Appreciation: An English “P” Remembered, 50 Years Later
“Major Wickert” Left His Mark on the
Class of 1958
By Alan B. Salisbury, ‘58
It was
“just another” obituary in the newspaper.
But as I was reading the Washington Post with a leisurely cup of coffee
on that Sunday morning in April, my eye caught the small headline, “Howard T.
Wickert, Army Officer, College Professor.”
The name
rang a bell immediately in my mind so I read further into the item to learn
that LTC (Ret) Wickert was a member of the USMA Class of 1943. A quick check in the Register confirmed that
Howard T. Wickert was, indeed, the English professor (“P” in cadet slang) that
I remembered from my Plebe year, 1954-1955.
Memories flooded back. Then
Major Wickert had used his red pen to inscribe on one of my first papers in his
class “You’re Mad!” to inform me that my entry of “Bibliography: None” was
inappropriate in view of my citing several sources in the paper. On another paper I had misspelled
“Massachusetts” causing him to deduct the traditional “one tenth” on the 3.0
grading scale for a spelling error, adding the note: “Poor choice of words.
Almost no one can spell… (there followed three equally incorrect
spellings of MA, all crossed out)… that state!”
Like most
West Point classes today, the Class of 1958 has an active e-mail net that we
use to share information of all kinds.
So with newspaper in hand, I went to my PC and dashed off an e-mail on
our net to inform my classmates that Major Wickert had passed away, adding my
recollections of his remarks on my papers to see if that might spark others to
recall this teacher who had taught many of us some fifty years earlier. I was not prepared for the response.
For the
next two days and beyond, our net was swamped with “Major Wickert”
stories. Each one triggered a few
more. But what I quickly found was that
most of them were not simply brief mentions of passing memories of just another
professor. Many of them were, in fact,
substantive anecdotes reflecting indelible memories of learning experiences
with long term impact. All of them made
clear that Major Wickert had earned a great deal of admiration and, indeed,
genuine affection from those who were fortunate enough to be assigned to his
classes. Most teachers only dream of
leaving such a life-long mark on their students.
The more I
read these stories, the more it became clear to me that they should be shared
with the Wickert family. With that
thought in mind, I culled through the many e-mails and selected the following
to be given to Howard’s brother, Thomas, in advance of the planned memorial
service.
Ah yes, MAJ Wickert. I remember him
well. On more than one occasion he brought me to my literary
knees as I tried in vain to retain my first-section ranking in
English. I recall one paper in particular. The
subject was: The Sickness in American Prose (or something to that
effect). He returned the paper to me, dripping with red ink, and on
the cover sheet he had written the following salutation:
"Physician, cure thyself!" On yet another paper he had
drawn a cadet jumping off a diving board into a pool of water appropriately
labeled: "The Second Section." I have retained
these papers all these many years just to keep myself humble. He was
a great teacher.….. Paul Bons
Major Wickert waxed eloquent on a couple of West Point
topics: buglers at Reveille and Retreat (playing when it was so cold their lips
froze to the instrument) and the Area. The latter he said was perfect
punishment – far better than digging six by six holes or other work
details. From the work details one could feel a sense of accomplishment
(best six by six ever dug or some meaningful work done). Meanwhile, there
was no possible sense of accomplishment from Area tours – complete waste of
time. But that was time for cadets to think with a rifle wrapped around
one’s neck – he cited myriad cadets who made it through West Point because of
the Area tours – time to reflect, repent and change one’s behaviour. His
language about Buglers and Area tours was poetic, dramatic, etc. A truly
wonderful and memorable P.…….George Sibert
As was the case with so many of our classmates, I was a
member of the Major Wickert Fan Club from the get-go. He wrote on the
cover page of one of my submissions, "You have labored mightily and
brought forth a louse!" My ego was hammered at first as I really had
labored. I then cracked up in laughter and subsequently redeemed
myself with a piece written after our study of Moby Dick. It was
titled "Cadet Ahab and the System." The good Major liked that
one. How fortunate we all were to have been his students!…..Tom Claffey
I had MAJ Wickert as an English "P" Yearling
year. One very quotable Wickertism came after he had reviewed our
section's first attempt at the short theme papers that seemed to be the primary
English workload for that year. His comment was: "After reviewing
your writing efforts I am now convinced that the primary means of communication
among you in the barracks must consist of long series of grunts interspersed with
stomps on the floor.” He was unique…..Dick Reidy
Major Wickert was the first "P" I had in
English. I had written almost nothing in high school, so when I was told
of the many papers we would have to write, I was sure that I was doomed.
