MEMORIAL ARTICLE Published Assembly Oct '51 Robert Clements Bradley, Jr.  No.16092   Class of 1946  Died January 21, 1951 at Phoenix City, Alabama, aged 26 years

Bob Bradley was born in the quiet little town of Franklin, Kentucky, on 7 August, 1924. Here he spent the first 16 years of his life.  During these years he developed two loves that he carried throughout his life-namely, his love of sports and his love of music.

In 1940 Bob entered Columbia Military Academy in Columbia,  Tennessee,  from which he graduated in 1942.  In the summer of 1949, Bob and I visited his family in Franklin and on our way back to Fort Benning we stopped by Columbia to reminisce a little. As he showed me about the campus it was easy to see that his life there had been a happy one filled with success and pleasure.  He pointed out places where interesting incidents in his cadet life had happened, laughing as much as I, as be related the minor catastrophes that had befallen him as a cadet. At Columbia Bob was an outstanding basketball player and a member of the cadet band.  While there ha received an appointment to West Point. Since it was for 1943 and he graduated from Columbia in 1942, he decided to go to the University of Kentucky for the ensuing year. He pledged Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the University of Kentucky and for one year enjoyed to the fullest the friendship of this brotherhood.

When Bob got to West Point he found himself in a new world.  As a plebe the restrictions placed on his social life were at first distasteful to him, since he was a "college man", but his buoyant personality could not long be suppressed. As he worked his way through plebe year he made friends who will always remember him fondly. His warm friendly manner was contagious. New acquaintances relaxed immediately when he smiled, for his was a frankness and sincerity that left no doubt as to his inner goodness. You met him and you had a pal. You saw him a few times and you sought him as a  friend.  You grew to know him and you loved him as a brother. 

After our graduation in June, Bob, along with the bulk of the class of 1946, descended on luckless Fort Benning.  Here with the same refreshing personality that had made him so popular at West Point, he acquired many new friends.  He was so gay, lighthearted and mischievous that he fairly radiated friendship. You could actually see the lights twinkle in his eyes as he spoke to one of his buddies about an impending week-end trip to Atlanta or points north, south, east, or west.

Following the Fort Benning assignment, Bob spent almost two years with the Sixth Infantry Division in Korea.  Here the fare was mostly hard work, rather than play, but this didn't bother him, for to Bob there were laughs to be had in the performance of the most arduous of tasks. He was well known in the Sixth Division and everyone from the Commanding General to the lowest ranking private looked upon him as a friend. He made a splendid record for himself there and drew an assignment as an instructor at The Infantry School in Fort Benning  when he returned to the States in 1949. As a member of the Machine Gun Committee, he was considered a superior instructor.  I heard him instruct a number of times and I believe his great success was due-aside from his professional knowledge and poise-to his ability to make any class he taught feel as if he were one of them and that they were working together to get the knowledge he possessed. Contemporaries, as well as those officers he worked for and those that worked for him considered him a superior companion, officer, and man. He never shared his woes, but he always shared the pleasures he found in life. No one who has ever enjoyed the companionship of such a man can help but be deeply touched by his passing.

Bob left behind him a host of friends who will always remember him as a man possessed of a magnetic personality, great ability to lead, and a warm and friendly heart. His funeral at Fort Benning was not only a tribute to Robert Clements Bradley, Jr. as an individual but also to a person who had been a friend to mankind.

 

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