pretty well. Well, his name is Fuller, Fred Fuller. Just to move that part of the story a little further forward, when I went to Forces Command he was the DESOPS, and I was the assistant -- correction, he was the DESPER, personnel, and I was the assistant DESOPS. And again, good friends, you know. No, sir. I had to prove myself all over again to him. That was tough. That was tough. Then when I became division commander at Fort Hood, would you believe they made him the corps commander, and my boss again? And again, I went through the process. I called it rook training, he wanted to test me on everything that was going on, and then eventually he agreed, and we got along. That was a very difficult relationship I had with that individual. So we came back from Germany after the Reforger, and it was time to change division commanders. A general officer that I had met once or twice but didn't know came in as the two-star commanding the (inaudible) [02:38:26]. This was a fight for my life. He, in my opinion, didn't represent a good soldier. He would drive in his jeep with the two stars on the front, down the street, and the men in the division would say, "Hi, General," and he'd wave back, "Hi." No saluting, none of this. He would come around in my battalion and ask the company commander and the battalion commander to see their operational reports, and particularly the readiness reports, whether or not this tank would go or that one. He required them, not required them, but pushed hard for them to like take something off this tank and put it on that tank, and now we've created another tank that this one isn't working, this one if you take the parts and put it on this one, that's one less tank, but will look that much better. It was everything how you looked. Eventually he was promoted to lieutenant general and shipped to Europe, and his chief of staff caught on to his way of life, reported it. He got thrown out of the army, reduced to major general, and was retired. But that was a tough fight, that was a tough fight. In town now there's a major general, retired, John Greenway. Maybe you've met Phyllis. JC: I have. RT: Well, John Greenway was my chief of staff in the brigade, and I don't know how many times he saved my life. He'd say, "No, no, no, don't go up there and tell that general off. 34 Don't do it. Stop here." One time I actually said, "The hell with you, John, I'm going up there." I was really mad. Again, he had ordered my people to do something that was not proper. So John called up the division chief of staff, who was a good friend, and said, "Russ is on the way. Stop him." (laughs) So I never got in to see him, and I calmed down, and the chief of staff discussed it with me in a way. But it was a difficult, difficult system to live with, but I had wonderful people working for me. JC: Well, that's good. RT: Yeah. JC: What year is this? RT: Oh, my God. (inaudible) [02:41:04] I can't remember my birthday. (laughter) It was about '60 something, yeah. I came back to the United States, and I was assigned to forces command, where General Kerwin was, the man that said, "You're going to go work for me," and I went to work for General Kerwin just as I'd been promoted by the system to be brigadier general. I worked for him for two years and then another year with General Rogers, who went on to be the chief of staff of the army, and it was great. Real professionals who understood various ways of handling people beautifully. I must admit, he had a chief of staff who wasn't quite up to speed in my opinion, and as a result I found myself bypassing the chief of staff, which really isn't a very good idea. But both General Kerwin and General Rogers, when I was there, would call me on the phone directly and ask me to do something. As the junior brigadier general at Fort McPherson, Georgia, they immediately appointed me to be club officer, and to be the president of the Association of the United States Army chapter at Fort McPherson. I was really the junior guy in that headquarters as far as a general officer is concerned. The biggest thing that happened to me really there was that that's when we had the baby lift out of Vietnam, and then we had the evacuation of Vietnam. In the operations business at forces command, we had the responsibility of preparing those units in the United States, wherever they might be involved, to prepare them for the influx of people. I was up a lot of nights and really mad at the air force sometimes. They would bring in planes early, before we could finish taking people off the previous planes and get them, kind of thing. They finally came around. But it was a real wonderful experience as far as I'm concerned. I had the thrill of getting a thank you letter from the president and being called in by the State Department, who had the responsibility of taking these people once they arrived in the United States -- when they arrived in the United States the army was responsible for them. We took old barracks and tried to fix them up to be for families and all the rest of it. And the next step was to put them out into the population in America, and that was done by the State Department. At the end of this, the State Department gave me an award and invited me over to Foggy Bottom, and it was carried out in the formal part of that. It's a very ordinary-looking building, but inside, on the top floor, they have collected and put in there all the furnishing and antiques of America. They would go to somebody that had something that the State Department wanted, and they would say "We would like to have it, and we will replicate it exactly, and give you back the replication." They built -- it's a museum, it's a wonderful, wonderful museum of 35 American furniture through time. I was really impressed with it being there. I wasn't that impressed with the State Dept- people in Vietnam. (laughs) It was very interesting. JC: Yes, sir. So this was around 1975, that would be (crosstalk; inaudible) [02:45:47]. RT: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I did one or two year. JC: Where were you from Fort McPherson? RT: From Fort McPherson, when my immediate boss left General Rogers called me in and said, "I want you to be my full-time top guy and deputy chief of staff operations." I said, "No, General, that isn't right." "What are you talking about, it isn't right?" I said, "You want someone that's been a division commander to be in that job. I mean, you're dealing with all those division commanders, and if the guy that's passing the instructions hasn't had the experience of being a division commander, it doesn't come through right." And he said, "All right. All right." About a year later I was on a board in Washington. You're sent in to do a lot of those things. Interestingly enough, on this particular one I was the head of the board for captains being promoted to major, and I got in trouble with General Rogers. The instructions we had were "These are the formulas, etc., that you follow when you're looking at the history of their being in the service. You can add to this other things, if you, as a board, want to do it." The first thing we added to it was that any captain who had served a normal period of time as a captain in the combat arms branches and had not had a company wasn't to be promoted on this occasion to major. Passing up a captain, you pass up the real army and the real understanding of the army, and, oh, boy. It turns out that we eliminated from being promoted five captains at West Point, instructors, and that reverberated around the world. (laughs) General Rogers finally calmed down. Then on another occasion when I was away in Washington he called me on the phone and said, "The major generals promotion list has just come out." I said, "Oh, good. Who's on it?" and they said, "You are." Oh, wow. After I went back he called me in his office and said, "Now, I'm going to send you to Fort Hood to command a division." Previous discussion, you got to have a command. I said, "Oh, my. Where's George going?" And he looked at me with this great strain on his face and said, "George who?" I said, "George Patton, 2nd Armored Division." I had been in the 2nd Armored Division twice. Four men have commanded the 2nd Armored Division, three of them during World War II. I knew that was my place in life. Well, he said, "You're going to the 1st Cav." Of course, when I'd been there as a brigade commander the 1st Cav was the enemy. (laughter) It was a little difficult to change my mindset that I was now the head of the 1st Cavalry Division, but it turned out to be a good assignment, too. We were immediately assigned a mission of working on something that was called Division '86, and this was the '76-'77 time frame. What we would do is to experiment with different organizational concepts, try them out, and another R&D organization would evaluate whether this was a good idea, or whether it wasn't a good idea. But, man, was that a lot of work. We had soldiers picking up their mattresses and marching over two streets, and then joining another company, because now we were trying -- we were going to have tank platoons with only four tanks rather than five tanks, 36 and these guys had to fill in for the -- you know, back and forth, and up and down. It was a crazy time, but it was very, very rewarding. We lived next door to George Patton and Joanne Patton, and as a matter of fact we had become very close friends over the time we were in the army. We went home on vacations sometimes by accident at the same time, back in New England, and other times purposefully. But we celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary together, both divisions, at the club, and it was officers. It was really good sport. JC: Was that your last command? RT: No. They sent me to -- at one Fort Hood, after two years of commanding the division, I went down and commanded something called [Tecada?] [02:51:38], which was a research and development experimental station kind of thing. I was doing to the rest of the world what they'd been doing to me, for two years I guess, at which point I was shipped over to Europe to be the deputy chief of staff for operations under General Kroesen. He was one of the most magnificent soldiers I'd ever met. I worked for him once before for a short time, but he was first class. Then I got a call from Loring Hart, president of Norwich University, who I'd gotten to know -- over his 10-year span as president -- pretty well. In my traveling around at various times, I was the head of the Norwich Club of Georgia, the Norwich Club of Fort Hood, the Norwich Club in Europe. They'd come over to visit, and we became close. I had come home on leave to see my dad, who was in bad trouble health wise, and I got a call from Loring Hart to my dad's home down in New Hampshire. He said, "I need you to come up here. I need to talk to you; it's important." And I said, "Gee, I don't know. Dad is not well, I don't know how long he's going to live, and I can't be here very long, so I really and truly want to see as much of him as I can." He said, "Well, afterward, after this weekend" -- it was a big alumni weekend -- "I'll stop in to see you." I said OK. Well, Mother got a hold of me, and Dad got a hold of me and said, "Go on up there." Dad said, "Get a hold of my classmates and tell them I'll be there next year." Well, I knew most of his classmates. When I arrived I found them at lunch in the Armory, and I walked down to the table, the half where they were, and started saying this lie about my father, he's going to be getting well, and he'll see you next year when he comes. All of a sudden the most unusual thing happened. There was this great noise in the Armory, and it kept getting louder and louder and louder. As this individual coming into the room got closer to our table, I discovered that it was General Harmon coming back, and all of these people were saying, "Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie." I couldn't believe it, you know, really and truly. It showed me just exactly how much he was loved by this institution. That doesn't mean he didn't make a lot of mistakes at times, but he really pulled us out of the woods. So Loring Hart stops in at the house and says, "The board at Norwich University has told me that 10 years is enough, and I'm going to retire. I want you to put your name on the list to be considered." I said, "You're a PhD, you taught English, you became the dean of the university. I don't have any of that." He said, "And you don't need it either, because I'm absolutely certain they're going to choose a soldier." I said, "What do you know, I'm qualified." I went back to Europe, told my boss, and then came back. I made a couple of trips back and forth. I told my boss, which was General Kroesen, what was 37 going on, and then went to see the chief of staff of the army to tell him that I was putting in my papers. You know, after you've been division commander you owe the army something, because of the experience they've given you. So I went to see General "Shy" Meyer, who I'd known in Vietnam, and I was a little dubious here. What will he say? So I told him, and he jumped up from behind his chair, rushed around to my side of his desk, shook my hand, and said, "Boy, that's just exactly what I want to do when I get out." (laughter) Then, unfortunately, and this doesn't have to be spread around, he told me that my name had been submitted to be promoted to Lieutenant General, and it is now before the Congress. Had I not put this in and had I been selected, I was going to go to one of two different jobs, and neither one of them sounded as much fun to me as coming home. Not that I could change my mind. Once you've told the army you're retiring, you're retiring. You don't change your mind. So that's how I got here. JC: What were the other two choices? RT: To be the chief of staff of USEUCOM, which was for the European theater of all of the activities there, and the other one was on the joint staff, doing the DES-OPS kind of work, which is called the J5. JC: So you come to Norwich. Talk a little bit about the application process, because I know Phil Marsilius says in his oral history that they gave you an eight-point plan that they wanted implemented. RT: Yeah. Very unusual I thought, and very useful. Before I get to that (laughs), Carol and I came. We went to New York City and joined a committee of the board who were involved in the selection process. The plane was late, the taxis weren't running, and we were late getting to this thing. Carol was a little nervous that that showed that maybe we weren't working hard enough to get there. They said to me, "We've just finished lunch. Do you want something to eat?" and I said, "Oh, yeah. How about a bowl of onion soup?" Carol said to me afterward, "You could have chosen anything but that cheese dangling out of your mouth." (laughter) But, to me, we had a wonderful conversation, and quite frankly I left in the cab going back to the airport with a member of the board who sat there and congratulated us, because they were certain that the board was now going to select us. Yeah, interesting. Where were we in our discussion? JC: The eight-point plan. RT: Yeah. I can't tell you what the eight-points are right now, but they were all reasonable, one of which was to make Vermont College work, the system of the two institutions together, and that's interesting, too. On that point I tried very hard -- they put a lot of pressure on Loring to go up to Vermont College at least twice a week. He'd go home, changed out of his uniform into civilian clothes, go up to Vermont College, and I don't know what he did, presumably he did good things, and came back again. I got into that routine with him, and I found that Vermont College was in deep trouble, I mean, in my opinion. Over time Vermont College had reduced the quality of their education in order 38 to sustain the number of students they needed, and they had all kinds of programs going that didn't make a lot of sense. They had a nursing program that was excellent. Excellent. They had just bought some programs from -- oh, what's the name of it? JC: Goddard? RT: Goddard College, and they were difficult to mesh into the family. For example, I hadn't been here very long, and I got a call from Mrs. Lippincott, who was the chief officer of Vermont College and had previously been Loring's assistant. I got a call that said, "There's going to be a graduation on Friday" -- this was about Wednesday -- "and it's going to be outside at Vermont College. It's going to be one of the Goddard programs that's graduating at this time. They would like to invite you to be part of their graduation." So I said, "Fine, I'll be there." But before I went I hadn't heard anything more, so I called up to find out, and I said, "Now, what's my role in this? Do I hand out the diplomas? Do I make a speech, do I congratulate them from the platform? What do I do?" They said, "Oh, no, they just want you to sit there and be present. They do all this themselves." OK. I can live with that, and we'll see what happens. The first student to graduate came up, gave a little speech, each one of them, and then took their diploma and put it from their left hand to their right hand, and went back to their chair. The institution wasn't involved. This happened seven or eight times before I really said this is something we've got to look at. Then they decided, or they didn't then decide, the next thing was to have a musical rendition. They had a fellow with a fife and a piano player, and they pushed the piano out toward the group, and the front leg broke off pushing it through the grass. They somehow got it jacked up and started, and the flute player -- well, it was awful, just awful. The next day I said to my vice president, Jim Galloway, major general, retired, I told Jim what had happened, and he said, "You know, you weren't the first. I was the first. The same sort of thing went on, but it was crazier when I was up there." I said, "Tell me." He said, "The flute player was in a tree." (laughter) So we spent some time trying to bring it into the focus. Quite frankly they had some fine professors. They just didn't have a system involved. JC: I've always heard Goddard is a little strange. RT: Well, put it this way. One time Carol and I invited the president of -- oh, in Burlington. JC: UVM? RT: N
