USMA Class of 1972, Proud and True, 50 Years After (Part 1 of 3)

 The West Point Class of 1972 entered at the height of the Vietnam War. We went, expecting to fight in Vietnam, when our generation and America was split in two. The War ended when the author was in winter Ranger School. So, our years of Cold War service were making an Army from an armed mob. The proof our and many others’ service to the Army was the success of Operation Desert Storm and many deployments in the 90s. After 9-11, the Army we touched fought for 20 long years – and fights today. This piece is a reflection – the first of three – at this our 50^th year since graduation.

50 years ago, in the last issue of our 1971-72 Pointer Magazine, I wrote, “What is ’72 worth? We are the young lions.  We may not be going into the “adventures of a young man.”  We are going to the same adventures and misadventures of our fathers.”  Indeed, we did for the past 50 years.

I closed with “Our class is the collection of young soldiers that will remember June 7^th as a significant date.  Ours is to go our separate ways and serve and never be all together again.  Before anyone thinks to ask where have all the young men gone, long time passing, we will have served as all those before us and like all those who will follow. Our numbers will continue to fade until one withered old man stands at the end of a long line watching the young faces he once knew so well march briskly by.”

At our 50^th Reunion, over 400 of the 720 of us living from our class of 822, were at the parade, so we’re not down to one old man, yet.  Regrettably, pneumonia forced my absence.  Also, there are a few of our classmates who want nothing to do with the Class.  I can’t comprehend them, because of how all the rest of us feel.

We have a unique unity which defies description. Try this, consider the Class as a single living organism.  A giant squid with hundreds of arms.  One arm gets cut off and the body lives, but the body feels the loss.  Like how I feel a sense of loss when a classmate – who I never knew – passes away.  I feel like I’m diminished by his loss from our body.  Like we are all supposed to leave together – just as we entered West Point, the Army, and adult life together. 

Yet, we really don’t all know each other. Our cadet life, which a classmate called the “splendid isolation”, divided us into thirty-six, uniquely cultured companies in four regiments living largely in our individual regimental regimes of classes, intramurals and parades.   We mixed only with corps-wide activities and by happenstance.

So, within our identity as classmates, we have a regimental affiliation and a company closeness – that is remarkable to say the least.      

We met as one in the assemblies and class gatherings where we stood or sat from that hot July 1^st, 1968 to graduation.  We experienced West Point as individuals – a point I made in June 1972, but West Point was imposed on us in a universal commonality.  We survived together. 

We survived “Beast Barracks”, “Re-Orgy Week”, and Plebe year in a 4^th Class System of intentional brutality.  We passed academic challenges that seemed sometimes to be as much hazing as college teaching.  We spent summers training together and assuming cadet leadership roles at the same time. 

Today, many of our stories are cringeworthy and some recount truly sadistic, demeaning aspects of our mutual tortures – like awkwardly and painfully bracing our chins into our necks , being denied food, all the yelling, the ‘special’ language, and overwhelmingly, purposeful impossible demands on our time.  Most of us, but not all, laugh a lot at our rite of passage. There were real moments of twisted humor.  But, much of the humor is our earned privilege of not being broken.  We can laugh at what happened, because we made it – together. 

We needed one another desperately to “cooperate and graduate.”  In our Memorial Service, my cherished friend, Tom Davis, shared Gen. Sherman’s affirmation to Gen. Grant that, “You would come to my assistance – if alive.” Tom’s Army experiences validated that – as the essence of our mutual allegiance. 

I know in my bones my Classmate brothers “would come to my assistance – if alive.”

Tom added he knows “no other institution, no other experience, develops bonds among people that are as strong, as powerful, as enduring” as the West Point experience.  Agreed. 

Even though the Great U.S. Culture War has split classmates to opposing sides of the political chasm, we can love one another.  It’s not unlike what happened in “The Recent Unpleasantness” (1861-1865).

I believe our brotherly affection is complimented by the loyalty and identity we share as a Class.  We are one with the Class as long as we breath.

Furthermore, nothing exceeds our dedication to “Duty, Honor, Country.”  And, the Honor Code.   Commitment doesn’t fade with age.

Finally, there’s another unbreakable bond working in our Class.  A significant number of us are bound by our Christian brotherhood.  We are Protestants and Catholics who pray together weekly and seek to serve every one of our classmates and class widows – irrespective of their religious faith or lack thereof. 

I find looking into the eyes of a man cojoined as a classmate and Christian is humbling.  I know that old man is my brother and my brother again.  I know his heart as well as so much of his past. 

As much as we kid one another roughly, I respect my classmates profoundly. 

I feel like I’m part of living entity – our Class.    

I trust if one of “Proud and True, ’72” calls – I would come to his assistance – if alive.

 

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