Major Wickert gave us one simple formula for writing. "Tell them
what you are going to tell them. Tell them. And, tell them what you
told them." I took that to heart and was quite pleased at finishing fairly
high in English, something I could not say about too many other subjects.…..Paul Vanture
I, too, learned the 3 "tell 'ems" from Maj.
Wickert and use them to this very day with adult students who are studying for
the GED exams. I have previously shared with Chuck Cabell that he was one
of very few bright spots in my plebe year. A truly fine fellow and good
teacher as well.…..Toby Kevin
I remember hearing him expound on how walking the area was
the perfect punishment, because there was absolutely no way to turn it into
fun. One of our classmates disagreed, saying that he and a classmate had
entertained themselves by passing messages one word at a time as they passed
each other (headed in opposite directions, of course). Wickert commented
dryly, “Mr. _____, you are easily amused”…..Glenn Hall
I shall always remember him and have told a story
illustrative of his unique personality
several times. Short version: He gave me the only 6.0 I ever received in Plebe
English
on a ‘critical theme’ (it was very "BJ" for a Plebe) - a paper which began
with three sentence fragments, titled “The Corn Flakes Die” - parodying a short story by Jean
Giorno which we had to read. He wrote on the theme when returning it: “’How painful are the pangs of rearing a
toothless Plebe.’ Hamlet, Act II, Scene
2. Congratulations, you have risked all
on a chance that tomorrow might prove wrong, which is the quintessence of courage.
BUT DON'T EVER TRY IT AGAIN!” What a
sense of how to instruct and inspire while chastening…..Sam Myers
I recall Maj Wickert very well. I think it was during
one of our classes when we were reading poetry that someone asked him about how
one knew when one was in love. He said that you'd know you were in love
when you wanted to be with that person all of the time, at every waking moment,
even “when they took out the garbage!” He
also used to reminisce about his days in occupied Japan when, to him, the
height of comfort was to sit and read in the lobby of the (old) Imperial Hotel
in Tokyo.…..Nick Carlson
I had only two brief consecutive opportunities when our regular
P was sick for a couple of days and our section was disbursed among the other
sections. Several of us went to MAJ Wickert's 1st section. Heady
stuff that! The subject was J. Alfred Prufrock. And among the many
pearls he dropped was, “Have you ever noticed how those who go by their first
initial and middle name tend to be sinister characters?” He then cited
J.Edgar Hoover and a number of literary and contemporary figures as
examples. So years later when G. Gordon Liddy and H. Howard Hunt hit the
headlines, my sense of envy and loss immediately reemerged. I occasionally
remind H. Glenn Hall, one of our own classmate English P's, of that prescient
observation by a giant of a forerunner who set the standard for those aspiring
to make effective learning a joy to their students.…..Stan Bacon
There are not many profs at West Point who left memorable
impressions on so many of us -- but Major Wickert was one among the very best. He was an iconoclast, but unlike other
iconoclasts that I met in the military who often tended to be morose, Wickert
was a free spirit who relished his role as a prof in the English department.
Wickert, unlike so many of the other profs at the time, seemed to enjoy the
role of provocateur, goading us into breaking the paradigm and thinking outside
the academy's approved solutions. His frequently casual approach to
military bearing was exemplified by his outrageous classroom posture -- I
recall him lying on his desk in the posture of the nude in Goya's painting of
the reclining Maja. With his head propped on one hand, he used his swagger
stick to massage his insoles with the other…..Jim Seltzer
Absolutely top notch fellow with a great sense of
being. One afternoon class we arrived
and he appeared to have failed to zip his fly.... After some amount of
sniggering and hoots from the class he realized his error.... and without a
single hint of concern he promptly removed his pants to assure us he was still
properly clad!! Few others would have
provided such a response, and it did tend to state that he was still fully in
charge of the class and the situation. (I do note he replaced them
thereafter, however.) I share with
others who remember him as truly exceptional while other instructors have been
lost to time.…..Terry Connell
He was the first to talk to us plebes as people. There
were a lot of posturers among the "P's," but he was the genuine
article. In one class just before Christmas, we were able just to chat
for awhile with Major Wickert and during the session somebody complained about
the fact that we weren't going home like the upper classes. Major Wickert
said that not going home was actually an advantage, because "our
class would be born over Plebe Christmas." He was right. After being
treated like know-nothing worms since day 1 of Beast--not allowed to gaze
around; not allowed to talk to classmates outside of rigid circumscriptions;
being told what (and where, and when--rarely why) to do--suddenly the
whole place was in our hands. We ran it just fine by ourselves, and we
saw the place in a whole new light. For the first time, I felt a true
part of the Class of 1958 and of the Long Gray Line. Makes me wonder how
class-birthing goes today.…..Chuck Cabell
May God Bless and have mercy on the soul of Howard T. Wickert.