Issue 46.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1987. ; Self-Awareness and Ministry Gender, History, and Liturgy Humanity's Humble Stable God's Love Is Not Utilitarian Volume 46 Number 6 Nov./Dec. 1987 Rv:vw.w t:o~ R~,~olous (ISSN 0034-639X), published eve~ two months, is edited in collaboration with lhe faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Lx~uis University. The edito-rial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. R~vu-:w ~:o~ R~:.~.~t~ous is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. Ol987 by R~-:wt.:w ~:o~ R~.~.~ous. Single copies $2.50. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $11.00 a year: $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (surface mail); airmail (Book Rate): $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: R~:v~v:w roa R~:t.mmtts: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Acting Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Nov./Dec. 1987 Volume 46 Number 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to wm R~:t.t(:totJs; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:vt~:w wm R~:tot~;totJs; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Four Ecclesial Problems Left Unresolved Since Vatican II Martin R.Tripole, S.J. Father Tripole is an associate professor of th.eology at St. Joseph's University; Phila-delphia, Pennsylvania ! 913 !. He,wrote "Suffering with the Humble Chi'ist" for the March,April 1981 issue of this periodical. Catholic scholars have been.talking about crisis in the Catholic Church for so long a time now that almost everyone has gotten used to it. In fact, too many people have been saying there is a crisis for anyone to ignore the situation. But not everyone uses the term. It depends on whom you tall~ to. Until recently, the higher you went in the Church, the less likely you were to find admission of crisis. For example, Bishop Ja~mes Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, former president of the National conference of Catho-lic Bishops, submitted a report to the Vatican in the summer of 1985 on the state of the Church. in the United States since Vatican II, a report made in preparation for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops that met in Rome November 25-December 8, 1985.:In his. report, Bishop Malone stated the Church in the United S(ates is "basically sound." The bishop made no mention of cri~is; instead he talked of "confusion" and "abuses" and "false ideas'" and "diffiC'ulties" in various areas of church life.~ While many praised th~report, it was also criticized as "looking at the Church in the United States through 'rose-colored glasses.' "2 But another high-level member of the clergy has no difficulty speak-ing of crisis. Joseph Cardinal' Ratzinger,. prefect of the Sacred Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith, surely one of themost powe~rful of-ficials in tlie Vatican, made the ~tiscussion of crisis in the Church today 801 Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 the c.entr~l theme of his Ratzinger Report. This 1985' publicati6r~ of an exclusive interview given to an Italian journalist caught the attention of everyone and produced much controversy, in'view of the cardinal's strong views on the Church, as well as the fact that he published them just before the extraordinary synod was to be held. Ratzinger and his in-terviewer discourse at length on "a crisis of faith and of the Church," of "an identity crisis" in priests and religious, a "crisis of trust in the dogma," a "crisis of confidence in Scripture," a crisis "of the moral-ity. "In his summation of "the gravity of the crisis" in the Church since Vatican II, Ratzinger's tone is markedly different from Bishop Malone's. The interviewer cites views written by Ratzinger ten years earlier and con-firmed by him for the Report as still valid: It is incontestable that the last ten years have been decidedly unfavor-able for the Catholic Church . What the popes and the Couhcil Fa-thers were expecting was a new,Catholic unity, and instead one has en-countered a dissension which--to use the words of Paul Vl--seems to have pasg~d over from self-criticism to self-destruction . it has ended in boredom and discouragement . one found oneself facing a progressive process of decadence . [and] erroneous paths whose catastrophic consequences are already incontestable.3 Nevertheless, when the bishops came together at the extraordinary synod, they spoke of sharing in "mankind's present crisis and dramas" and of the "spiritual crisis., so many people feel" today, but not of an, y crisis of the Church as such. Less exfflt6d Catholic leaders, theologians, and publishers readily speak of crisis in the Church. The Rev. Robert Johnson, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, in 1985 stated: Priesthood is in crisis. The vocation of the ordained priest is not what it used to be. The data tells us that. Our own experience tells us that also. There is a crisis in numbers. At its zenith in 1970, the diocesan priesthood .in the United States numbered some 37,000. By the year 2000, it is estimated that this population will be 16,000 or 17,000. This would represent a declin.e of some 54%. i in the year 2000 we will have roughly the same number of priests we had in 1925. Meanwhile, the people we were ordained to serve will have quadrupled.4 Edward C. Herr, in a report on "The State of the Church," in 1985 stated that, whereas in a similar report in 1983 there were "hopes that a relatively stableoand tranquil period" was about to arrive in the Church, he must now report those hopes were "naive," that "the tensions and turmoil have increased and show no signs of ebbing."4A He reports the Four Ecclesial Problems recent findings of Dr. William J. McCready, program director of the Uni-versity of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC), that "a third of the 52 million Roman Catholics in America rarely or never go to church."5 Herr cites an article by James Hitchcock, professor of his-tory at St. Louis University, which lis~ed a catalo~g of ~'problems facing the Church in America" today: REligious orders openly pro.moting dissent Official Church agencies providing platforms for dissent ~"Radical redefinition of the traditional religious vows" Tolerance of "known violations" of chlibacy Growing influence of "militant homosexual network" in seminaries and religious orders Almost total collapse of seminary discipline "Probably a large majority of Catholic colleges hnd universities have become bffectively secular" Widespread deviations from "official liturgical norms" Majority of Catholic students no longer receive an adequate grounding in their faith Bishops and priests "largely refrain from teaching ,, disputed doctrines.' ,6 ~' Herr also reports the views of Richard Schoenherr, soc'iologist and asso-ciate dean at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1985, on "a cri-sis for the Church by the year 2000." Acc6rding to Herr, Schoenherr presents ~ a bleak picture of the Church-at the turn of the century. Opportunities to attend Mass will be fewer since each priest will have to serve 4,000 Catholics in a burgeoning Church; laity,.tired of a subordinate position in the Church, will withdraw from active leadership while those who do continue to serve will be laden with greater responsibility . There will be "an organizational crisis of immense proportion," accord-ing to Schoenherr, with an "ehormous youth drain in theministry," and with more "resigned" than active priests in the United States.7 Norbertine Father Alfred McBride, president of the University of Al-buquerque, also predicts a "ministry crisis" in 2000. He foresees a to-tal of 30,000 priests serving. 65 million Catholics.8 Finally., novelist Mor-ris West, author of many best-sellers on (~atholicism, is reported as see-ing the possibility of "a silent schism" in the Church of the future, as a result of "a defection of millioi~s by a-slow decline into indiffer-ence. ' ,9 Review, for Religious, November-December, 1987 The fact is: there has been talk of a crisis in the Church ever since the '60's--that per_iod which constitutes a kind of a turning point.in the life of the modern Church. That decade, from which date many of the issues whi~c,h 'trouble~the American Church today was equally a problemati~ decade for American society in gene,ra~l., and indeed for the world. In fact, the world is "officially" in a state of crisis---~f sorts. The bishops told us that at Vatican II when they stated the "human race is passing through a.new stag~ 0fits history" where it is undergoing "a true social and cultural transformation" causing a "crisis of gro~vth. "~0 The modern world is experiencing "new foLoas of social and p~sychologi-cai slavery" as well as "imbalances" that lead to "Mutual distrust, en-mities, conflicts, an~'hardships" (~audium el spes 4, 8). According to the bishops, this situation of crisis inevitably "has repercussions on man's religious life as~ well": it cause,s "spiritual agitation,"4"many peo-ple are shaken" in their convictions, and '~growing humbers~ of people are abandoning religion fin pr~actice" .(GS 5, 7). Later in the _same docu-ment, though in the context of a discussion on war and peace, the bish-ops speak of "the whole human family" as having "reached an hour of supreme crisis in its advance toward maturity" (GS 77). While the bishops at Vatican II did not go so far as to say directly that the Church was in a state of crisis, they certainly meant to say that the Church shared in the~crisis situation of the'world in ggneral. It was not long after, however, that writers.started speaking directly, of a crisis in the Church. We may note only a few. Father Andrew Greeley loudly proclaimed that as a fact in an important series of articles he published in diocesan newspapers in 1976; entitled "The Crisis in American Ca-tholicism" (and later in a book entitled Crisis in the Church),~ but the idea of ,the Church. in crisis had already quietly come into standard con-sideratiOn or was .soon to do so through the writings of such renowned historians, scrilSture scholars, and theologians as Raymond Brown, S.S. (B~blical Reflections on Crises Facing the C. hurch),~2 Richard P. McBr~en (he speaks of the "pre.sent crisis within the Catholic Church" in The Remaking oft~ Churcl~),~3 Avery Dulles, S.J. (fie sl~eaks of a "crisis of identity" in the Church in The Resilient Church), 14 and David J. O'Brien (h611spe~iks of the '~Catholic crisis," the "American crisis," and "an age Of crisis" in The Renewal of A. merican Catholicism).~5 Statistical~d~ta since the end of Vatican II--th~e latest reports of An-drew Greeley's National °Opinion Research Center in Chicago,~6 from George Gallup Jr.'s continuing analysis of the state of the Catholic Church in America,~7 and from the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Par- Four Ecclesial Problems /805 ish Life~8--provide overwhelming evidence, as far as statistical data is able to do so, that the American Catholic Church is in a state of crisis. ¯ Evidence: American Catholics no longer accept official teaching of the Church simply,on the basis of the fact that it is official teaching; Catho-lics no lbnger go to church, as much as ~hey used to, to fulfill their Sun-day obligation or from ~i sense of duty; they ~ai'e not contributing to the sti~iport of the Church.in a way consonant with their earnings; they are o~penly criticizing the Chui'ch in a way" that seems to i'epresent a new ¯ sense ol~ independence over agains~t the institutional Church" and its offi- Cial teachers. What is going on, and when will it end? Causes of Crisis Since Vatican II ,Numerous publications have been~ritteri since Vatican II seeking to determine the causes of the crisis Which has beset the Church since~that time. The fact is, the ca~iases are manifold, and only a, lhrge t0ine could hope to anal~,ze and cover them all thoroughl)~. What I attempt here is -'C0: fbcus on what I shall call four unresolved antinomi~ek which are re-flected in the thinking and practices of the Church since Va[i~an II. My point is to argue that the bishops at Vatican II not o~nly were aware o,f, but shgred in,. the theologically, antinomous viewpoints which have largely served to. polarize the Church sin.ce~ the end of the Council.° Though there is~ some exaggera~tion in categorizing these viewpoints quite simplyas conservative/traditionalist and liberal/progressivist, I shall do that for want of better terms, and also because the viewpoints do .tend to be of these two types. Though these terms have a political and ideo-logical connotation, their use here is not meant to imply that. What we,mean.by the use of these terms is that there are two oppos-ing movements working in the Church today. The first is inclined to want ,to preserve elements today which were also characteristic of the life of the Chtirch ~before Vatican II,-elements such as hierarchical authority, clerical priority, and institutional identity;~the second is more inclined toward~elements which arose in the life of the Church since Vatican II, elements such as democratic~procedures, equality of membership, unity based on shared convictions and shared authority. ,Neither group is. to-tally opposed to the values identified with the other, except at the outer fringes. Thus~extreme traditionalists---c~illed reactionaries wish no part of what~the Church since Vatican II has come to be identified with; ex-treme liberals~alled radicals--reject automatically whatever was promi-nent in the Church before Vatican II and yearn for a congregationalist type of community. For the larger membership in both groups, the prob- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 lem is mainly one of emphasis: which set of values, which viewpoint should ,be the dominant one in the .life of the Church?. That question of emphasis is a serious one. In spite of the fact that it is only a question of emphasis, it leads in practice to polarization. Re-cent events in .the .life of the Church.have increased this experience of polarization rather than diluted it, mainly because the traditionalist camp, which had largely fallen into the ~silent majority in ~the Church .in the post- Vatican II peri0d, has gained a new sense of power in the last ten yehr~s. The struggle between these two, groups is now, in my opinion, at the most intense point of conflict the Church has felt since the early pp,s~t- Vatican II days of the Church. What, if anything, can be done to reduce this polarization? I wish in this article only to point to what I consider the four major areas of po-larization which were left unresolved by Vatican II. They continue to re-main largely unresolved by the post-Vatican II Church, even after the Ex-traordinary Synod of 1985, and they need to be resolved before the po-larization can b6 overcome:~I~ t me discuss each of these areas singly_, and at some length:. Saci~ed ~vs."Si~cular ' The" Catholic Church has had a strong sense of social responsibility throughout the modern era., as shown in a history of concern forrectify-ing inhumane workihg conditions, unjust wages, and unfair labor prac- .tices, starting at least with Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum: On the Condi-tioh of Workers (1891). Nevertheless, there is no doubt that a new and profound theological significance has been given to the role of the Church in regard to such matters since Vatican II. Prior to Vatican II, social activity was generally considered to be peripheral to the primary ¯ work o(the Church, to administer the s~icraments and preach the gospel of salvation in Christ. With Vatican II, the Church seemed to be saying that the .social apostolate was as important to the life of the Church as these two other activities. .A major transformation in the relationship of the Church to the world got underway at Vatican II. The .Chur~hnow saw itself not only right-fully but also dutifully bound to bring the insight and power of the gos-pel into the .arena of world problems, in the hope of changing th~ un-holy conditibns and direction of the life'of the world from within. Church concern for such issues was obvious ifi the countless conventions and publicat!ons on social, political, and moral issues that sprang up in the post-Vatican II era. Most notable was the conference by the Latin Ameri-can bishops at Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, which registered a strong Four Ecclesial Problems / 807 commitment by Latin American bishops to Overcoming the problems of the poor and oppressed in their countries; and the international Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1971, which published the historic document Jus-tice in the World, which, "Scrutinizing the signs of the times.ai~d seek-ing to detect the meaning of emerging history," concluded that "Ac-tion on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemp-tion of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situ-ation." 