November 2001
Peter
Stromberg,
our last classmate on active duty, retired as Professor and Head of the
Department of English, USMA, on 13 August.
He was promoted to BG at an Academic Board dinner that evening, and the
next day departed for Dubai, where he takes up residence as professor in the
College of Arts and Sciences at Zayed University, a brand new institution for
women. Ann will follow him there on 1 October. They have made our class truly proud with their long and
outstanding service to the Military Academy and to our country.
Now Tom & Ann Russell
will be our last (but certainly not least) remnants at West Point, and they
probably will not be there for long. Ah,
me.
Bill
Pollock
sent some A-2 Mini-Reunion info and more pictures to supplement what Tom
Russell provided in the last issue and reaffirmed that everyone had a
wonderful time in Colorado Springs on the weekend of 14-17 June.
His list of attendees included Rich
& Mickey Skowronek, whose names had been omitted; and his notes included
a memorial service held at the USAF Academy Chapel to honor the memory of A-2
classmates Jack Warren and Brooks Sisson. Jack
Neal's eulogy reawakened memories of Jack Warren's remarkable intellect and
the helping hand he gladly extended to all.
And Jim Kennedy, with great insight, reminded all of the warmth, the
kindness, and the great sense of humor that were so much a part of Brooks
Sisson.
A-2 Reunion: Front:
Wosicki, Jim Turner, Jane
Phillips, Janet Turner, Nancy Neal,
Joe Phillips, Neal, Pollock. Rear:
Judy Wosicki, Micky & Rich
Skowronek, Linda & Bill Toskey, John Slocum, Harris,
Russell, Dick & Bucky Maglin, Pat & Jim Kennedy, Ann Russell, Marilyn
& Gerry Weisenseel, Vic & Sherry Fernandez, Ann Pollock.
Bud
Steinberg
is happily married in Saint Louis, and he and his wife recently were blessed
with their first grandchild, a beautiful little girl named Samantha Rose.
Bud is retired but staying semi-active at three business pursuits.
Life is good, he says, and no complaints.
Hank & Brenda Larsen
recently drove up to see them from Norman, OK.
It was so great to see them, says Bud, and to reminisce about the late
50s, the lost 50s, and the wonderful adventures of Happy Dos.
A-2 Reunion: Neal,
John Slocum (former tac), and Russell.
Gil
Dorland
wrote from Hollywood, FL, in July that he was gearing up to pen a book on
Washington's arrogance of power regarding foreign sovereignties.
First stop will be Fidel Castro in Havana.
Would history be different, he poses, had Ike not shunned Castro just
after the overthrow of Batista? Gil
returned to Vietnam for the first time last spring with Le Ly Haislip, about
whose life as a Viet Cong Oliver Stone made a movie called "Heaven and
Earth." He had met her while writing Legacy
of Discord: Voices of
the Vietnam War Era.
The trip was a real eye opener, he says, traveling as he was with former
NVA and VC up the Songs Thu Bon River deep into the Que Son Valley. The accompanying photo shows him with Le Ly at the base of
Hill 63, where he was whacked on Thanksgiving Day, 1967.
Le Ly Haislip with Gil Dorland.
Tim
& Kathleen Plummer
are in Rose Valley, PA, where they celebrated their 41st anniversary
this year. Kathleen has a
flourishing practice as a fee-only financial planner, and Tim retired a second
time three years ago because, he says, he got too busy to go to work.
He's recently been elected to another four-year term as President of
Borough Council in his hometown, and he's trying to find enough time for fly
fishing, which has become his addiction. He
builds rods, ties flies, and travels to pristine places.
It was back to Labrador this summer for more monster brookies and
Atlantic salmon. He would like to
contact classmates with a similar affliction.
He's a daily lap swimmer averaging 10,000 yards per week year round. He competes on the Masters swim team, but says that Johnny
Cox has nothing to worry about. And
Tim spends much time keeping up with their 200-year-old home.
Don
& Mary Helen Reinhard
are in Marble Hill, GA, which is "Nawth Jawja" in Don's parlance.
