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Ramsden Award - 2019

Jack Downing represented the class for the 2019 presentation...

Fellows,

 Yesterday [sic 24 May] I presented the Ramsden award in Chemistry to a deserving graduating cadet. 

 Many other awards were given in the Chemistry and Life Science award event.  I am always astounded at the wide variety  of areas of science in which the cadets are involved..  Some not only study but do research in the lab with their professors.  One young woman-cadet published seven peer-reviewed papers and another, five.  Not all cadets have such a deep interest but some do, especially those who are going to med school.  By-the-way, the med school cadets go to medical service basic training before med school.

 I also was given a  visit to the small room where the beer is brewed.  Unfortunately there was none at the time for me to try. 

 Col Burpo, head of the department, also told me that the ring melt is done in the chemistry department.    I was interested since, on this  trip, I turned in Bob Miller’s ring to Cathy Kilner at the AOG for the melt.

 After the presentations, one gentleman came up to me and said that he was in the class of 1968 and I had been his teacher.  He was there to see his grandson graduate.

 I had lunch with the cadet I knew.  He is a member of the USMA Cyber Strategy team that won the world-wide “2019 Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge” in Geneva Switzerland this year. This is not trivial.  There were 22 high-caliber teams not only from universities but teams made up of Rhodes  Scholars, retired diplomats, and military generals.  He also said that the picture of the team was taken in civilian clothes ta the result of Switzerland’s law forbidding foreign uniforms.   The contest takes place over two days  With each team presenting responses to a situation that changes and is presented to the teams in a series of Intelligence Reports.  The judges are members of the Atlantic Council.  He gave me a copy of the intelligence reports and the team’s responses. 

Jack Downing