19 One of the 9learest examples of how important the new thrust into social and political matters would be forthe American Church may be seen from a 1981 publication of the U.S. Catholic Conference enti-tledA Compendium of Statements of the United States Catholic Bishops on the Political and Social Order. It takes 487 pages to cover the docu-ment~ ition from 1966 .to 1980, which includes statements on "war and peace, development, and human rights," as ~eil as "~tbo~tion, birth con-trol, Call to Action (the U.S. Bishops' Bic~htennial Consultation on So-cial Justice), crime'and punishment, economic issues, family life, free-dom of religion, housing, immigrants, labor disputes, minorities, race, rural America, and television."2° More recently the United States bish-ops have taken forthright and controversial stands ori the matters of war and peace and the American economy,'the former in their pastoral.letter The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise~and Our Response (May 3, 1983), the latter in their Economic Justice foroAll~" Catholic Social Teach-ing and the U.S. Economy (November 13, 1986). In each case the bish-ops argue to. the implications of the gospel message, singling out the im-morality of nuclear warfare or the scandalous operations, in the Ameri-can economic system. The full implications of these strong teachings have yet to be determined. ~, All of this would be cause fo'~ unmitigated joy, were it not for the fact that with. this new emphasis UpiSn the social implications of the Gos-pel, something transcendent in the' gospel teaching may have been lost. One :of the major problems in the life of the.Church since Vatican II, according to the bishops at the Extraordinary Synod of 1985, has been the lack of recognition and acceptance of a sacral or theological depth to the Churcti's life--what the synod calls the "mystery" of the Church. The bishops .take responsibility for the fact that this dimension of Churcfi life has been undermined, especially among young people, by a too secu-lar conception of the .Church as a mere human institution. The bishops assert: ~ I~Oll / Review for Religious~ ~November-December, 1987 , a unilateral'presentation of:the 13hurch as a purely institutional structure devoid of her mx.stery has been made. We~are probably not immune from all respon, sibility for th.e fact that, especially the young consider the Chur~ch a pure institution. Have we not perhaps favored this opinion in them by speaking ~too much of the i'enewal Of the Church's external struc-tures and too little of God a'hd of Christ? The bisl~ops admit ~that in their eagerness to open the. Church to the ~,orld they h, ave~qot suffici,ently di~tinguishe.d legitimate openness to the world from a secularization of the Church by the world: From time to time there has also been a lack of the~discernment of spir-' its, with~the failure to correctly distinguish between a legitimate open-ness of the council to the world and ~the acceptance of a secularized ¯ world's mentality and order of~values, . . . An easy accommodation that could lead to the secularizmion of the Church is to be excluded. /(ls0 excluded is an immobile closing in upon itself of the community of the faithful. Affirmed instead is a'missionary openness for the inte-gral salvation of the wo~ld.21 ~ Part of the problem has been the Church's eagerness to,enter the social arena with calls for social justice. While it is vital to the Church to em-phasize ~an active concern for social issues, the Church's concern for these issues should not become so great that it loses sight of .the fact that its deepest life is lived in "mystery" as the Church o_f God, and that the Church is ultimately made,up of the community"of the redeemed in Christ serving his mission of salvation: The primary mission of the Church, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, is to preach and to witness to the good and joyftil news of the election, the mercy and the charity of God which manifest themselves in salvation history, which through Jesus Christ reach their culmination in the fullness of time and which communicate and offer salvation to man by virtue of the Holy Spir.it. Christ is,the light of humanity. The Church, proclaiming the Gospel, must see to it that this light clearly shines out from her.countenance (ibid., p. 446). Social activism without that sacral 'dimension risks becoming purely secu-lar and human; such activity is totallymconsistent with the life of the Church, however good such acti~ism might otherwise be. To the extent that secularization in its various forms has happened in theChurch since Vatican II, something.inconsistent with what the Church should be arisen .in the community. To restore, a proper~balance, the Church .needs.to'reaffirm the primacy of its religious commitment, and to let that commitment shine before the Four, ,Ecclesial Problems, world.Only.,in the clarity of that commitment conveyed to the.world through its members is it able to seek effective ways of changing the world. These in turn must see themselves as having a primary mission to prove to the world the validityof the sacra~l o trranscendent dimen-sion of life as conveyed in the mission of Chrisi. ~n this respecti0ne not ov~erestimate the importance of Vatican II's and' the s~,nod's ne~ly developed and reaffirmed theology 6f the~ laity~ by Which thdrole of the laity in the.promotion of Christian and human values in.,the wo~ld is heightened ai~d theologically validated. Christians need also to find a way to counte~ract, the.increasing intru-sion ~of the power of the secul.ar into their. 9wn lives. To my mind, there is.no ,way for the Church more dramatically and decisively to restore the primacy, of the faith experience to Christian diving than emphatically to reassert its importance in the personal commi,tment to Christ. The "pas-sion"-, for Christ and the commitme~.t, to God's plan for the world in Christ .have too often been put on the back burner as we enter into the discussion of the problems of the world and seek to resolve them from within, using the naturalistic and,humanistic standards and instruments of action the world is often quite willing at least in,the~i~y to accept. But these are not enough for the Church. We must once again~become "p.as-sionately" committed to Christ and his purposes, and openly manifest to the world that it is primarily these for ~tii~h we stand, If the transcendent dimension, to life is rea!ly crucial to the well-being of the world and~therefore must bepreserved, it will have to come from deeply religiously-committed Christians. For them to be found in any great number, however, a new zeal for Christ and his purposes must be restored. The Church, and especi.ally its leaders both lay and religious, have no greater challenge today. Whether the zeal. necessary to restore the sense of the religious dimension to life in the,world chn be found, however, is not easily answered. Somehow we Christians shall have to enter more deeply into Ourselves, to find out if we really, share strongly a commitment tO Christ and his visi0fi °of the world and ~re willirig to make ~the sacrifices demanded o~°us as we enter into /~ ~riaarketplace al-ready increasingly intolerant of his vie~. W~"shall not~have the impact necessary to the success of the Christian vision merely,, by exporting Chris-tian values in a secularized form. The world does not need to know there is a need for justice nearly so much as it needs t6 kno.w that justice is a dimension of the faith experience in Christ.To seek to alleviate the cries of the poor in social action is really~not the, Christian~mission; rather, our mission is to bring to the poor the vision of~hrist, con- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 sciously known and passionately calling all people to a commitment to him and to the consequences of that commitment in a life of faith and service. Innovation vs. Traditi6n Th~re is a second, inner-Church conflict to be resolved: between the new and the _old, between innovatidn and tradition. Vatic~'n II met at a crucial point in the life of the Church, when Catho-lic liberal~ were calling for reform while the conservatives wanted to stand by tradition. The bishops who came together represented both view-points. In the final documents they deliberately attempted ~ to draw to- . gether elements from th~ thinking 6f both. camps, hoping to blend their opposing viewpoints.enough to satisfy the desires of each. Apparently both sides were willing to accept compromise. Both also recognized that total consistency was impossible at that time there was simply not enough time to work out the niceties of perfect harmonization, nor was it necessarily desirable. It surely"was expected that the ongoing life of the Church, especially in the work of the theologians under the direc-tion of the bishbps, would work out any incongruities or inconsistencies in thought or prac'tice that ~ight be left over from the Council. And so the Council ended. But as one reporter put it: Yet the Counci'l's efforts to assimilate modernity and still be true to a 2000-year tradition also created the potential for vast misunderstanding. The Council called upon the Church to uphold, simultaneously, freedom and orthodoxy, culturalopenness and identity, change and continuity, modernity and tradition, hierarchy and participation. That is a tall or-der. 22 Avery Dulles, S.J~,.,asks the question that emphasizes the inevitability of the p~:o.b_lem.: Can a Church that simul.taneously moves in thes~ contradictory direc-tions. keep enough homogeneit~y to remain a single social body? . . . Can the Church adopt new symbols, languages, structures and behav-ioral patte .ms 6n a massive scale without losing continuity with its own origins and its ow.n pa~t? (ib!d.) Any break from tradition for any organization necessarily leads to con-fusion. But this would have been a problem even more for the Catholic Church because the break was so abrupt.and deep. Before the Council, many Catholics had~ accepted ex.aggerated acquiescence to unchange as a theological truism, with little or no sense of the role_of history in. the formation'of dogma and Church practice: Because all Church statements Four Ecclesial Problems / I~11 hadotended to be regarded as dogma unquestioningly to be accepted, obe-diential deference to authority was orthodox; freedom ofthbught, unor-thodox independence. Suddenly, after Vatican II, what had been consid-ered un-Catholic was espoused as good Catholicism. Whereas acceptance of lohg-standing traditions was the n~irm for acceptableoCatholic living prior to Vatican II.; now freedom of thought and openness to new ideas and individual conscience became acceptable. This break with tradition, l~owever, was not simply a break from the old frr the neff, but a rever-sal from standards recognizing something as unacceptable to standards recognizing the same as acceptable and even desirable.,Thus ~0nfusion, disagreement, and fallout were inevitable. Also, it is inevitable t'h~t all this leads to a deeper question: what does it mean to be a Catholic and to have the faith? ' There i~ no doubt a wide spectrum of viewpoints regarding'the theo-logica! role of innovatiori vs. that of tradition, and What, if any, the proper combination ofothe two might be. But in certain areas there is cr'rn~ mon consensus and in other areas a lack of consehsus. There is growing consensus that the break with past traditions ~vas too abrupt and that there is a ;need,to retui'n to some past symbols an'd traditions withou~ renouncing everything new. At the time of the Ameri-can bicentennial, John Coleman, S.J., called for an ""open-ended re-sourcement," a dialogue or "creative engageme,nt" between the tradi-tional Catholic sYmbols and new ones that wouldopen up. or adapt to "new purposes, experiences and questions" in an integrating "process of g~:owth."23 More recently, Greeley has also called for a return to the "experience~' and-"imagination" .ofoour "Catholic her!tage" so re-cently abandoned as either irrelevant or impeding ecumenism or incom-patible with the modem world. Greeley understands Catholicism .to,stress the "sacramental" presence of the divine in Christian living, and says that this sacramental "religious style" should now be recognized as of the "essence" of the Catholic "insight," andan invaluable feature of the Catholic approach to religio.n.24 ,~There is growing consensus that there is widespread ignorance of the fundamental teachings of Christianity, especially among Xhe young, and that the problem must be addressed quickly. In an effort ~to make Chris-tianityrelevant to our lives, we shifted too quickly from the rigorous for-malism of the catechism and the memorization of. its teachings to dia-log'oe about the lived experience of the faith. What we lost was a solid understanding of what that faith believed, What is called for today is not necessarily the catechism method, but wtiatever method(s) may be nec- Review for Religiousl November-December, 1987 essary .to restore'to its rightful place knowledg6 about the history of sal-vation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A common foun-dation'in,, faith teachings may make it. possible to fost.er conviction, com-mitment, and action. ~ There is lack of consensus on the role of authority in the Church; on the role of the clergy, as well as the Church itself, in social and political activity; and on the degree of freedom to be allowed to personal con-scienc.~ e, espec,ially in matters that do not pe~ain directly to formal dogma in the Church, such 9s moral theology and mattgrs of sex. However rig-orous! y.~,~.ne might uphold the tea, chings of the Church on artificial c~?n7 tracept~ion., few would consider the Church's teachings on the matter as infallibly proclaimed. If that is the case, what degree of disagreement. o if any, is per.missible? In such cases, how much room i~ to be given for private conscience, or for public teaching not fully in accord with offi-cial pronouncements of the Church? VatiEan II clearly gave great weight tO~the right of personal conscience and to scholhrsh!p regarding nonin-fallible teachings, but how far did it intend these°rights'to go? Innova-tors tend toward absolute freedom on noninfallible teachings, traditioii'- ~lists° toward compliance even there. Thes.e,ideologica! disagreements cofistitute adeep source of divisioff in the Chi~rch .today, and represent today's ~xperience of what it means wheri the old clashes with the new~ The Church has yet to come up with a~th~blogy thgt can provid6 an adequate e~clesiology to handle this prob- Compatibility Vs~ Contradiction with,,the World ° There is a third ,problem not adequately resolved by Vatican II; which returns once again to'th~e:relationship of the Church to the world: the prob-lem between compatibility of.the Church with the world ~ahd contradic-tian with it? Prior to VatiEan II, the Church had never published an official docu-ment expounding,a posiiive theology on the'r01e of the Church,-in the world. Traditionally, the world had been an arena of evil or temptation to evil. ISatholics were urged to.remove themselves from the.world if they wished to ,attain sanctity, and the priestly and religious life were com-monly acceptrd as means to that end. Those who needed to become, in: volved in the Wodd;~choosing to remain laypersons,' were allowed to ~be in the world, but .were expected to' be as unworldly as possible in0the midst of the world: Evefi though Christians learned very well how to, live in~ the world by accepting ,itk ~,alues,~ and acquired the world ~s commodi-ties as instruments of well-being and standards of0success,.this accom- Four Ecclesial Problems modi~tion was often done with a feeling of guilt. That the world Was bad was based on the clear teaching of Christ: his followers did~not belong to the world, the world hated the'm, Christ did not take them out,of the wbi'ld but asked the"Father to "guard them from the evil one" in' the world (Jn 17:14-15) until they would one day be united with the Father in heaveh. ~ Now with Vatican II, the Church turned toward the world and, in many ways, accepted th~ world for the first time. Th6 Council Asserted the Church's "sOlidarity with the entire human family," that "nothing genuinely human" is foreign to Christians, that the "joys and the hopes, the griefs hn~l the anxieties of the men of this are" are those of the fol-lowers ofChrist too (LG 1-3). The Council urged Christians to build up the world because "the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's greatness dnd the flowering of His own haysterious design" (34). In a remarkable affirmation of the value of secular activity, the Cou0cil "ac-knowledges that human progress can serve man's true happiness" (37) and that, insofar as "Earthly progress., can contribute to~the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the kingdom of God" (39). The Council admits~ the world can be "an instrument of sin" and that a "monumental struggle against the power of darkness pervades the whole history of man" (37). Nevertheless, when all is said and done, the emphasis is clearly optimistic--so much so that, when~Karl Barth came back from his visit to Rome during the Council's first session, he expressed a fear the bishops were bbcoming too optimistically oriented toward the World and suggested they take a miare guarded position. And so the question remains: Is the world a good thing, to be ac-cepted and integrated inio the life of the Christian, or isqt to be rejected because it is infected with sin? The Council urged both; 6f course, but failed to indicate how both were possible, or how and where to draw the line limitinginvolvement~: More importantly, however, the new spirit bf the Coiancil had clearly left the impression that theworld a's a whole had been sanctioned as a .giaod thing :and that, with Christian and human co-operation and goodwill, there ~vas no reason why the Church and'the World could not easily become assimilated to each other. The question ofqntegration into the life of the world versus opposi-tion trthe world in favor of Christian values'is not a re'rent one. As.Ger-main Gri~ez recently pointed out, much of the history of Christianity can be seen in terms of a "tension between legitimate ~ispirations frr human and this-worldly fulfillment and God's c~ll to divine and everlasting life.'" Depending upon the emphasis that is