For four years they have been building a house and glass studio on 24
acres in the wild woods and have had a bear wander through to observe their
efforts. Don has become enamored of
digging holes and trenches in the red clay and claims to have an expert badge in
the D handled shovel. Highpoints of
the effort have been rains that fill up trenches with silt, grandurchins taking
a bath in an ice chest while roasting marshmallows over a campfire, daughters
and a son-in-law rigging a shower from an Igloo cooler mounted on a stepladder,
and grouting mispoured concrete walls with over 50 bags of grout mix.
Doesn't retirement sound wonderful?
They were hoping to have the place finished sometime this year.
Don says they rarely see classmates because they live so far from
civilization (65 miles from Ft. McPherson); but he does keep up with the WP
Society of Atlanta, of which he has been a Governor for eight years and was
President in 1998.
A-2 Reunion: Vic & Sherry
Fernandez, Janet & Jim Turner, Joe Phillips, Russell, Dick & Bucky
Maglin, and Ann Pollock.
Tony
& Sandra Pokorny
are in Lawton, OK, where Tony has a new job as vice president at Cameron
University. He sold his software
company after 18 years and has now opted for academia.
He will be primarily responsible for research and development at Cameron,
concentrating on information technology. He
and Sandra love to hike and recently spent a week camping at Havasupai Falls in
the Grand Canyon -- truly a spiritual experience, he says.
He sees Jerry Stadler and Hank
Larsen, our other Lawton denizens, from time to time.
Joe
Phillips
writes from Tucson that he sits around the pool trying to keep cool in the
Arizona summer while wife Jane
finishes a mini-career as an RN. He
monitors the assisted living for his 92 year old mother and they enjoy visiting
their four super grandchildren and their parents in Texas and North Carolina.
Joe says he is genuinely delighted with his spiritual journey as a
Christian. He recently completed two semesters of evangelism explosion
training and has actually been used to witness to two adults who now wish to
become Christians. Bill & Linda Toskey visited this spring from Washington State
for the first time and, says Joe, they were as pleasant and as sharp as ever.
As reported last time, the Phillipses attended the A-2 mini-reunion in
Colorado Springs in June.
A-2 Reunion: Weisenseel,
Kennedy, Joe Phillips, and Russell.
Ed
& Pat Robinson remain
in Alexandria, VA, where they are basking in his second retirement (from
Analytic Services, Inc.) in 1998. They
enjoy their children and grandkids and travel whenever and wherever they want.
They were doing the Upper Northwest, including the inside passage to
Alaska, in late June, and probably planned their next venture enroute.
In his spare time, Ed works on his family genealogy and says that the
internet provides resources never before available.
You can look up his family homepage at www.familytreemaker.com/users/r/o/b/Edward-C-Robinson/index.html.
It makes a great legacy for his family and reinforces some of his other
passionate interests in Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War history,
and antique weapons collecting. And
Ed plays golf twice a week, usually at Ft. Belvoir, or sometimes at Quantico,
where Gil & Ina Roesler are
members. Besides Ed and Gil, the
golfing group includes Jerry Hilmes, Mike Gillette,
Art Griffin and, occasionally, John
Wilson. They want to expand the group as classmates retire, and the
entry requirements are a snap.
Ed
& Pat
have three children. Son Steven is
a senior vice president with Paine Webber in Bethesda, MD.
He and wife Stephanie have a boy, Timothy, 11, and a girl, Nicole, 3.
Son Scott, a bachelor in Tucson, is an engineer with Ratheon Corp. and is
a scratch golfer. Daughter Sheryl
is taking time off from her Alexandria, VA, patent law firm job to enjoy and
raise her new daughter. She and
husband Kevin have daughters Kellie, 9, Kerrie, 7, and now Katelyn, 1.
As you probably know, LTG Hal Moore's
Ia Drang Valley book, We Were Soldiers
Once, and Young is being made into a movie with Mel Gibson. Ed Robinson had a
front row seat in this action, and we look at some of his recollections in next
issue.