Minutes of Meeting, January 27, 2001

In addition to the above, we were pleased to have these special guests:
-Maryanne Weed, the Air Force Academy club's just-past President, was with us on "exchange" as our President, Patty Klascius , had attended their meeting the prior week. This exchange was initiated by the effort to form an all services "coalition " planning committee meeting for All Services Academy Ball to be held in Oregon ’01.
-Heather Doyle, a candidate who has been offered admission, visited our meeting with her parents. Heather told us about her visit to West Point. It was nice to have the Doyles present.

2000-2001 Officers

The results of the election of officers were certified. The officers are as follows:

President: Adams Vice-President: Hoffman Secretary: Cox
Treasurer: Fox Newsletter: Klascius Historian: Hoffman
Liaison Officer, Washington: Graham
Liaison Officer, Oregon: Klascius (volunteered then elected by acclaim at the meeting)

2001-2002 Officers

New officers:  Hoffman, Adams, Foxes, Klasciuses, Coxes

The Treasurer reported that $1,511.99 is presently in the account.

The following By Laws changes were proposed and passed:
-Change the date for payment of annual dues to 'no later than August'.
-Suspend the By Laws to extend the term of the newsletter preparer.
-Accept two additional honorary members: Washington MALOs Colonel Steve Howard & Major Ray Coffee.

Upcoming Executive Meeting: The date of executive board's annual planning meeting has been changed from Sat., Feb. 24th to Sunday, Feb. 25th at the Foxes' home in Lake Oswego.

All Services Academy Ball:
Surveys were passed out at the meeting to assist in early stage planning of an All Services Academy Ball. If you were not present at the meeting, please respond to the survey sent to you via our listserv e-mail. It's important that we hear from everyone on this, for accurate initial planning.

Army/Navy Football Game:
The Foxes attended this year's game and brought back pictures and told us about their trip. Sounded like they had a great time.

Club members were invited by the West Point Society to a combined Army/Navy viewing of the game at a club at the Aurora Airport. This event was attended by the Cox, Hoffman and Klascius families.

This year's Army/Navy game will be held in Philadelphia. The best seats are available to firsties with a maximum of 8 seats. The Klasciuses will purchase the maximum and make them available to club members. This will enable all club members going to the game to sit as a group.

Founders Day Dinner
Is Saturday, March 17^th.at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland. It would be great to see many parents involved. Cost is about $40 per person. It's another great time to visit with local West Point Society members, listen to "brass" from the Academy, and meet prospective new candidates and their families. Please e-mail your RSVPs to Susan Adams, so she can let the appropriate Society member know who's coming.

Class Rings
The brochure for the Class of 2002 was passed around, and we learned more about the rings and ordering process.

Cow Loans
Had a discussion of these low-interest loans which can be of benefit to a Cadet if handled properly.

Boodle
Boxes were put together, shipped and there in time for Valentine's Day. Lots of fun treats which the Cadets will certainly enjoy.

We talked about the by-invite summer invitational workshop which provides an excellent opportunity for prospective candidates to become familiar with West Point.

The book corner presented some "gloom period" reading ideas and opportunities. This seemed to be an area of interest.

ADMISSIONS PARTICIPANT MEETING

Immediately following the club meeting, this meeting was hosted by David and Mary Graham and presented with LTC Al Lake, Oregon’s State MALO. We learned how we could become involved in distributing information to prospective candidates in our local areas. Learning about this process was extremely interesting and informative.

Please note that there is a parent-forum web site for prospective candidates (those who have been offered and ACCEPTED West Point). The contact for being on that list serve is: Cathy Jette jette@early.com

It should be emphasized that part of our clubs’ reason for existence is to foster relations and help the Academy in identifying prospective, qualified, interested applicants from our area. Admissions Participants packets were available at the meeting to aid our involvement in this process. The summer week-long student invitational workshop and Cadet CPRC work together to help foster this mission objective of helping USMA with admissions.

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Each Unit and Post has informed the Academy as to the number of slots available for graduating Lieutenants in the branch in question. After all the Firsties are assembled with their other classmates of the same branch the cadet who is first in order of merit in the group is asked which post assignment he wants to select. For example, there may be 12 postings available at Ft. Bragg and only one available at Stuttgart, Germany. Once the post in Stuttgart, Germany is selected that location is closed and the remaining slots are still available. The last cadet in order of merit (his standing in the class) takes whichever slot is still available.  After this evening in February the graduating Firsties will know where they are going to wind up in the Army for their first troop assignment.