greater at any 0h~ torment Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 in Christian thinking, the tendency may be to emphasize "disrespect for the 'merely,' human" and emphasize fulfillment in God, or, as seems to be. happening ~toda);, to emphasize a reaction against other-worldly spiri-tuality, a reaction which has '~crystal!ized into various forms of secular humanism." VaticanlI failed to take a stand on this issue, according to Grisez, or more precisely, not knowing how to resolve the tensign be-tween the two tendencies, glossed over them "with ambiguous formu-las." Instead of acknowledging their inability to resolve the problem and implementing a postconciliar process to work on it, the Council Fathers, caught up themselves in the spirit of optimism generated by John XXIII, chose to try to "maintain ,the appearance of unity" and solidarity on this issue and departed. Afterwards, liberals and conservatives began to read in the documents exactly what each had been looking for and ignoring the. opposite, and used whatever political means were available to have their own position dominate. The need now, according to Grisez, is to face up, to the divisions and try to resolve them.25 Others have stressed very pointedly that the orientation of the world today is strongly toward values quite inconsistent with Christian values. The world today is bombarded by powerful influences from the media, which emphasize for commercial purposes a humanism void of religious direction, which preach success in terms of materialistic values and goals such as accumulation of power and money, which proclaim fulfillment of self in terms of satisfaction of sexual drives rather than in love as per-manent commitment to the other, which evaluate persons in terms of utili-tarian norms, whiCh promote personal satisfaction as the criterion for the worth of all activity, which make the ultimate goal of life the achieve-ment of self rather than the donation of self. In such a ,world, there is inevitable contradiction between the values of the world and those of the Christian faith experience, where personal communion with Christ in a community of believers serving the well-being of all is. the standard of value. The humanistic orientation of a world without religious direction risks becoming ultimately a purely worldly humanism antagonistic to Christian values. For many, the opposition is so great at the .present time that, it seems to be moving toward total and absolute contradiction of the values of Christ. The Council Fathers, in recognizing the need to open the Church to the world, did not indicate strongly enough the nature or degree of this opposition, although it must be admitted 'that, even when they did indicate opposition, their words were largely ignored. But ~as Grisez indicates, the opposition is there and must.be faced. By failing to indicate strongly enough the contradiction between the values of the Four Ecclesial Problems / I~15 world and those of Christ, the Council Fathers unwittingly made accom-modation with the ways of the world that much easier. It is that accom-modation that the Extraordinary Synod of 1985 began totry to correct, but a clear theology of contradiction, is still needed. Active vs. Passive Church Life The last root cause of the problems left by Vatican II may be ex-plained in terms of Vatican II's failure to resolve the conflict between the active and passive dimensions of Christian life. A new spirit of involvement in social and political action, as we have seen, had been emphasized by the Council as an element intrinsic to the life of the Church. This spirit was highly attractive for many reasons: It was new and new things tend to attract; it was optimistic and people tend to like optimism; it was a free and open spirit cgnsequent upon the new theology of the laity, and .more appealing than the more traditional litur-gical and doctrinal elements in Vatican II; it spoke to a strong desire in the '60's to become actively involved in the processes of history rather ttrhaanns ftoor macaqtuioiens ocfe tihne twheomrld; itth naot tw oansl~y h purmovaindlyed e nthgeinoereertiecda,bl usut palpsoor jtu fsotir- a fied it as providing greater fulfillment of the human potential. In all these ways, this new element of "activism" contra~ted so much with the traditional call for restraint on involvement, and spoke di-rectly to many Catholics who were interested in joining the world in a combined divine-human creative.proje.ct. These were delighted to find there was theological justification and ecclesial approval for using one's talents in such a project. Personal involvement and responsibility for cre-ating one's own life in the world spoke more readily to the post-Vatican II age.than acquiescence in the decisions, actions, and authority of oth-ers. At least in the '60's, the mentality of the outspoken members of the Church was increasingly liberal, and the .idea of creating one's future rather than submitting to it was especially appealing to them. Vatican II sanctioned these ideas. It emphasized the theological importance of life in the world and active involvement in the cause of justice and equality, and was to give rise to a dominance after Vatican II of theological move-ments that stressed that same type of involvement. The Church was now also in a position to accept many currents rising in western Protestant cir-cles, such as the new theology of hope and political theology, the theol-ogy of revolution, and finally, in Catholic circles in South American, lib-eration theology. By emphasizing active involvement in creative transformation of the worid, Vatican II unfortunately seemed to downgrade th'e old and less Review for Rel~gious,~ November-December, 1987 captivating styles of spirituality, such as personal prayer, contemplation, and spiritual communion with God alone and in the quiet of one's room. It became increasingly difficult in modern Catholicism to justify a spiri-tual dimension to !ife unless it was translated into active change of the world. Spiritual terminology began to take on a purely active meaning: prayer, commitment to Christ, concern for the salvation of human be-ings '~ all these meant to be in active involvement in the world. Monas-tic theology and asceticism .were seriously questioned, for how could any-one iustify removing on~eself from the world when the only important thing wffs to change the world for the better? Those who dared to speak of contemplatio~n or asceticism in tli'e more traditional ways were often seen as outdated and to be pitied for their archaic ways. The new theol-ogy of spiritual activism slowly took over contrbl of the major or-ganizations in the Church: religious orders, diocesan and parish coun-cils, and other Catholic agencies~' and a new theology of social and po-litical activism translating most or all of Catholic spirituality into causes for peace and justice in the world held sway, The few who dared to criti- "cize these movements as one-sided were ignored. Ct~riously; the more this ~ctivism was promoted as the new and en-lightened foi:m of Christian living, the ~ore vocations to the priestly and religious life went down. The major exception to this trend~was in relig-ious orders, especially of nuns, where the stress On traditional piety was retained--here vocations continued to ~rise or remain stable. But few dared to suggest that this validated'in any way maintaining some room for more traditional contemplative and other-worldly forms of spiritual-ity. " Only recent!y has' it begun to dawn on many that activism without passivism is un-Christian. A spirituality that is t~otally activated tod, ard htlman creation of the world is inconsistent with Christian teaching, which, while s![essing human~involvement in God's creation 6f the king-dom; stresses even more that we are ~saved bec~iuse we have been saved in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We receive God,s kingdom far more than we create it. If that is the case, a Christian spirituality of ascetical contemplation is important to the Church because it lives as well as symbolizes the importance of this pass.!ve involvement in God's crea-tive process. Coleman ohce wrote: It is helpful to consider some of the cultural paradoxes in contemporary American Catholicism. In a nation n6ted for its one-sided, if not patho-logical, emphasis on activism, instrumental rationality, and opt'imistic pragmatism,, Catholic intellectuals seem to have suffered a bout of am- Four Ecclesial Problems nesia about their classic wisdom concerning contemplation, mysticism, pas.sivity, and receptive acceptance of inevitable and unavoidable lim-its. The Church. in its American incarnation has become almost ex-clusively masculine, with dominant concerns for action, success, build-ing the new e~trth and results (Coleman, p. 553). Christopher Mooney, S.J., argues that in America God rather than hu-man beings was always understood as "the power of our future," the one "from whom the nation had received its mission," and the one "~who works through the structures of society and manifests himself in publi~ affairs." Without that emphasis upon the centrality of God in his-tory, America will lose its sense of destiny.26 Dulles gives personal sup-port to those who argue that "the Kingdom of God is viewed in the New Testament as God's work, not man's," that the Church "is seen as ex-isting for the glory of God and of Christ, and for the salvation of its mem-bers in a life beyond the grave," and that in the New Testarfient it "is not suggested that it is the Church's task to make the world a better place to live in."27 Harvey Egan, S.J., argues that Christians today face "the serious temptation of worsh.iping political pressure groups, causes, move-ments, slogans, and ideo]ogies," and that their social involvement "de-generates into 'pseudo-activism' " unless it is built upon "authentic in-ner freedom, contemplative peace'; spiritual insight, the love born from prayer, integration, and inner transforrnati6n."28 " What we are asserting, then, is that Vatican II, in its effort to sanc-tion involvement in the life of the world as a legitimate dimensio~ of Christian living, unwittingly tended to downgrade the more contempla-tive, prayerful dimension of'Christian and Catholic spirituality. To that extent, Vatican II opened the doors too widely toward the world and pro-vided a gateway to the development of a secular humanism in contem-porary Catholic life. " Christian humanism without.a strong"spiritual foundation in a prayer-ful dependence upon God and his revelation in Jesus Christ is inevitably doomed to secularism. Once that stage is attained, it is inevitable that Christians begin to question whether there is any valid distinction be-tween Christianity and secular ac.tivism; andsince, once this aberration sets in, there is no real distinction between the two, it is only natural that many Christians find the faith experience unrewarding. It is only in the strength given Christianity by its passive dimension that its activist di-mension has any purpose or will to endure. Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 Conclusibn We have argued that at least in these four ways Vatican II left us a spirituality that is ambiguous, in conflict with itself, and undirected. This may indeed have been the Council's intention." To some extent, the Ex-traordinary Synod of 1985 served a valuable purpose in attempting to rec-tify these imbalances and ambiguities. It took twenty-five years to real-ize the bad effects and what needed to be corrected. Nevertheless, the ambivalences we have itemized .still reside in the Church and account for much of the conservative-liberal polarization of today. The next stage will be for the Church to reconvene and resolve the ambiguities. It will be an amazing and groundbreaking Council when it does. NOTES I "Vatican II and the Postconciliar Era in the U.S. Church," Origins 15, 15 (Sep-tember 26, 1985), pp. 225,233. 2 Vivian W. Dudro, "Toward the Synod: General Praise, Some Criticism of Malone Report," National Catholic Register 61, 39 (September 29, 1985), pp. l, 8. The reporter make~ reference to an expression used by Gerrnain Grisez, Professor of Chris-tian Ethics at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, MD. 3 Joseph Cardinal RatZinger with Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report (San Fran-cisco: Ignatius, 1985), pp. 44, 55, 71, 74, 83, 62, 29-30. '~ In "The Catholic Priesthood," Overview 19, 10 (undated [August 1985]), p. I, citing a report in NFPC:News Notes, March 1984. aA Overview, May. 1985, p. 1. 5 Overview, June 1985, p. 1, citing a report in New ~'ork Times December 9, 1984. 6 Ibid., p. 2. The 'article was in National ReviewS" November 25, 1983. 7 Overview, May 1985, p. 5. Herr is citing an article by Mary K. Tilghman in The Catholic Review of March 20, 1985. The words are Tilghman's except for the quo-tation from Schoenherr on the "?rganizational crisis." 8 Ibid., p, 6. 9 Ibid., p. 3. 10 Walter M. Abbott, S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild, 1966): "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modem World" or Gaudium et spes sec. 4 and 5; hereafter, Latin titles used and noted in text. i1 Thomas More, 1979. 12 Paulist, 1975. 13 Harper & Row, 1973, p. 71. 14 Doubleday, 1977, p. 12. 15 Paulist, 1972, citing an article he wrote as early as 1967. ' 16 Greeley's first controversial conclusions were published in Catholic Schools in a Declining Church, with William C. McCready and Kathleen McCourt (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1976); his latest is American Catholics Since the Council: An Un-authorized Report (Chicago: Thomas More, 1985). 17 Gallup publishes yearly reports on Religion in Americh, and has just completed (with Jim Castelli) The American Catholic People: Their Beliefs, Practices, and Val-ues (Garden City: Doubleday, 1987). Four Ecclesial Problems 18 Eight reports from this invaluable study of "core Catholic" parishioners' think-ing and practices hav~ been published so far, appearing in Origins from December 27, 1984, to August 28, 1986. 19 In Justice in the Marketplace: Collected Statements of the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic Bishops on Economic Policy, 1891-1984, David M. Byers, ed. (Washing-ton, DC: NCCB/USCC, 1985), pp. 249-250. 20 Quest for Justice: A Compendium. , J. Brian Benestad and Francis J. Butler, eds. (Washington, DC: NCCB/USCC, 1981), pp. v-vi. 21 Synod of Bishops: "The Final Report," Origins 15, 27 (December 19, 1985), pp. 445,449. 22 E. J. Dionne, Jr., "The Pope's Guardian of Orthodoxy," New York Times Maga-zine, November 24, 1985, p. 45. 23 John A, Coleman, S.J., "American Bicentennial, Catholic Crisis," America, June 26, 1976, p. 553. 24 Andrew M. Greeley and Mary Greeley Durkin, How to Save the Catholic Church (New York: Viking, 1984), pp. xviii-xix, 35, passim. 25 Germain and Jeannette Grisez, "Conservatives, liberals duel over leaking barque," National Catholic Reporter 22, 5 (November 22, 1985), p. 14. 26 Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., Religion and the American Dream: The Search for Freedom under God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), pp. 35-36. 27 Avery Dulles, S.J., Models of the Church (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 94-95. 28 Harvey D~ Egan, S.J., Christian Mysticism: The Future of a Tradition (New York: Pueblo, 1984), p. 234. The Autumn Years: A Touch of God Joseph M. McCloskey, "S.J., and M. Paulette Doyas, S.S.N.D. Father McCloskey is Director of Shalom House-Retreat Center; P.O. Box 196; Montpelier, Virginia 23192. Sigier Paulette teaches at the College of Notre Dame; 4710 N. Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. Autumn colors stimulate our aesthetic sense. Leaves grown old are beau-tiful to behold, a truth of creation that gives dying its own color. In, our later years our activities are like autumn leaves before they fall to the ground; each one is a jewel in our crown, worn with pride but sometimes hard to see against the perspective of a cold winter. Winter follows autumn; it is the winter we fear. Winter allows us to view the forest of our lives without being lost. in details. The forest stripped of its foliage, our lives are open to scrutiny; unencumbered by duties, we have the chance to really see ourselves. But autumn, with its warnings of dying, allOws us to look at winter with a hope of new birth. Autumn brings a special brand of happiness which belongs to God and is worth reflecting upon. Our autumn years do not have to be unhappy ones if we appreci-ate the meaning of our lives. No one likes to think about growing older, yet the truth is, we have been aging since conception. There is no es-caping autumn; growing older can bring colorful changes into our lives even if we must yield to a certain amount of inactivity. Love frees the spirit. Alienation brings loss of heart and dims our ap-preciation of life. Passion for life belongs to love, yet the passion for life wanes and we yearn for something more when we feel ourselves no longer needed. The mid-life crisis is a taste of what is to come as we ex-perience doubts about our work and what we have been doing with our lives. Glory, honor, and power are perpetual temptations of life, even when we are not sure just what it is we want. We struggle to hold on 820 The Autumn Years / 821 t~J the possibility and potential of doing something wonderful. As We be-come tired of trying to'h61d on and despair cofifronts us, we finally real-ize that life has-a meaning--being in God. "When we finfilly face the meaning of life, the idea of sitting on a porch watc.hing the rest of the world go by.does not have to seem terri-ble. The autumn years are su~ounded by the storms of others' activities and the job still gets done even when we are no longer bearing the brunt of the heat of the-day. As 'we watch the jobget done, we cab laugh at ourselves for all the times we pictured ours61ves as indispensable. We db not have to identify who we are by what we do. We identify ourselves by not doing; we may be retired. The constant round of activities which ful~d Our lives'belongs to those who follow. ~The fruitful year~ of.prbd~ictio~ ~nd hyp~'activity seem unreal as we watch them'in others.The mystic in life touches us; we watch, like con-templatives in prayer sitting on our autumn veranda, the storm of God's love come up in the for.m~ 6f others' work. God bring.s beauty into our lives as we appreciate what others Ho. 