He was my first plebe English P, and set the bar so high that no one after that
could even come close. The cherrished details of memories in his classes
have faded, but not the esteem in which I hold, to this day, this wonderful, bright,
humorous, and totally engaging human being. I am sure he would find some
spelling errors in this post, as he always did in my papers. I won't run
spell check on this.…..T. K. Smith [ed
note: T.K. misspelled “cherished”
above. Sorry, MAJ Wickert…]
He was a riot in class. A truly memorable
character. Irreverent, to say the least. And obviously not afraid
to poke fun at himself. I seem to recall that he claimed some sort of
unofficial record for most hours spent on the area.…..Glenn Hall
I do not
remember any of his comments on my papers, probably because they were all so
unremarkable. But I do remember Shimmelfenning (sp-10?). This was a
concoction he directed we Plebes were to prepare and send to the Table
Commandant the next time we were served corned beef hash for breakfast.
He waxed poetic for fifteen minutes describing how the Worcestershire sauce was
to be added to plain old yellow mustard until it was a certain shade of light
tan, pointing at an appropriate part of a desk top to illustrate. Then
the A-1 sauce would be added to bring the mixture to a darker brown, again with
a visual comparison. Last was the ketchup, and it all turned rosy.
There may have been more ingredients that I cannot recollect, but that was
a long time ago. It seems we were to use a little of everything we
normally had on the table, except the honey. Then we were to pass it to
the head of the table while sonorously intoning "Shimmelfenning for the
Table Commandant's corned beef hash, Sir." Well, I did it. A Yearling wanted to know what the heck I
was doing as I mixed it, then another one shut him up. The Firstie at the
head of the table had the same comment, only louder, and again another one told
him to try it. He did, and liked it. I even got to fall out and try
it myself. I told my wife about it the other day and she turned up her
nose. I think I'll try it again the next time we have corned beef hash
and eggs for breakfast. I just hope I haven't forgotten a key ingredient….By
the way, Major Wickert was one of the most enjoyable 'P's I had at West
Point. He was the first instructor anywhere that succeeded in getting me
to stay awake in an English class….Dick McManigell
I would not have passed the Plebe English finals
without his sincere and capable help. I've always put him in my memory
bank as “Churchillian.” I somehow remember that at one time, we had to describe
a yellow No. 2 pencil in detail in so many words. I found it difficult,
but his guidance was to describe the pencil from my mind to words on paper so
that anyone reading the words on the paper would acquire in his mind what
I had described...or something like that. I think I missed the turn out
exam, by less than .002…..Jae Stanton
This one was long after cadet days. At a West Point
Society of DC Founders Day dinner, circa 1977 as I recall, two officers from
cadet days were having an excited conversation: LTC Wickert (better known to me
as “Major Wickert”) and COL Sandy Oliver ’50 former G2 Tac firstie year.
“Major Wickert” called to me, George come over here to resolve our argument, or
words to that effect. The question was which subject was more important
for an officer’s career: mathematics or English. I promptly replied,
“English, sirs.” COL Oliver was stunned. He asked how I could say
that especially given my being in the Corps of Engineers (as he was). I
said that was easy, an officer must be able to communicate (orders, ideas,
staff papers, etc) and English at West Point was the best preparation we had
for written and oral communicative skills. Major Wickert made the sign of
the cross on my forehead and said, “Bless you my son!”…..George Sibert
And
there you have a snapshot of the mark that one professor of English made on one
Academy class, as viewed through the filter of a half century of time. Jim Seltzer concluded his note to me with
the following words: “Such people as
these are the things that our memories are woven from and our lives are molded
by. May we all hope that our own tracks through life are as fondly
remembered.” To that sentiment, I can
only add: Well done, Major
Wickert. Be thou at peace!
Alan
Salisbury