As you all have heard over and over, this was a real milestone in my life. On July 1, 1950, Dad took me to Hoboken at the crack of dawn and put me on the train to West Point with a lot of other young men. I could have taken the bus from 42nd Street, but it was suggested the train might be easier. The bus lets you off at the front gate and, unlike the train, you don’t have to walk up the hill from the station.
My first day was not my smartest. We arrived at about 9 a.m. The Academy was very thoughtful and had a greeting party at the station. They were called the Beast Detail. This welcoming committee was not very interested in shaking our hands or learning our names.
They called us names, like "Mr. Dumb John,'' and a few others. They suggested that since it was so hot that we roll up our pants. We then picked up our bags and double-timed it up the hill to the central area of the barracks.
The rest of the day was a blur. We ran to get special haircuts, collect our bedding, learn to stand at attention, march, salute, get some of our uniforms and learn the standard answers to any question. This was yes sir, no sir, or I do not know sir.
By 4 p.m., however, I had on gray uniform pants, a white shirt, a hat and white gloves. We were gathered in companies led by our new friends in the Beast Detail, who were dressed in white uniforms. My first parade took place in the field house because it was raining. My first parade on the Plain took place on July 4.
We thought we were now Cadets. This was another of my fantasies.
The superintendent told us to raise our right hands and repeat the Oath after him. This Oath is on the stonewall on the side of the superintendent's house next to the barracks that is called Scott Walk. After we took the Oath, the national anthem was played, but there was no screaming like we get now at baseball games in the Bronx.
Then there was the retreat ceremony and the lowering of the flag. Anyone who was there that I’ve talked to over the years always tell me they will always remember that day in their respective careers.
Me telling you all about this does not get you to appreciate such a day. I’m sorry. I remember other great days like graduating from medical school or the day of my marriage or when each of my children and grandkids were born.
No girlfriend
When I arrived at West Point, I had no girlfriend. As I mentioned before, I had it bad for Diane Farrell, who I had been dating for about a year. I had given her my Xavier class ring, which she had accepted. Her parents were not wild about this early sign of love and fidelity. They did not feel an Army career held any future.
I wanted to impress Diane and her family. They told me I was a little fat, but I knew I would lose some weight at the Academy. They had a system for that -- you run all day and miss most of your meals. I lost about 20 pounds. Despite my weight loss, this indeed did not endear me with this young lady.
It took all of my time in college to get over her. Diane at that time had a beautiful voice. She was taking lessons at the Juilliard besides her regular school at Manhattanville College. Years later, I heard that she had married a lawyer from Syracuse in fall of 1963. I don't think Diane had much of a singing career in Syracuse.
The Honor Code
As you all may have guessed, the Academy was a special place for those of us who went there. The Honor Code was everything. It was simple. “I will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate anyone who does.'' So even if you are not cheating and do not turn in your best friend who was cheating, you also get dismissed. That was what happened to Red Blaik’s son, who did not turn in his roommate.
We had many, many lectures about the Honor Code because the Academy was going through its first large cheating scandal. It started to come out in the spring of 1950. That fall, there were dismissals. Several hundred upper classmen were forced to leave. They let the graduating class off the hook. However, very soon after graduation they all were sent to Korea and almost half the class was killed in action.
My class, as well as myself, always seemed to be in trouble as far as rules were concerned, though we did not break the Honor Code. Tom Paprocki, my other roommate (Dick Morton) and I always seemed to be in trouble and frequently we were given special punitive instructions. As part of our uniform we had garters. When you went to the first formation in the morning, you were supposed to be fully dressed. Tom was the worst sack hound of all three of us.
One morning at assembly, the platoon leader asked Tom if he had on his garters. Tom, being the smart-ass that he was, did not want to break the Honor Code, so he said, "No sir.''
He was asked why not. He said, "Because I don’t have my socks on either.''
We then all got instructions after hours. On one occasion, we had to figuratively swim up the Hudson River to Newburgh. They made you hang over the top of the door to your room and make like you were swimming to Newburgh. I only had to do it once. It was a good way to get a hernia. It is outlawed now.
Another time, Tom was walking back from a class and was confronted and braced by an upper classman. He asked him the usual Plebe questions. This is a series of questions and standard answers that you had to learn in your first year. There were such questions like, "How is the cow?'' and the definition of leather.
Plebe Knowledge
How many gallons in Luck Reservoir?
92.2 million gallons, sir, when the water is flowing over the spillway.
How many names on Battle Monument?
2,240 names, sir
How is the cow?
Sir, she walks, she talks, she’s full of chalk, the lacteal fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is highly prolific to the nth degree.
What do plebes rank?
Sir, the Superintendent’s dog, the Commandant’s cat, the waiters in the Mess Hall the Hell cat’s and all the Admirals in the whole blasted Navy.
What is the definition of leather?
If the fresh skin of an animal, cleaned and divested of all hair, fat and other extraneous matter, be immersed in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues; the gelatinous tissue of the skin is converted into a non-putrescible substance, impervious to an insoluble in water; this, sir, is leather.
The upperclassman asked Tom a few of those questions and then asked him one that was not part of the routine. He then asked him, "How many wrinkles in a prune?''
Tom told him as if he had rehearsed it. “Smile, sir, and I’ll count them.”
Naturally this did not go over well, and we had more punitive instructions after hours to see that we become better Cadets. Didn’t you always wanted to answer a question, but didn’t think about that kind of an answer till later? Tom was the hero of our class.
Vince Lombardi
After our first six weeks, we went to summer camp with the rest of the Corps and played soldier. As soon as we got back, we got orders to report to the football field for tryouts for the Plebe team. Since we were on Blaik’s list, we could not break the Honor Code and say we really did not want to play.