'People need our affirmation a~ad appreciation. L'ife is not over because wecan no longer do, it is just be-ginning. Today is the first_day of the rest of our lives, no matter how old we are. Traumatized by thoughts of our past, we can miss the colors of now. Anxious ,about tomorrow, we are sometimes only half present to what we are dbing. E~;en as yesterday can dampen our enthusiasm in what w~ are doing, anxiety over tomorrow can keep us from being fullyi.nvolved now. We live in an age of. activity and our .minds resemble motor boats, chugging noisily over the wavesof what must be done. There has to be a po.int where we cut the m0tor, give up the noises we make, and just glide, delighting in the freedom of knowing that our work may be almost finished. As we grow older, spirituality can give meaning to the lessen-ing activity in our lives. Slowing down without feeling worthless is what spirituality can help us.do.,No ~matter how old we are, idleness can threaten self-worth. We become :victims ,of our own doing, as thoughts of What we could, do to make our lives worthwhile prod us to keep go-ir~ g: "If we stop, that magic momentof doing something great may be missed." Pushing ourselves t6 exhaustion, we do not have time for our-selves now. We fail to apigreciate what we are right now. Unusual are the autumn souls, really alive t6dayin the richness of yesterday's expe-rience, y6t still open to tomorrow's vision of life with new meaning. Many still search for the secret of iife--f6und in living wholeheartedly 822/Review for Religious, Novemb.er-December, 1987 the fullness of now--in some nebulous fountain of youthful actiyity. We need to open ourselves up to'where we are and who we are right now. Spirituality's ultimate goal consists in seeing God face to face. This means "being" with God. All of life, everything we have ever done, everything we have ever been, is a preparation.that we might "be." Be-ing does not imply vegetating. There is a responsibility to b~ for one an-other attached to being for Christ. Whatever. we do for the least one of our brothers or sisters, even when we are not aware of doing it for Christ, is accepted by, him as bei.ng done for himself. In identifying himself as the "I am who I am" God, God reveals himself as reachable in the here and now. The only moment in time truly real is now, touching the "Eternal Now." Living in the now, for even a moment of time, garners those nows of life when we opened our hearts to being loved. These moments become sacramental. We live the "Sac-rament of the Present Moment." 'There are seven sacraments that the Church recognizes as special moments in life where Christ wants to be present in our lives and is giving himself. In these sacraments of the Church, Christ does the work. In the sacrament of the present moment we can make a moment sacramental by our ~illingness tb make Christ present frr each otlaer.° Living in the present, with what good there is, frees us of what anchors us to the past. Because it only takes a moment to love for a lifetime, we have tliE poss!bility of being Christ lovers by giving of who we are to the least person we meet, in any moment of our lives. We are children of the Father. God takes us as his own because we are precious to him. The Psalms tell tls that.: "Before you were born, I knew you!" (Ps 139). We are loved because Of who we are even be-fore we had accomplishments to boast of. Saint Paul teaches us in Ephe-sians 1 : 1-13 that God' s love is deserved in the goodness of Christ. Christ is our Way and our Truth and our.Life. Saint John's first epistle on Love teaches us that .all of life is a preparation for the opening of our hearts, now, to the fullness of the Lord of Life coming into our hearts. All of life is a preparation for this very moment We are living! Wisdom brings knowledge of how to live in God's love, and the contemplative in action lives in God's love by letting God ,work one hundred percent. Doing in God's love becomes being in his love. What becomes of paramount im-portance is how much love we.can accept in Christ, and how much Christ we live for God and each other in return. ~ Being does not happen jus.t because we are old enough. Incapacita-tion is always a possibility when being is thrust upon us. Being is maxi- The Autumn Years mized by freedom and life, but a lot of dying has to take place in each of us before we are really free to love for the sake of Christ. Growing older is part of tile stripping process of b~coming free to let God do all he can in our hearts. Love needs time to mature. The Church says of the young saints that they fulfilled a long life in a short time, so that even th~ child saint can be old when considering years spent on earth. It only take~ a moment to love for a lifetime, andthe meaning of the greatest love of all is giving of one's life for the sake of a ne.ighbor. Giving can be done by being for another. If we think we can do things for ourselves alone, our whole life is wasted. Being in the autumn years can become adoing for others. Being is knowing how to love. Love is being present to the need of another ffhich sometimes in-volves pain. As humans, we would rather bypass the cross and get right to the resurrection. But we are unrealistic if we think the resurrection is possible without,the crucifixion. There can be no spring without the autumn and the winter. Resurrection portrays Christ reaching out to the hurt and pain of his disciples. Christ is our holiness, and the fruitfulhess of our lives in Christis found in how much of Christ's death we are will-ing to accept forbthers. The ultimate, decisive word of God, in the hu-manness of Christ, is Christ's dying on the cro~s. His suffering gives ~m~aning to our pains and our dying even When we do not relate it to our autumn years. Everything we did or woul~t have liked to do becomes as nothing in the light of Christ's suffering and death. He took care of it all. The ultimate, decisive word of God, sp6ken in the humannness of Christ, comes to us in his d~athon the cross. Counselors and sigiritual directors bften meet couples whose mar-riages have revolved around doing'for their offspring, and who now'com-plain about lack of meaning to their lives with'6ut~ their children. After the childi-en are growr~ and off on their own, these pai'ents have not learned how to accept each other, to be with each other. Many priests and religious brothers and sisters have the same problem. So many years found them in their work that they never learned to enjoy each other. So intense was the doing, the~ never discovered the secret of being, for them-selves or others. They ~vere all so busy doing in the spring and summer of their lives that they gave n~o thought to the autumn and winter that had to follow--when doing became more difficult. Working at accomplishing something involves the danger of making doing the meaning of life. The need of another opens our lives to the rush of the Spirit filling us with God's love. The second comings of the Spirit to the Church are pe6ple filled with love who reach out with their gifts 1~24 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 to the needs of others. The problem is no~ whether we did enough in our lifeti~ae, but whether we did~:.what we di~l-~vith love. We may complain that we have never had any.thing werth doing. Ye't each time we moan about not being satisfied with what we have done, or regret not hax~ing done enough, always w~tnting to do more with our liyes, we limit our love of God to wh~t.we are ci6ing noV, rather than bringing all we have done in our lives t~ ~,hat we do. Life teaches us toAive in God's love. We do not deserve God's love, but we can accept it. We waste love, think-ing of all we could have done or w, ould~have liked to d~o.~God.'s love frees us to giv~ ourselves.~ It brings the wisdom whichohelps us to ,put aside our accomplishments or hopes of achieveme.nt, and opens our hearts to be filled with God's love in Christ. The awareness of Christ in our lives frees us to live in the Father's love. ~ The victory won by:Christ when he "took captivity._captive," when he took away the scandal attached t6 our suffering and dying; allows us share in the resurrection when we take up our crosses and follow him. Christ calls us in our inadequacies, our brokenness, our nakedness, our need of others, to be part of the resurrection by claimiong~the foothold in heaven we have in him. Our needs bring Christ into our lives. We be-come other Christs by.-lett!ng him do in our live~s. Growing older ih a world with so many younger,~people frees us to be.in their love, even as we learn to be in God's love. If we were.really and truly competent enough to do it all by ourselves, we would never~ need God. Needing God and other's allows our captiyity to-be taken cal~tive by ~hrist. Aristotle, the great philosopher and teacher-some centuries before Christ, said that. a person could become a philosopher only after forty years of age. It is only When we have enough .experience of life that we begin to find the meaning of life, 19v.e, and values which have to do with being rather than doing. All of life's acc6mplishments are insignificant if we are unable to be in the love of God., if we are unable to be in the love of our brothers and sisters around us. Loye is God's relationship to us, and theGod Who gives all in our lives receives it back When we are able to offer our lives in Christ, when we try to be his life by our love for each other. We are called to be lov- ~ers. Even as the doing of our early years is the beginning of love, it is in the need for each other of our autumn years that love is completed, the love which allows us to~be in the f~ullness of Ch,r!st who lives.Eithin us. Our world needs us and we. should be proud to be aging ,in God's love, .basking in the autumn .years of life, content to be in his love for the sake of all who are still able to do'in his love. We are now like th'e " .,Th~ Autumn Years / 825 Eternal Word of the Trinity, always receiving from the F~ther, even as we are"i'eceiving from others who love us. We are created iri the image and likeness of the God who is Trinity. Trinity has its counterpoini in the mystery of indwelling, where G6d is found in the still point of our lives. Family and community are the outer reaches of this m~yst~ry of indwelling where God lives in the love of our hear~sl and in how we reach out to our brothers and sisters. We are told bY the first commandment of life to love God. We would not know how to do this if Christ had not told us he lok, ed us just as the Father loves him. Christ asks us to live in'his l~v~e, and tells us we love him by keep-ing the commandments which show us the ways we ~hould devil with one another and God. Faithfulness to the commandments is faithfulness to one another. How can ~ve lov~ the God we do not see, if we do not love the neighbo~ we do see? God' is love and we live in his lo~ve in the way we love 0n~ another. Wherever there is. ipve, G~I is. Lo~,e calls us to be like the G~d we image and brings us into commu.nity a~ men and women 6reated to lok, e 6ne another. Spirff~al life can be traced_back to T~rinity: in':-TTinit~,, being and do- !ng meet in the total giving and receiving,of the Father and th6 Son. The Father holds b~ck nothing of himself. The S,on, totally receiving of th~ Father, has nothing the Father has not given him. All of life i~ a combi-nation of these two forces, the active and passive 0"f life. The principles of life find in Trinity the °meaning and the sourceof love. Even if we have spent a. life totally, giv, ing all we are in order that the mystery of the Trinity m_ay be comple.ted in us, the autumn of our lives finds meaning in rec~eiving./~s the child needs parents to grow, so too we grow in those moments when our heart~ need each other. We ac-cept the richness o~each otl~r'~/~ifts when we are willing to need one another from the depths of our being.Then the beauty of life finds the special expression of th6oTrinity completed in the giving and~:eceiving which touches Being, and that very_ being i's love. Love is God's, relatioriShip ~to us, '~n.d the God whb gives ~11 lives in our lov~ when w~ are able,t0 ~J.ffer bin: lives in Ch~rist;.wfien ~.t~ry to live his life by our love for each other. We are called to be lovers. But most of all we are c~lled to be loved in Christ. Autumn years bring the kisses and the embraces of our.,Lord which are felt even in the hurts and the pains of our body's resistance to the call of our Lord .to our eternal reward. The warnings of sufferings do not have to be a threat, in our hope of the resurrection, as a lifetime of love and work in response to the call of God's love claims relationship to Christ. Our pains in letting Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 go of our work,:and our good health bear relationship to the ultimate word of God's love in the passion and death of Jesus Christ and offer the love of God in the resurrection. Even as the dping of our early years is the beginnin.g of love, the letting go of the autumn years completes our love as we feel the need for God and each other. The Christ who is in the least one of otir brothers and sisters is now in us, allowing us to be Christ in our need. We become the Christ to whom we have given hll our life, as all~the good we have done for others comes back upon us. Our world awaits a generation of people proud to be'aging in-his love, basking in the warmth of love which ~omes their way in the autumn of life. Mary is the ultimate model of being for Christ, being for God. She accompan'i~d the Church of theresurre6tibn by being present to their needs and helping them to remember her Son in the many ways of a mother's love, as she took care of h.er. children in the trust given to her by Jesus from the ci'oss~ Because Mary was so present to the needs of the Cl~urch before h_er Assumption, the early Church learned to respect her as mo(her, oA very significant part of the spiri.tuality of the autumn years in the lives of m_any is their devotioh to Mary by following her ex-ample in praying for the Church. The work of the autumn years is the same as Mary's; the" limits of that work ar'~ the size of oiir heart. Even as our autumn years are the time for being as much as we can be, they are the time for loving as much as we can love. Mary has taught us how to li~,e, h'ow to love, and how to be, both by her love for her Son and by the way she lived with the early Church. Just as Mary's autumn years were filled with the touch of God, her presence brought that same touch of God's love to the ea~:ly Church. Mary and God's touch would always be close. So too our autumn y.ears can have the touch of God strength-ening the Mystical,.Body of Christ. Mary is therole model of our autumn years and our patron as we pray: Heav.enly Father,.help us to understand the meaningof growing older in wisdom and knowledge. Allow us to gracefully accept the slowing down in the autumn of life. May we be as loving as Mary in her autumn years, presefit to the needs of c'bmpanions~ filled with I.ife and its inys-ter~, so that all will feel free to share your gift, to find your love within us. Open us, O Father, to a concern for.the liu~an race. Fill our hearts with living in the fulfillment of your abiding love every'moment of every day. Help us to be so resonant and filled with the meaning of the mo-ment that we may:be truly able to love,.as you.loved. May we eagerly look forward to the "being'.