Dave Gerard
DAVE GERARD
8822 Harbor Circle
Terrell, North Carolina 28682
828-478-9813
gerardd@charter.net
www.west-point.org/class/usma/1968
On
22 May, Rick & Anne Wright
attended the Distinguished Graduate Award Ceremony and Review at West Point and
witnessed Rick’s Dad, LTG (Ret)
John M. Wright, Jr. (’40), receive one of the five 2007 awards. Infantry classmates may recall LTG Wright was the CG of the Infantry School
when we went to IOBC, Airborne and Ranger
Schools. Those who served in the 101st in Vietnam may
recall he was the CG from May 1969 to May 1970.
[Photo #1 – “Rick, Rick’s
Dad, and Anne Wright at the Distinguished Graduate Award Ceremony last May”]
Chuck Vehlow checked in from Scottsdale, AZ
with lots of classmate news. He reports
that Jim Locher continues to serve
the country by heading the Project on National Security Reform. Jim is lining up folks from his ASD-SOLIC days at the Pentagon as well as Washington DC area think-tanks
and universities from across the country. There will be a book published this month of the
project's first ten case studies of interagency operations over recent decades.
Chuck heard from Ralph D'Alessandro who retired from the lawyer-stress of San Francisco to take up happy
and relaxed living in Colorado.
Chuck & Katy visited John & Gail
Westerlund in Flagstaff,
AZ over the Labor Day weekend to
catch up, play some tennis, see where part time Forrest Rangers go to get away
from it all, and enjoy the cool climate of northern Arizona.
[Photo #2 – “Former Tennis
Team Teammates Chuck Vehlow and John Westerlund”]
Leo Norton and Jock Merriam
work for The Shaw Group and are able to get together frequently. They were playing in a Society of American
Military Engineers golf tournament in Jacksonville,
FL when Jock hit his ball into a
swampy waste area. After walking over to
look for his ball, Jocko said, “There are five balls right there!” Just as Leo started to say “don’t go in there,”
he heard a scream and a splash (may not have been in that order, but I’m sure
it was a manly scream). Jocko had
stepped into about 5 feet of primordial muck – wish I could show you the cell
phone picture. What is it about Rangers
and swamps in Florida?
While Leo didn’t mention the odor, he
did tell Jocko that if he needs a golf ball in the future, as his classmate,
Leo would gladly give him one!
Speaking
of Engineers, Henry Riser recounted
an “Extreme Engineering” feature on the Discovery Channel that addressed the
current construction of the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge
and showed numerous interviews with the undertaking’s project manager, Russ Fuhrman. The show was quite interesting even though
Russ never noted the importance of mooning traffic on the old bridge, as he had
learned to do in the Zoo.
Once again Dwight & Donna Lee
took first place at the annual USNA
Class of '58 "Hit and Giggle Golf CLASSIC" at Tantallon
Country Club in Fort Washington,
MD. Displaying the form Nancy Hoblit would be
proud of, Donna and her Navy wife teammate, Roxanne Kessler, made the two
saving putts for birdies to bring in the win for the team that included Dwight
Lee and USNA '58 grad Ed Kessler. Dwight & Donna are probably the most
published Army Couple in the Navy publication, SHIPMATES, because of this tournament. But, the really important news is the arrival
of grandchild #5, Samantha Madison Lee-Reid, last June 18th.
[Photo #3 –
“Dwight & Donna Lee with grandkids Kinsey, “Sam”, Michael, Matthew, and
Jensen”]
Mike & Rachel Potter continue to mix business
with pleasure. This time, they were in San Diego for a meeting
and visited Larry & Diane Van Horn
in (smoky) Carlsbad, CA.
The Van Horns sold their avocado farm, are truly retired, and are
looking to move away from the land of riots, fires, earthquakes, and mudslides.
Mike also noted that Diane has recovered
quickly from hip surgery – but, not fast enough for Diane’s tastes.