Larry D. Smith, '62

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Excerpts from an address delivered to the graduating officers at Fort Sheridan, in 1917,
by Major C.A. Bach

"From the standpoint of society, the world may be divided into leaders and followers. In all this leadership it is difficult, if not impossible to separate from the elements of pure leadership that selfish element of personal gain or advantage to the individual, without which such leadership would lose its value.
"It is in the military service only, where men freely sacrifice their lives for a faith, where men are willing to suffer and die for the right or the prevention of a great wrong, that we can hope to realize leadership in its most exalted and disinterested sense. Therefore, when I say leadership, I mean military leadership.
"In a few days the great mass of you men will receive commissions as officers. These commissions will not make you leaders; they will merely make you officers.
"Great results are not achieved by cold passive, unresponsive soldiers.They don't go very far and they stop as soon as they can. Leadership not only demands but receives the willing, unhesitating, unfaltering obedience and loyalty of other men; and a devotion that will cause them, when the time comes, to follow their uncrowned king to hell and back again if necessary.
"In garrison or camp... many instances will arise to try your temper and wreck the sweetness of your disposition. If at such time you "fly off the handle" you have no business to be in charge of men. For men in anger say and do things that they almost invariably regret afterward.
"You cannot treat all men alike; a punishment that would be dismissed by the man with a shrug of his shoulders is mental anguish for another. A company commander who for a given offense has a standard punishment that applies to all is either too indolent or too stupid to study the personality of his men. In his case justice is certainly blind.
"Study your men carefully, as a surgeon studies a difficult case. And when you are sure of your diagnosis, apply the remedy. And remember that you apply the remedy to effect a cure, not merely to see the victim squirm. It may be necessary to cut deep, but when you're satisfied as to your diagnosis, don't be divided from your purpose by any false sympathy for the patient.
"There is another kind of fairness that which will prevent an officer from abusing the privilege of his rank. When you exact respect from soldiers, be sure to treat them with equal respect. Build up their manhood and self-respect. Don't try to pull it down.
"For an officer to be overbearing and insulting in the treatment of (his subordinates) is the act of a coward. He ties the man to the tree with the ropes of discipline and then strikes him in the face, knowing full well that the man cannot strike back."

(excerpted from Feb. 5th Army Times)
...that provides Army captains with a wealth on information and advice on how to be a better company commander.  It is the epitome of selfless service by a handful of officers (who hold their monthly face-to-face meeting at the Officer's Club at West Point to brainstorm and make decisions regarding the Web site.  CompanyCommand.com is the brainchild of Majors Nate Allen and Tony Burgess, whose paths have intersected repeatedly since they met at West Point in 1987, and were commissioned as infantry officers in 1990. While neighbors at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, the two young officers would often end the day picking each other's brains for mutual advice.  "We were sharing ideas about command and leadership and how to create an awesome company.  Along the way, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be awesome if we had a way for all company commanders to share tips and ideas like we are on our back porch?' "  When Burgess was posted to West Point as a TAC, he met Capt. Steve Schweitzer, "a real live guru on Web pages".   The site debuted in Feb. 2000,with immediate success, and word spread "as quickly as a virus" through the junior officer community.  Now the site gets up to 150,000 "hits" a month.  Features include "Command Tools", "Command Challenges", "Command Net", and "Command Contacts".   The site is ideal for captains already in command or those preparing to take command.  So excited are Burgess and Allen about the site's success that they have already snapped up the  rights to Platoon Leader.org domain name, and are busy putting that site together with the help of some West Point cadets, who are doing is as part of their computer science capstone project.
hat site should be up and going by graduation, 2001.

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V-President & Historian: Al & Jill Hoffman (Jordan '04) ahja@home.com

Liaison Officers-OR & Newsletter Editors:
Al & Patty Klascius (Chad ‘01, Craig '02)  klascius@teleport.com

L.O.-WA: David & Mary Graham (Doug '01, Franchesca '04) merovin@halcyon.com

Secretary: Carole Cox (Morgan '04) carolecoxis@home.com