~'of the autumn years, reaping the golden rewards, fully open to the winter-that is to come, where all is wanned ~bY your love. ~ Community Dialogue and Religious Tradition Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. Father MacDonald is provincial superior of the Holy Cross Province. He may fie reached at Passionist Community; 5700 North Harlem Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60631. Dialogue is a common form of community experience today. It is an en-deavor which has the capacity of exposing the wealth of tradition latent in a community. Such tradition is often the unspoken element bonding a community together, the ineffable cementing relationships. It can be a mistake, of course, to uncritically commend the rgle of dialogue in religious life, Given the negative experience of it that many religi~us have encountered the past few years, citing its advantages must be balanced with recognizing its difficultie~ and disadvantages. ~'hese latter largely center about the conflict and division that often occurs among community members, as the~y encounter in one another ap- ¯ parently irreconcilable positions on often fundamental and basic aspects of religious life. Dialogue, as the publi~c articulation of these p~ositions, can add to an already~latent conflict. Once public positions are taken by community members, this may freeze a division that has always be~n there, but, here-tofore, private, and to that extent, potentially malleable. By enhancing the feeling elenaent, dialogue can be a further obstacle to community build-ing. II. An aspect of the problem which needs to be recognized is the often 827 828 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 ~restrictive or constrained, nature of community dialogue. At times it does not allow full expression of opinion on the part of all present, as when, should everyone address an issue, the frequent result is that the depth of conversation is shallow and glosses over deep feelings and heartfelt con-victions. This may result in one side gradually prevailing, in a community dif-ference of opinion. An unequal division occurs on an issue when the ma-jority silences the minority, or articulate spokespersons cause members who support an opposing opinion to withdraw in some way and possibly to absent themselves from community dialogue: If this happens, an unspoken element remains in the community, fu-eling even more the disagreement raised to prominence by the public dia-logues that have taken place. Just because ~something is unspoken does not mean that'it ce~ases to exist or exert its influence. lie " To offset this development, a full-blown community dialogue be-comes desirable, where each member has the opportunity, and actively utilizes it, of fully expressing himself or herself regarding fundamental issues of religious life, as well as seCondary but still importantelernents. '. Adults who live together for a period of time accumulate a rich de, posit of spirit and. tradition. Any community bonding that 'Occurs must respect that. richness. But where dialogue is restricted and constrained, and opinions go un, expressed, monologue prevails, not genuine dialogue. There may be an appearance of dialogue, as community members dutifully assemble ac-cording to schedule. But if they do so reluctantly and,. fearing r~ancor, sniping or misrepresentation, do not speak from their hearts on issu.es, then only a facsimile of dialogue is present, with peopl~ merely going through the motions of conversing With one another. Honest ~elf, expression is a duty and a respons.ib~ility, together with a willingness to listen to ~thers, who may voice positions in conflict with ~eeply held convictions. Th!s kind of community dia.logue is an art form riot come by easily, spontaiaeous!y or naturally. It has to be worked at with grace, balance and harmony to make the conversation helpful and productive. There is a rich mother-lode of spiritual exp.erience in religious com-munities that beg~ to be exposed, recognized and admired. It is a thing of beauty that often eludes written or spoken form. Congregational documents, such as Constitutions and Regulations, do,not always capture the "tradition" of a religious community which, Community Dialogue and Tradition / 1t29 in large part, is often inexpressible. But it does strive to see the light of day and to be ack.nowledged for what it is, a major cementing factor in a community's life and existence. .Religious life is one of faith. In our efforts to explain it in its com-munal form, we refer to other kinds of community living, especially the family. However, we know that these comparisons are only partially sat-isfactory. The physical bonding factors which account for the stability of communal units such ,as the familY explain much of the emotional and spiritual quality present there. ~ The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, however, are bonding factors of a different type, which must be described as intangibles. The ~faith quality and spirituality of religious community is intelligible only in their terms. Indeed, religious life is designed to witness to the kind of community living together based on such values. This witness is, hope-fully, given to one another, and to those who observe religious in prac-tice. The spirituality of the "apostolic community,'~' about which we hear so much today, consists of this faith witness on the part of religious bound together by such "intangible" vows accounting for their life and work together. Precisely because the "anchors" for the faith quality of religious life are intangible, it is possible they will be submerged, sliding beneath the surface and remaining invisible, unless they are consciously and delib-erately disengaged and exposed to view. Community dialogue is one way of allowing this to happen. IV. The fuller the attention and exposure that a tradition of religious life receives, the more promising the access it provides to building and unit-ing a religious community together. Tradition can be ineffable, or expressible only with difficulty for the reasons given above. If this .occurs, it is not acknowledged, responded to or accounted for, despite its important role in the community. Tradition often constitutes the very center of religious life in com~ munity. It can explain the reason behind who they are and the values they abide by. When these are not plainly evident to otliers, their lives as com-munity members can in large part go unappreciated by and even un-known to their fellow religious. Can this be community? Unwritten and unspoken tradition bonds a community together, but it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. Practices regarding poverty, prayer, silence, fraternal relationships, and so forth, often refer to expe- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 riences that flow deeply and silently, possibly never seeing the light of day, exc6pt symbolically and representatively. It is imperative that they emerge in community dialogue. Otherwise an explosive energy build-up results, driving co-existing lives in opposite directions, into inevitable collision. This is the hidden resistance so often experienced as divisive in community dialogue. It rep-resents the unspoken ground on which people take stands, inadequately explored and investigated with their fellow religious. Much of this tradition is rooted in religious and sacred ~aeaning, and concerns God himself. This adds a dimension of strength and power to values that weigh heavily upon a community that fails to discover them, unspoken and hidden in the depths of certain members who feel that the way they experience God in their lives is not esteemed by others. V. Tradition within the smaller confines of religious community reflects Catholic tradition within the Church at large. It is endowed with a ver-sion of catholicity in its capacity to bind together those who share it. On the other hand, a schism or division can begin among those religious who do not share a common tradition, or fail to appreciate or even perceive its presence. A religious community is like "a little church" in this re-gard. Community dialogue is at its best when it provides full scope to re-ligious experience. In this way it discloses a deposit of reasons and val-ues that give meaning to people's lives and make them real. If it suc-ceeds in this, it helps build community on a solid foundation of full, hon-est, and authentic exchange between people intent on sharing life to-gether. Conclusion Living by a largely unwritten tradition containing rich personal and communal experiences, we stand to benefit by an exposure of this "tra-dition" to others through, dialogue. Hopefully it will win their esteem too, and bind religious more ~closely together. God's Love Is Not Utilitarian William A. Barry, S.J. This is the final of Father Barry's series of four articles which began with a considera-tion of our resistances to God. He may be addressed at Saint Andrew House; 300 Newbury Street; Boston, Massachusetts 02115. A number of years ago---more than I care to remember--as a brash young scholastic I was° engaged in a spirited conversation with some other Jesu-its, priests and scholastics. We were discussing the reasons for being a Jesuit. During the discussion I found myself more and more dissatisfied with the reasons given. I had seen married and single lay men and women who were at least 9s dedicated to being,followers of Christ as any of us. My own parents were examples of rather remarkably unselfish lov-ers. I could not believe that God was more pleased with us than with them~ Nor could I accept the notion that God wanted me to be a Jesuit in order to save some part of the world. That just did not ring true to my experience and reflection. At one point I blurted out something like this: "I'm a.Jesuit because God wants me to be happy and productive. God"s love for me has led me to choose this life, just as his love for o~hers leads them to choose their way of life." I am not su.re I understood all the implications of what I said, nor was I sure that the implied theology would stand up to scru-tiny. But that outburst has stayed with me through the years, and I have pondered its meaning off and on. In the process I began to enunciate a conviction that God's love is~not utilitarian; i.e., God does not love me or anyone primarily in order to achieve some other goals. In this article I want to unpack some of the meaning of this conviction, impelled by a number of recent experiences of directing retreats and giving spiritual direction. 831 ~1~12 / Review for Religious, N~vember-December, 1987 My youthful outburst was occasioned by the realization that much of the reasoning that justified being a religious presumed that being one was a great sacrifice, indeed, even painful. So the life had to be justified or made palatable. But I did not feel that my life entailed any more sacri-fice than anyone else's. I was rather happy, all things considered, and would not have traded my life for anyone's. So I felt that the "call" to Jesuit life was God's gift to me, his way of loving me. To put the same thing in another way: I felt that God wanted me to be a Jesuit because that was the best way for me to be happy and productive. That convic-tion has not changed since. Over the years I have come to believe that all God wants of any of us is to let him love us. I hax;e also come to believe that one of the most difficult things for us to do is precisely to let God love us, to receive his love. We resist his advances, his overtures of love as though they were the plague. In three earlier articles I have tried to probe the sources of that resistance.l In this article I want to focus on what I have come to believe is God's desire in bur regard. Sebastian Moore,2 in his latest book, makes the point brilliantly: God desires us into being. Before ever we were, God desired us so much that he made us, and made us desirable and lovely. And he desires, that we find him lovely, that we love him. But that can only happen if we !et ourselves believe and experience that we are, as it were, the apple of his eye. To the extent that we believe and experience that God finds us de-sirable, to that extent will we be in love with him. People who have let God, demonstrate his love for them often affirm that it is a love without any demands, an3; strings attached. This is a diffi-cult point to grasp, so let us try to be clear. Often enough we are afraid of God's closeness because we fear the demands he will make of us. "He may askme to go to Ethiopia." As far as I can te!l, when God comes close, he does not c6rrie with a list'of demands or conditions for continuing to remain close. For example, he does not seem to say: "Yes, I love you, but I will only keep on loving you if you [fill in the blank]." Infact, he does not even seem to say: "I love you, but I will only keep on loving you if you stop this pai'ticular sin:" God seems to be just what the First Letter of John says he is, namely'love ,'and uncon-ditional love at that. All he seem~ to want is to be able to love Us, to be close and intimate with us. Does this mean that God has no standards, no values? By no means; but his Values are not perceived as demands by those who have let him come close. Rather they find themselves desirous of sharing his values, God's Love Is°Not Utilitaridn / I]~13 of being' like him--not because God'demands that they do so, butobe-causethey are happier and more alive when they live according to God's values. For example, I realize that I am happier, more alive and more purposeful when I can desire to forgive as Jesus forgives, to love as Je-sus loves. Married men and women have found themselves most fulfilled when they have:remained faithful to their marital commitments, even when the grass looked greener elsewhere. Religious have discovered that their great-est happiness lies in giving themselves wholeheartedly to the demands of their vows, even when the bloom seems off the rose, as it were. Many Christians have also discovered that they are most alive and happy when they give themselves as wholeheartedly as possible to living with and working with and for the poor. Of course, at times all these people weaken, and are helped to stay the course by some negative sanction, for example, fear of loss of face, or of sinning and disappointing God, or of hell. But at bottom the motivation for sticking to their lasts is the desire to imitate the God who has so unconditionally and faithfully loved them. In other words they want to be perfect as'their heavenly Father is perfect. Of course, they cannot .do this. Sin is an ever present reality which even the holiest of saints must contend with. However, those who have experienced God as lover do not experience him as contemptuous of their sinfulness but as compassionate and patient. In their best moments, when they are aware of God's love, they recognize that all they have to do is to ask forgiveness and healing for their lapses, and to desire to have their hearts made more like the heart of Jesus. And they can hope that continued contemplation of Jesus will transform their hearts almost by osmosis. Now, perhaps, we have come to the key that opens the last door to insight. Jesus is the perfect human being, we believe, the one who most fully realizes the potential of humanity. When all is said ~nd done, What is the central insight Jesus had? Was it not that Yahweh, the creator of the universe, the unnameable, unfathomable mystery, is "Abba," "dear Father," "dear Mother," Love itself? To the maximum extent possible for a human being Jesus knew God, and he experienced God as Love.3 Let us reflect a bit on Jesus' baptism in the Jordan. I realize that I am reading into the text, but I find it intriguing that the synoptics pic-ture God as saying that Jesus is his beloved in whom he is well pleased before Jesus has begun his public ministry. What has he done to elicit such praise? Perhaps "all" that he has done is to allow God to come ~134 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 as close as God wants to come; perhaps "all" that he has done is just to let himself be loved as much as God wants to love him. Perhaps Jesus is so dear to God just because he let God do what God has always wanted to do: reveal himself as our lover par excellence. It is also intriguing to speculate that Jesus' fundamental salvific act may have been, not dying on the cross, but rather accepting God's love as much as it is humanly possible to do. Then the following of Christ might mean not so much doing iheroic deeds, nor even wanting to love as Jesus loves, but much more fundamentally, desiring to let oneself be loved as much as Jesus was and is loved. PerhaPs the world will be saved when a critical mass is reached of people who deeply believe and expe-rience how much they are loved by God. What I have been saying may strike some readers as advocacy of a "me and God" spirituality. It is true that this can all sound very narcis-sistic. But in practice, it is the exact opposite. Those who let themselves be loved by God find in doing so that their own love and compassion for others is enormously increased. This trans-formation does not happen because God demands such love of them. In fact, these persons know that for years they tried to be loving in response to what they took to be God's demands: they made resolution after reso-lution, and failed miserably. Now without effort, almost, they find their hearts going out to others, and especially to the neediest. They are sur, prised themselves at what is happening to their hearts. The more they al-low themselves to be loved unconditionally by God, the more loving they become. And the love of these persons, like that of Jesus, is a tough love. They speak the truth, but it is a truth that is not contemptuous, nor an-grily demanding--at least while they are aware of being loved. This last aside is a necessary nod to realism. For even the holiest of saints has days he or she regrets. Moreover, as they become or are made aware that they are socio-political beings, i.e., constituted at least in,part by the social and. political institutions into which they are born or freely enter, they begin to undergo what Father Gelpi calls a socio-political,conversion, and take steps to make these institutions more just' and caring through organizing, networking, lobbying, and protesting where necessary.4 Moreover, people who let God come close realize, without self-contempt, how far they fall short, and always will fail short, of being like Jesus. They know. from experience why the saints protested so strongly their sinfulness. They feel over and over again how much God loves them and how much God desires to shower them with his love, and God's Love Is Not Utilitarian they see themselves turning their backs on him, resisting his advances, refusing his invitations to intimacy. They find themselves to be enigmas because the experience of God's closeness fulfills their deepest desires, yet they fight him off. In spite of being such sinners they know that God still loves them. Hence, they view themselves and all human beings more and more with the compassionate eyes of God. I have begun to suspect that the notion of God's love as utilitarian is a defense against God's love. IfI convince myself that God loves me for the sake of other people, then I do not have to face the enormity of being' loved for myself alone by God. Many people shelter themselves from the full implications of God's love by seeing themselves as the ob-ject of that love only as part of a group. In other words, God loves all people, and I am included under the umbrella,,as it were. Now there is a truth in this notion, but I can use it to keep God's