[Photo #4 – “Mike & Rachel
Potter with Larry & Diane Van Horn”]
The Army – Wake
Forest football game in Winston-Salem brought Vic & Pat Hiatt out of Florida. Dan
&Gwynne Taylor (Dan is a Wake Forest Law alum and Gwynne is a prominent
Winston-Salem arts fund raiser) hosted an apres game
gathering for the class at their home in Winston-Salem, which drew Elwood & Mary Lou Cobey (drove in
from Roanoke, VA to see the game and family), Walt & Kay Curl (they’re back from Augusta and are in the
Winston-Salem area where Walt does his orthopod
stuff), Surry & Dorothy Everett
(drove up from Bath to sample the B&B scene in Old Town W-S), Vic & Pat Hiatt (doing a great job
at enjoying retirement and reconnecting after years of Air Force affiliation), John, Margie, and Marcia Hedley (always up for a classmate
gathering), Dutch & Megan Hostler (both
are Wake Law alums with kids in med school at nearby Duke), Howard & Heidi
McElroy (he’s an attorney in Abingdon, VA and they had a Cadet son who made the
trip section to the game), Gary &
Cookie Roberson (Gary is a Wake Forest Law alum with family in Asheville),
and Bill (William E – the architect
in Tennessee) Robinson. After the game and party, we convoyed back to
Lake Norman with the Hedleys, Hostlers, and Hiatts in three cars – a procession
choreographed by the Keystone Kops.
[Photo
#5 – “The Wake Forest gathering at Dan & Gwynne Taylor’s home”]
Two
days after the game, the 68 mini reunion continued with Nick & Barbara Dienes rolling into the Hedley compound as part
of their “North American RV Really Retired” tour, and the Hedleys and Dieneses
joining the Hiatts, Hostlers, and Gerards for some intense company, poopschool, SAIC, and classmate catching up.
[Photo #6 – “John Hedley,
Dutch Hostler, Dumbo the Elephant, Vic Hiatt, and
Nick Dienes at Lake
Norman”]
[Photo
#7 – “Art & Pat Coogler with Marcia & By Shields in Apex, NC”]
Art & Pat Coogler traveled to Apex, NC to attend the marriage of By & Marcia Shields’ daughter,
Tamara. Not surprisingly, Marcia was
regal and dignified at the reception; however, By
impressed everyone with his enthusiastic combination of dance steps he learned
from Mrs. Holland and his first detail squad leader – called “the dying
cockroach does the fox trot.” Tamara and
By are both
attorneys with the NC Attorney General’s office, and Marcia is an HR exec with
one of the companies in the area. Art
was By’s Best Man when he married Marcia in 1968 at
Andrews AFB. By and Marcia were Best Man
and Matron of honor when Art and Pat were married at Ft Bragg in 1987. As mentioned in the last Notes, Art & Pat
still work in dentistry at Ft Jackson, but I didn’t mention that they just
welcomed their 7th grandchild into the family. Art recommended publishing the class gift
stats for each company to foster competition.
While it’s a good idea, space does not permit; however, those stats are
listed on our web site. Generally,
here’s the Regimental breakdown of in-hand contributions as of the end of
September:
|
1st Regt
|
$783,503.90
|
|
2nd Regt
|
$762,607.50
|
|
3rd Regt
|
$406,413.63
|
|
4th Regt
|
$434,349.49
|
The Class Gift Committee and Cadet ORSA-pod
extraordinaire, Pat Toffler, have anguished over these numbers to understand
the disparity in regimental contributions (Regimental leaders killed in Vietnam? Two
Regiments new to the Corps?), given a rather even distribution of generous
classmates, but all we can agree on is there is a significant disparity that,
if evened out, would allow us to easily reach our goal.
I
know a lot of you proud parents and sponsors are conflicted with torment and
pride over kids in harm’s way. An illustration
is that Mike & Kit Havey’s “YoungSon Michael,” a Redleg
converted to Infantryman (the reverse is rarely achieved) has survived another
Iraq tour of patrols, ambushes, and IED attacks and set foot on American soil in
mid-December as a birthday present to his Dad and sedative to his mother. As a minority in this country, we know and
understand the duty of service implications of carrying out unaccompanied and
hazardous missions. We know that life is
a gift – even if it isn’t tied with a bow.
Keep our new generation of warriors in your thoughts and prayers because
there are fewer and fewer Americans that understand the concept and YOU’RE ALL WE’VE GOT.