USMA John Hardy

John Hardy

6 MAY 1933 - 7 NOV 2004

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Hardy Funeral at Arlington National Cemetery

JAN 2005

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Russell - Ewing - McCulla- Sloan - Rich Miller - Bergen - McNair

Hardy Funeral - JAN 2005

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Pew1: Nancy and Jim Cutchin - Betty and Matt Schepps - Pew2: McNerney - Roades
Pew3: Goldstein - Gay - McNair - Pew4: Russell - McCulla - Pew5: Bergen

Hardy Funeral - JAN 2005

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Pew2: McNerney - Pew3: Goldstein - Gay - McNair - Pew 4: Russell - McCulla
Pew5: Ewing - Bergen - Pew6: Rich Miller

Hardy Funeral - JAN 2005

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Brook Hardy Agnew - Nancy Cutchin - Matt and Betty Schepps - Bergen - Cutchin
Russell - McCulla - Roades - Ruth Sloan - Gay - Welter - McNerney

Hardy Funeral JAN 2005

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Bill Welter and Brook Hardy Agnew

Hardy Funeral - JAN 2005

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Hardy Funeral at Arlington National Cemetery

JAN 2005

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L - 2

1st Row: Goldstein - Hardy - Schlotter - Faurer - Cutchin - Landers
2nd Row: Mayson - Darrah - Volkstadt - Barker
3rd Row: Herren - Karnes - Doerr - Smetana
4th Row: McNerney - Maus - Spellman - Schepps - Sydenham

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Brigade Staff

Olvey - Andrews - Jacobs - Gilpatrick - Karam - Hardy

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'55 Color Guard

Front Row: Doerr - Reb Young - Sullivan - Staudaher
Back Row: Hardy - Andrews - Schow - Domeck

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John was Air Force and I was Army so our paths only crossed once during our careers. I was a new Army Test Pilot assigned to Edwards AFB where John was completing his Air Force Test Pilot assignment testing new Fighter Aircraft. John and his family were kind enough to welcome my family to the Mojave Desert (Edwards) with a steak cook-out at John's home on Edwards. My two daughters were 8 and 9 and John had a gigantic steak for each girl. The girls thought it great that John was treating them as adults. He was a top notch Fighter Jock with a heart as big as the steaks he cooked for my girls....John soon departed Edwards and our paths never crossed again.

Rest in peace John

Bill Welter
November 9 - 2004

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Early on - I'll claim to be an early classmate of John - better "Scott" - in the six and seventh grade at Ft leavenworth - KS during WWII. Anyway - we were buddies at a very early age. We played together and had a mutual interest in aircraft. Scott's Dad gave him a complete set of silhouette aircraft - used to teach aircraft identification. I admired them so much that Scott's Dad gave me a set - too. Never forget it! Last saw Scott in the Pentagon in 1968. He was on the Air Force General Staff at the time. Great guy.

Bill Edwards
November 12 - 2004

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John Scott Hardy

I really don’t quite know where to begin - so I’ll just talk.

So many years ago - John and I were truly very close friends. I roomed with him at Sullivan’s School in Washington DC (our third roommate at Sullies’ was Don Hilbert ‘55) preparing for the entrance examination to West Point. Later - John & I were assigned to the same company at West Point and for three years John - Stan Sydenham & I were roommates in L-2. In fact the three of us were so close back then - that when we saw each other again at an L-2 “muster” in Hendersonville - NC (I believe the only time since graduating that all three of us were together again) - the three of us sat up and talked deep into the early morning hours after all our other L-2 classmates were long asleep.

I greatly admired John. He was very bright as I am sure we all know - also very independent and a little distant in his relationship with others. I do not know even today if he was simply shy or kept his distance for other reasons. Whichever - it likely was a good trait for any military officer and I am sure he was a good pilot and commanding officer.

I do want to tell you one interesting story about John. When we were studying one night at Sullies - John looked out the window and noticed a male figure using binoculars on the roof of an apartment building next door. Sullies was in an old home in a nice residential area. After watching this man for a while he correctly concluded that the man was a peeping tom - called the police who - along with John - trapped the man on the roof and arrested him. Even before West Point - John had strong beliefs as to right & wrong and acted on those beliefs.

Anyway - even though John & I did not keep up with each other very well - he is a happy memory in my past and I can still see him sitting at his desk at Sullies and West Point expounding on something esoteric and twirling a pencil in his fingers as he talked (a habit of his back then).

“Be Thou at Peace,”

Preston Mayson - L-2 - USMA ‘55
November 12 - 2004

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Date sent: Wed - 05 Jan 2005 16:26:20 -0500
Subject: usma55bus: John Hardy Funeral
From: Madison
To: West Point Class of 1955

Classmates,

This afternoon - 5 January 2005 - John and Leslie Hardy were laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. There were full Air Force honors appropriate to the occasion. Preceeding the burial was a Catholic Funeral Mass at the Old Post Chapel. In attendance in addition to the immediate family (two sons - two daughters and a grand daughter) were 15 classmates: Jim Bergen - Jim and Nancy Cutchin - Chuck Ewing - Joe Franklin - Ted Gay - Bud Goldstein - Bill McCulla - Carl McNair - Dave McNerney - Rich Miller - Chuck Roades - Bob Russell - Matt and Betty Schepps - John and Ruth Sloan - and Bill Welter.

John spent much of the last year of his life in a VA hospital in St. Petersburg. He was being treated for complications resulting from prostate cancer. He died peacefully on November 7th 2004. Leslie had died a few years earlier.

John received many decorations for his service which included 101 combat missions over North Vietnam - and 72 missions in support of ground forces in South vietnam.

Matt

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I first met and got to know Scott - as we called him then - at Maxwell AFB in 1949 when my dad was assigned there. We were star (?) players on the world famous (!!)Maxwell Boys Club basketball team. We probably had a perfect record - namely 0 wins. But we all had fun.

All the Maxwell teenagers got together at the Teen Town on base two or three times a week for dances - parties - horsing around - etc. - "hanging out" - as the kids now-a-days call it. Scott was always a fixture at those happenings. Appropriately enough the Teen Town building used to be the psycho ward of the hospital with part of the building having very small rooms with bars on the windows. Maxwell has since torn the buidling and there is now the Credit Union in its place.

"Rest eternal grant unto him - O Lord - and may light perpetual shine upon him."

Jim Barker
January 6 - 2005

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USMA 1955 Roster

USMA 1955 Pictures