love very impersonal and distanced. So, too, God'is kept distanced if I conceive of tiis love for me as utili-tarian. "He loves me for what I can do for the people of Ethiopia." It is a very subtle way of keeping God at a distance: he does hoi loveme so much as Ethiopia. It is also subtly Pelagian: God loves me for what I can do for him. Interestingly enough, it is also a subtle way both to puff up my ego, and also to make sure that I am never satisfied with my-self. On the one hand, I am aware of all that I am doing for Ethiopia; on the other hand, I am constantly reminded of how much more there is to be done, and may also be reminded that others have done more. One person on, a retreat, for example, felt that if God really loved her, then he would be using her in more important ways. She discovered that such reasoning was making her unhappy and keeping God at arm's length. Perhaps the burden of the argument thus far can be summed up in an experience of another retreatant. He had experienced deeply that Je-sus knew he was a sinner and would always be a sinner. Jesus commu-nicated to him in a gentle, loving way how he had betrz'yed him in the past, and that he would do it again in the future. Yet he looked at him with enormous tenderness and love. The retreatant felt that Jesus said to him: "I love no one more than I love you--but I love no one less than I love you." God does not love some people more because of what they do, or what they will do. He is just greatly pleased that anyone lets him come as close as he wants to come. If God's love is not utilitarian, does this mean that it is meaningless to ask whether God has a will for me apart from letting him love me and Review for 'Religious, November-December, 1987 loving him in re~urn? If God will continue to love me whether I become a doctor, a carpenter,.a social worker, or a Jesuit, does 'it matter at all to God which I become, as'long as I am happy? To take the question one step further: if God will continue to love me even if I~ continue to sin, does it matte~r to God whether I stop sinning or not? In other words, if we say that God is unconditional Love and that he is not utilitarian in his love, do we not eviscerate of meaning such traditional Christian and Catholic notions as the discernment of God's will, the exist~ence of hell, the call to co.nversion from sin, the person as.God's instrument and vo-cation? Perhaps John was addressing some of the ~same questions when he has Jesus say; For'God so loved the world that he gave'his only Son~ that whoever be-lieves in him should not perish but hav6 eternal life. For'God sent the Son into the world, nbt to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not b.elieve is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has ~ome into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every .one wh6 does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his' deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, thi~t it may be clearly seen that his~deeds have been wrought in God (Jn 3:16-21). A comment by Raymond Brown on this passage and others in John, may show us a path out of the, dilemma: We believe that the translation of krinein as "condemn" in these pas- .sages (also in 8:26) is clearly justified by the contrast with "save." Nev-ertheless, the statement that Jesus did not come to condemn does not ex-clude the very real judgment that Jesus provokes . The idea in John, then, seems to be that during his ministry Jesus is. no. apocalyptic judge like the one expected at the end of time; yet his presence does cause men to judge themselves.5 In other words, Jesus does not condemn, but his presence brings out what people really are like. He, the human presence of God on earth, loves people and wants their good, indeed their absolute good, which is union with God, and he continues to love even those who spurn the of-fer, They condemn themselves. Let us see where this path leads us. When we love people unselfishly (insofar as this is possible for a hu-man: being), we want their good. We want them to be as happy, fulfilled, right with God and the world as possible. We want them to fulfill all their God's Love Is Not Utilitarian / 837 potential, "to be ttie best that they can be," as the commercial for the Army dins into our memories. At our best ~ve do not demand all this as a condition for our love, but we want it because we love. If this is the case with us, we can imagine what God desires. In his ',~'Contemplation to Obtain Love,'? Ignatius of Loyola tries to help us to imagine all that God's love wants. In an almost poignant line he'says: "I will ponder with great. affection how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much he has given me of what he~ possesses, and fi-nally, how much, as far as he~ can, the same Lord desires to give.himself to me according to his divine decrees."6 God creates a world that he sees is "very good" (Gn 1:31) for his loved ones to live in. He wants them to be co-creators with him of this evolving world. The Garden of Eden image in Genesisl is awonderful symbol of wl~at.Gbd wants for those whom he lo~,es into existence. He °wants us to li~,e in harmony ~vith, and with reverence for the universe and all that is in it, because that is the way to ou~r greatest li~lppines's and fulfillment both as individuals and as brothers and sisters. Moreover, he wants to giye himself to us "as far as he can"; limita-tion comes not just. from our fin.itude, but also from our perversity. God, however, will not compel us to accept what is for. our good. Does GOd puni.sh us for our perversity? It is an age-old tradition that ascribes natural disasters to God's wrath. The Old Testa.ment is~ replete with such ascription~s, beginning with Genesis 2. In the New Testament Jesus is asked: "Rabbi, ,whq,sinned, this,man or his parents,~ that he was born blind~?" He a.nswers: "It was not that this man sinned, or his par-ents, but that the works of God might be made,manifest in him" (Jn 9:2- 3). To say the least, this answer is enigmatic, but it does belie the as-cription of disasters to God's wrath ~at sin, On the hypothesis that God is Love I want to say that we punish our-selves by turning away from God's love. God remains steadfast in his love. But hatred, suspicion, prejudice, fear--these and other emotions-- are the product of our sins and the sins of our forebears. And they are not emotions that are for our peace. In other wor.ds, God made us broth-ers and sisters and desired us to live in harmony and mutual love, but we human beings have brought on ourselves the disharmony and distrust that now threaten the world as we know it. And if anyone does remain willfully and perVersely turned away from God's love and the love of neighbor to the end, then he or she chooses eternal unhappiness. But ~God's love does not change into 'something else. Review for Religious, November-De~cember, 1987 But what abgut the man born blind? What about the child with Down's syndrome? What about natural disasters such as the eruption of the volcano in Colombia which destroyed.~a town and took 20,000 lives in one day? We want to know why such things happen. It lies close to hand to ascribe such events either to the punishment of God, or fate, or to the stupidity of the victims. Social psychologists speak of the ."just world hypothesis" in .describing such attitudes. According to this view, everybody believes the world is a place where people generally get what they deserve and deserve wffat they get. To believe that our own good deeds and hard work may come to naught and, indeed, that we can encounter a calamity for totally fortuitous rea-sons, is simply too threatening to most of us. And yet we see people whose lives have been shattered and who seem like us in every way. Are these paraplegics, blind people, sufferers from cancer really innocent vic- .tims, and are we, therefore, candidates for s~ffering the S~me fate? The just world hypoth.esis posits that in these circum~stances we are likely to reject that possibility as intolerable and to conclude that those stricken individuals ~re really wicked, or at least foolish, and deserve their fate.7 Some of these calamities may be caused by human sinfulness or stu-pidity at some time in history. In the United states and in Latin America people still experience the effects of the evil of slavery and of greedy colo-nization. Other calamities may just be random events in a finite world; e.g., some Of the effects of genetic disorders. Others may be caused by someone else's perversity, but the victim is seemingly picked out at ran-dom: for ~xample, the drunken driver plows into John Jones' car, hav-ing just barely missed ten others, and out of the blffe John is dead~ and his daughter is maimed ~for life, through no fault of theirs. The "just world hypothesis" reminds us of the friends of Job or the disciples who asked Jesus about the sin that caused the man to be born blind. It will not work in the case of innocent victims of either random events, the pre-sent sins of others, or the effects of historic evils. How do we square the unconditional love of God with such calami-ties? In experience, people who engage God directly in a relationship, and who look at the world realistically, have the "just world hypothe-sis" pulled out from under them. They see that Jesus, the sinless, be-loved Son, died horribly, and that no bolts of lightning took vengeance on his killers or saved him. As they develop their relationship with God, they may find themselves raging at him for.the seemingly needless suf-fering they ,undergo or see others experience. Somehow or other they dis-cover a God who is beyond what we conceive as justice, a God they can God's Love Is Not Utilitarian hope in and live for, No more than the author of the book of Job can they explain it; but for sure it i~ not the answer proposed by the "just world hypothesis." People who have de'0eloped such a relationship with God experience the deep m~ystery of creation and co-creation. God loves into existence not only the stars that so bedazzle us in the night sky but also the vol-cano~ that erupts suddenly and engulfs a whole city killing 20,000 peo-ple, 'and he loves those people into existence. God not only loves into existence Jesus and Mary, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and the lovely people who have lok, ed us in our lives, but also Herod and Hero-dias, Genghis Khan, Lucrezia Borgia, Hitler and the torturers of politi-cal prisoners:of our day. People who meet this God at a deep level sense a bottomless ~compassion and pain at the heart of the world, yet a vibrant hope for life. They become more compassionate--and passionate-~ them-selves. Perhaps they can understand that it was not bravado that kept the martyrs joyful in their s.ufferings and dying. Perhaps, too, they can un-de¢ stand how the poorest of the poor still are capable of tremendous acts of generosity toward their fellow sufferers, just as they can understand the great cruelty o.f which the poor are also capable. Thus far we have threaded our path oiat of the seeming dilemma of the coexistence of God's unconditional love and-punishment for sin and hell. We have also seen a way'of explaining the call to conversion from sin. God wants the best for us and that best includes our turning away from sin and toward living a life that is consonant with a relationship of mutual love with the Lord. Sin does not produce happiness or harmony or peace of mind. Nor does it create harmonious relationsh~p.s between people, or political and social and religious institutions that work toward such harmonious and just relationships. So God's love for us desires that we be converted on all the levels postulated by Gelpi, the affective, the intellectual, the moral and the socio-political.8 Note, however, that God does not make such'integral conversion a condition for continuing to love us. He desires it b~ecause it is for our good; bu~ he does not demand it as the price of his love. Now let us mo4e on to the issue of the discernment of God's will, especially as this regards the question of a vocation to a way of life. Traditionally Catholics have believed that God has a plan for each per-son. He 'calls some to the religious or priestly life and others to the mar- ,ried state. It is true that the term "vocation" was most often restricted to the religious or priestly life. "He-hasa vocation" was shorthand in Catholic circles for saying that an individual felt called to religious or Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 priestly life. But a. more careful use oftanguage:also,saw married life as a calling. A further problem, of course~ is that this language left in limbo those who remain single (and not religious or priests) either vol-untarily or involuntarily. At,any rate, does God call people to a particu-lar way of life? And if. so, how is this calling consonant with the non-utilitarian nature of his love? ~ 0 Again we return to the idea that the lover wants the good of the be-loved. I will use the case of Ignatius of.Loyola to illustrate a way of under-standing God's call in terms of his~love, without~making that love. utilitar-ian. 9 ~ Inigo (his original name) was a hell-raising, ambitious, vain, coura-geous man, a'.man who dreamed of doing great exploits. At Pamplona, according to his own account, he was the rallying point, in resisting the French attackers. When he. was severely wounded in the leg, the defend-ers immediately surrendered. God seems to have used this crooked line to write straight. During his 10ng convalescence Inigo continued his dreaming. He dreamt of doing great knightly deeds to win fame and honor and the favor of a great lady. These daydreams.would absorb him for up to four hours'at a time. The only books at hand for him were a life of Christ and a book of the lives of the saints. When he read these, he began to dream of doing what Dominic and Francis did, and again he would become absorbed for hours. Notice that in both cases ~his ar-dor, ambition, bravery, and even vanity were operative. Finally, after some time of alternating daydreams, he began to notice a difference. When he was thinking about the things of the world, he'took much de-light in them, but afterwards, when he was tired and put theha aside, he found that he was dry and discontented. But when he thought of going to Jerusalem, barefoot and eating nothing but herbs and undergoing all the other rigors that he saw the saints had endured, not only was he con-soled when he had these thoughts, but even after putting them aside, he remained content and happy. He did not wonder, however, at th~s; nor ~:. did he stop to ponder the difference until one time his eyes were opened a little, and he began to marvel at the difference and to reflect upon it, ~ realizing from experience that some "thoughts left him sad and others happy)~0 ~' This was the beginning of Ignatius' own discovery of the discernment of spirits, a discernment that eventually led him to found the Society of Jesus, with enormous consequences for the Church and the world--and for not a few individuals who in almost four hundred and fifty years have joined this Society. God's Love Is Not Utilitarian How are we to understand this story of a vocation? I would maintain that ~God's 10ve for Inigo involved his desire that Inigo use his great ener-gies, his ardor, his ambition in ways that would make. him most happy, most fulfilled, and most useful to others. I believe that it mattered a great deal to God how Inigo used his talents, for Inigo's sake first of all, but also"for the sake.of others .whom God loved. However, God would not have loved Inigo any the less if he had missed the opportunity for dis-cernment, and had ~ontinued on his course toward "worldly" achieve-ment. But he might have been greatly saddened that Inigo did not choose what was for his greater happiness and peace. Later in life Inigo himself might have felt the sadness as he pondered how his life had gone since his recuperation. Only God could so love us that he would allow us the freedom to turn away from receiving all that he wants .to give us, and still keep loving us unconditionally, even when we so chopse. ., It seems to me that a consi.stent cleaving to the central insight of the New Testament, that God is "Abba," does not force .us to give up any truths of.faith and has several distinct advantages. The preceding pages have shown some ways of understanding traditional truths that hold in the forefront that" God is unconditional love, a love that is not utilitar-ian. Su(h an understanding demonstrates an intrinsic connection between the love of God and the search for his frill. Because God loves me, he wants the best for me. Because and insofar as I love God, I want the best for him, which is that he may give.himself to me as much as he can. The way of life God wants for me is the best way for me to receive his love and to be a co-creator with him. Hence, in my better moments, I try to the best of my ability to discern wfiere his love leads me. I do not try to find his will for fear that he will punish me, but rather for fear that I will miss the way that would allow him to give me more of him-self. I also try to find his will because I.know that his love desires more good for all those whom I will touch in my life. Perhaps we can understand in a slightly new way an axiom attributed to Ignatius (and often put inversely). Loosely translated the saying goes: "Pray as if everything depended on you; work as if everything depended on God." 1 ~ It is very important for me to pray in order to know how and where God wants to love me, how he wants to gift me. It is important not only for me, but also because of others. The more I let God give him-self to me as far as he can, the more "sacrat~entally" present he is to others with whom I interact. And once I have discerned God's way, I can work without ambivalence and self.concern, trusting that God will accomplish whatever else he intends. Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 One final question occurs. Suppose that Inigo's eyes had not opened up during his convalescence, and that he had gone on to worldly exploits. Would he have been given another chance? That is, of course, an unan-swerable question. But God would surely continue to love him and, we presume, continually offer him a call to a radical conversion of heart. ~If, later in life, he were to have his eyes opened, he'might have to come to terms with those earlier missed opportunities. Repentance would be in.~order, but a wallowing in his "spilt milk" would not be an appropri-ate response to the God of love. Conversion'means to accept my past pre-cisely as my past, i.e., both mine and past, and to surrender in freedom to the new and mysterious future offered by God's love now. But an historic moment surely would have been lost if Ignatius had gone an alternate route instead of the one he did take. There are conse-quences to our choices. Hence, it is incumbent on all of us who minister to help people who stand, or soon will stand, before serious life choices to become discerning Christians. Historic consequences may be at stake. -And now a final word. For the past year and a half I have been com-ing at the same issue from different angles. At first I was intrigued by a strange resistance to God's initiative, a resistance that clearly was a run-ning from a positive experience of God'~ presence. My curiosity pro-duced the three articles for this review mentioned earlier. Then a few experi,ences with direcfees prompted this article. I want to end where I began, with the first article. We need to be mind-ful that there is a force within us ~hat does hate the light, that seems to want to thwart all God's loving desire to give us of himself. We need to be on the alert to discern the presence of that force, but also to rely on thos~ various sayings that have given people hope through the ages, sayings like: "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God" (Mk 10:27) or "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made per.fect in weakness" (2 Co 12:9). NOTES 1 William A. Barry, "Resistance to Union: A Virulent Strain," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 44 (1985), pp. 592-596; "The Desire to 'Love as Jesus Loved' and its Vicissitudes," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 44 (1985), pp. 747-753; "Surrender: The Key to Wholeness," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 46 (1987), pp. 49-53. 2 Sebastian Moore, Let This Mind Be in You (Minneapolis: Seabury, 1985). 3 After I had finished this article I came upon Francis Baur's Life in Abundance: A Contemporary Spirituality (New York/Ramsey: Paulist, 1983) who uses process the-ology to develop a spirituality based on the definition of God as love. While some- God's Love Is Not Utilitarian what hortatory and at times polemical, the book can serve as a theological underpinning for the more experience-based assertions of this article. 4 Donald L. Gelpi, "The Converting Jesuit," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, XVII, no. 1 (Jan. 1986). 5 Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John: I-XII. The Anchor Bible, vol. 29. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), p. 345. 6 The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. trans. Louis Puhl. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), no. 234, p. 102. 7 Edward E. Jones, Amerigo Farina, Albert H. Hastorf, Hazel Markus, Dale T. Miller, and Robert A. Scott, Social Stigma: The Psychology of Marked Relatiohships (New York: Freeman, 1984), pp. 59-60. 8 Gelpi, op. cit. 9 What follows is based on The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, trans. Joseph F. O'Callaghan. ed. John C. Olin (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). 10 lbid, p. 24. ~ The Latin version can be found in "Selectae S. Patris Nostri Ignatii Sententiae," no, II, in Thesaurus Spiritualis Societatis Jesu (Roma: Typis Polygiottis Vaticanis, 1948), p. 480. Gaston Fessard, in a long appendix to volume I of his La dialectique des Exercices Spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola (Paris: Aubier, 1966), traces the historical background of the saying. He demonstrates that although not from Igna-tius' hand the saying does express the dialectic of his spirituality. Vocation She said she wished to be a shrub And sit in silence, lost, obscure In some dim woods where no one ever comes and she could muse and watch the quiet winds go by. But He who long ago observed a brambled bush Looked at her once among the ferns. He looked but once; the winds became a storm And now she burns, she. bu.rns! Ruth de Menezes 2819 D Arizona Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90404 Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty? Mariette Martineau Mariette Martineau, a novice with the Sisters of Mission Service, had recently com-pleted sixteen months of formation at St. Albert, Alberta, when she wrote these re-flections which she hopes will benefit others in novitiate life. She may be reached at Box 2861; Merritt, British Columbia; VOK 2BO, Canada. ~l~hat are the realities of being a novice in a religious community in the Church today? Since the exodus following Vatican II, communities have been growing smaller and older. Novitiates have been created and re-created to meet the ever changing formation needs of both the commu-nity and the candidates. How often have novices of today heard this com-ment from one of the older members of their community, "How for-tunate you are to have such a novitiate, full of prayer and study! In our days . " Come and journey with me as ! reflect on my novitiate experience. I am on the last Stretch of that journey ~as I am presently completing a six-month apostolic experience before returning to Edmonton in June for immediate preparation for vows scheduled to be, celebrated in August. I have often asked myself, particularly in the early months, "Is this no-vitiate experience one of captivity or liberty?" When I first arrived at the novitiate I experienced what I like to call the "honeymoon" phase. Life was fairly flexible as time was granted to unpack, to explore the h6use a6d neighborhood, and most importantly to meet the new commuriity and ito become comfortable with the direc-tor. The excitement of not knowing exactly what to expect and of enter-ing into the newness of activities energized me and I felt that I had made a good decision. Reality soon set in, and the struggling began. Before I entered, I prom-ised myself that I would give me, the community, and God a year to dis- 844 Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty cover if this was truly the way of life for Mariette to grow fully alive. I am thankful for that commitment for there ~vere many times during th'ose first few.months that I was ready to pack my ba~s and leave~. My director was also aware of that commitment and when times were rough she gently reminded me of it. The challenge to let go of one's independ-ence- socially, financially, emotionally, and so forth---can be a painful one. If I had chosen to leave at this stage in the novitiate procesS, I would have been leaving not because I had chosen the wrong way of life but because I was unable to release certain things in my life and give all to God. The second phase or reality of novitiate after the honeymoon phase is this ti~e of purification, of letting go. Tears can be an enriching and cleansing experience! One's schedule soon seems to become another's schedule as 'the director sets her expectations before you and challenges you to integrate and balhnce your time between formal classes, prayer, spiritual reading, community, household chores, writing papers, and per-haps weekly apostolic experiences andthe ~ccasional weekend work~ shop. Your life no longer seems to 15e yoOr own; anger and depression sometimes become an everyday experience as you strive to fully enter into the year. One has usually left a job behind and now feels like a "non-producer," dependent on the community for food, shelter, recreation. Suddenly you have to keep an account of the money you spend and have to ask someone for that money. You now have to ask permission before disappearing in the community car or going out with a friend. In some ways you feel that your personal autonomy is being threatened and you no longer have control over your life. You do not understand all the things that are being 'asked of you. In fact, some of the requests make no sense at all, This calls for trust--in tile community and in the forma-tion personnel. Trust that they do know what they are doing and have your growth as their priority, while attempting to see if you do indeed have the charism of this community. The Yes I said when I ei~tered soon grew into a series of "yeses" that were not always easy to say. I must point out that it was not a "yes" to°having things done to me but a yes that said, "I will enter into the process that you have set before me." During this phase the novices may find themselves projecting a lot of anger at their director. It is they who are setting down the guidelines, they who are enforcing them. The director is the one called to tell the novice, "This year is a time to place some relationships on the back burner, a time to get in touch with who you are, your relationship with God and the community in which you have chOsen to live out that rela- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 tionship." The director is the one who has been given the sometimes pain-ful responsibility of making the novices aware of areas in their lives that need growth. "I do not feel that you are using your time properly--Do you realize that you snapped ~at Suzanne during supper last night?--You are too,much of a perfectionist." A novice, like anyone; finds it painful to look at her brokenness. I sometimes found myself saying in response, "What about Sister Perpetua? I look great beside her and she has been in the community for twenty years." It is much easier to focus on some-one else's areas of growth rather than your own. In the midst of all of this is the fear of reje6tion: One can begin to foc~s entirely on the nega-tive while neglecting to hear the affirmation that is also present. During the novitiate phase one journeys closely with the director. The goal is to have someone to process the year with you, to guide you, to challenge you,. to affirm you, to see if you do have a vocation to religious life. I found this aspect of my journey difficult. As. much as I wanted to dis-cover if I was in the right place, I feared rejection and wanted to appear as someone who had it all "together," I wanted to be an instant relig-ious, comfortable with poverty, celibacy, community, and obedience. Simply put, I wanted to be perfect and got angry with myself and: others when I was not. Directors often tell their novices to be prepared for a time of regres-sion following their initial entry into novitiate. One can hear this with the mind but the heart sometimes gets in the way. One cannot understand why she feels depressed, angry, without energy, and without the finesse she had when she entered. Insecurity may be another reality, but doubt is always good because it challenges one to dig deeper. The gift during this time of grieving and regression is the realization that, "Hey, I am not going crazy! I am just striving to say good-bye to some excess bag-gage. I am feeling the loss of many things and many people. I am spend- .ing so much energy on being angry, I need some way to deal with the anger in a more creative way. I want to grow and become me fully alive, but that hurts and I just cannot seem to grow fast enough." A novice was asked one time, "When did your novitiate start?" She replied: "Nine months into it!" Another reality of novitiate life is the focus on community. One no longer, has the freedom to skip supper when she feels like it and go shop-ping instead. Recreation often takes place in the community context, and outside contacts can be limited and are often with other religious. One may get the sense of dead air--I need to.see other people! The challenge is to enter into the times of community and group activity while remem, Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty / 1~47 bering to also enter into moments of aloneness. We all need some de-gree of personal space. In relation to community, the novice who enters and places before herself the goal of reforming the community will find herself in conflict and perhaps will receive an invitation to leave. It is similar to marrying someone with the intent of changing that person into the person ~hat you think he or she should be. Those of us novices who are still young when we enter often bring with us our youthful idealism. This idealism is not wrong, and may indeed carry with it challen.ges to the community. But we must remember that novitiate is a dialectical proc-ess; both the community and the individual have so.mething to leai'n from each ot~her. Neither is perfect and neither should be expected to be per-fect. A line from a friend says, "I love you as you are in the middle of where you are." How does one know when to leave? After haying earlier stated that I had committed myself (t° myself) for a year, what would have caused ~e to leave? If at any point in that year the person of Mariette completely disappeared, I think it would have been time to pull out. If I had to die to all that I was, I think I would have been in the wrong place, perhaps simply at the.wrong time, or forever. Dialogue with the director is ex-tremely important during this discernment.' She is an objective observer, trained to help one make such decisions. Naturally the decision is always our own, and one always has to keep before herself the freedom to stay or to leave. Again I would say, trust the formation personnel, as it is easy to get entangled in one's emotions and make a decision to leave for the wrong reasons. I would not encourage anyone to leave while in the mid-dle of the grieving process. One can expect to say some good-byes to journey companions dur-ing novitiate. Some people will be with us until the end of the journey, others are called to different places before then. Good-byes can be pain-ful, especially if you have shared a deep relationship with the person leav-ing or if you have difficulty accepting the reasons for leaving. Each time someone left, it was an opportunity for me to reexamine my own rea-sons for staying or to find some good reasons to leave. Usually new life followed these reflections especially if I had been given the opportunity to sa~, good-bye to the person leaving and/or to ritualize her departure with the community--whether it be my own or the intercommunity no-vitiate of which I was a member as I was the only novice in my own com-munity. I strongly encourage and invite novices who have decided to con-tinue their journey in a different direction to realize the importance of saying good-bye to their directors and their communities. "848 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 The happie,st phase of the novitiate seems to come too late. You feel ready to enter into the process, you have develop.ed new relationships, ygur, anger and depression no longer seem to have control over you, the journey inward has become a challenge that energizes you. And guess what? It is time to move on, perhaps to an apostolic experience or fur-ther studies or even vows. It is gratifying at this time to look at how one was at the beginning and how one appears to be now. Signs of growth are evident and as you reflect back you. feel yourself wondering,. "Was I, really like that? Did I make life that miserable for others in the house, especiall3~ my director? . . ." Now may also be a time of increased heal-ing, reaching out in love and forgiven, ess in a deep and meaningful way to those wh6 have journeyed so f,,aithfully with 'you. One still does not haveit ~11 "together" bu~'acknowledges the joys and pains of being a pilgrim. Is novitiate a time of captivity or liberty? It can be a time of captiv-ity, ofimprisoning one's self in anger, loneliness, schedules, pride, in-security, or one's past, But it is designed to be a time of liberty. A time to spend kvitli,y.ourself and God, journeying towards wholeness by being -given the gift to leave behind many of the earthly cares that can take over our existence. It is a time to begin to d~velop the"skillS and behavior pat5 terns that a religious needs to integrate her life choice of prophet into the world" and the Church today. Community in Religious Life and the - Church: Some Reflections Angelo M. Caligiuri Monsignor Caligiuri is Episcopal Vicar for Religious in his diocese. His reflections here represent his part in dialogues between bishops and religious in several areas of the country and discussion with various religious superiors and other vicars. He may be reached at the Office of the Vicar for Religious; Diocese of Buffalo; 100 South Elmwood Avenue; Buffalo, New York 14202. During the final months of 1985 and the first months of 1986, through-out the dioceses of the United Sti~tes, diocesan bishops met with their re-ligious to dialogue about six areas of mutual concern. These areas of in-terest and concern surfaced from the series of listenin~ sessions held the previous year under the leadership ~nd guidance of the special Pontifical Commission established by our Holy Father, under the chairmanship of Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco. As a result of these listening sessions, .each diocese prepared a writ-ten report on what was heard and these reports were sent to Archbishop Qtiinn and his committee. From a reading and evaluation of the many reports, the committee saw the following subject areas surfacing as mer-i