I showed up and, of course, Blaik was not going to talk to us lowly Plebes. My coach was Vince Lombardi, who was one of Blaik's assistants. Years later, my daughter Sara asked me what Vince said when he first saw me. The family joke was, I think Coach Lombardi was speechless. I told Sara he was saving me for that great spot. That is why I stay in shape.
I lasted until the end of the week of football camp, and I was among the first cut.
Army-Navy Game
Another of my brilliant moves was my selection of a foreign language. I did not do well in French, Latin and one year of Greek in high school. German seemed impossible. Therefore, I selected Russian. I passed barely, but I could never order borscht in the Russian Tea Room in New York.
However, soon it came time for our first Army-Navy football game. We were all excited. One of the great Army traditions is the Goat and Engineer football game the night before. Cadets, who are not members of the regular football team, played on both sides, and the winner supposedly foretells the outcome of the next day's game.
This game occurs on the Midfield across from the Plain. After dinner and study time, everyone goes to bed. After lights out, all the lights come on and everyone in their bathrobes or mixed attire go back to Midfield for a big rally and a bonfire. Then back to bed and a very early rise for breakfast and the buses to Philadelphia.
This is the first and only time we left the Academy as Plebes. If you had a girl, she could meet you at the game and you could see her after the game. But Plebes had to be back to the buses by midnight. Not much time with your girl. By now, my girl and I had broken up. I was devastated. However, when we marched into that stadium, each one of us thought he was the only one on parade.
Dad and Jo could not come to the game. At Christmas, they came up with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Marge for dinner. Arthur had a car. This was the first time they had seen me in my uniform. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a box camera with them, so there were no photos taken.
I enjoyed being a Cadet, but it could have been better. The winter was full of things to do, and we didn’t get as many inquisitive visits from the upper classmen. Everybody was busy, and then there was the Korean War to think about. Studies were very demanding. A rule put in by Sylvanus Thayer in 1813 was “every student, in every subject, every day.”
You really had to learn to budget your time. Your grades were posted each week. No privacy like now. I’m sure it helped us want to do better so we were not at the bottom of the list. I always did well after my experience at Xavier, except for languages. However, I was happy to be passing and not worried about being first in my class. I was doing very well in all my other subjects, so I always went to the bulletin board which listed the language grades. I just wanted to know that I passed. There was another board that listed my place in the class, which was usually good despite my place in languages.
Then there was June week. The day before graduation was the final parade for the graduates. As always, we marched out through the Sally Ports, but somehow it was different. This time when we came back we would no longer be Plebes. We would no longer be "Mr. Dumb John.''
I would have a name, Tom Walsh, and they would shake my hand.
Playing Soldier
The first time I took my grandson John to a West Point parade, he told Kelly how the Cadets came out of holes in the wall. The history of Sally Ports was from the Middle Ages. They were of a size to allow nine mounted Knights to go out and not have to put down the drawbridge. Ours were large enough to allow a company to go through. I was not on the next Beast Detail since that was for first-class men. We went off to summer camp to play soldier. The sunrise gun and the band followed us and serenaded us each morning.
Everyone had a thing about the sunrise gun. Douglas MacArthur was supposed to be the one who put it on the clock tower between taps and reveille when he was a cadet. It was some trick to do it and also not get caught. It took the engineers a few weeks to get it down.
When we were at summer camp, you had to stand guard for two-hour stretches. It was not a big deal. There was soda and sandwiches in the guard shack. My group and I decided to fix the gun. We stuffed it with the food from the guard shack. It was not a smart thing since it could have blown up the barrel. The next morning when it went off, you could smell the stink from the burned food.
At first we thought we had pulled off a great stunt. Then when we looked outside at the flagpole that told us what to wear each day at camp, it rarely varied. Today, it was for full dress uniform 50/50. That was full dress gray coat over white trousers. That morning, it was a full-dress parade. It seems that was the annual visit of the Armed Services Committee from Congress. They and the superintendent were not happy about discipline at the Academy.
We were caught and pleaded guilty. I wore out a lot of shoe leather that summer.
Trouble-maker
My buddies and I kept getting into trouble. Another Cadet in my class, I can't remember his name, was a very bright young man and we hit it off. He was in my company. We had a classroom problem one day. The professor asked us the following: Water was gravity fed from the Lusk reservoir that is next to the football field. It came down to a central confluence near the barracks and the library. He wanted to know the pressure in the third-floor bathroom sinks with a starting pressure in Lusk reservoir.
We figured it out and got the right answer. My friend then suggested to the professor that the problem was inaccurate and that the system could not work with so many using the bathrooms at the same time, like in the morning. He and the professor argued until he was told to sit down. A group of us discussed it and felt that the professor's approach was unfair.
We decided to test it out.
We got people in our class to man the toilets and sinks and everyone else we could locate. My friend stood in the central area with a company quidon and I was doing the same thing in front of the other regiment. When we flagged it down, the word was passed to turn on the water. When we raised it, everybody was told to close it down.
Our math was a little off. It seems we blew a hole in the street from the back pressure. That fall, my buddies and I saw a lot of the area. I might have had to stay at West Point until now just to finish my punishment tours. However, like it says in the movies, some head of state came by and got us amnesty so we got off the hook and could go to the Army-Navy game. This was another custom of West Point, which allowed the reigning head of state to ask for amnesty.
Leaving West Point
At the end of summer camp 1951, we thought we were hot stuff. But I hurt my leg on a field exercise and my old knee problem became obvious, since it did not go back in place until the swelling went down. I was given the choice to get my knee operated on, rehab it and pass the physical, or to not get operated and resign from West Point.
If you get hurt after the second year, you can stay and graduate but get no commission. I talked with my father over the phone several times, but he said it was my choice and he would not be disappointed with me if I left West Point
By the time Christmas came around, I had decided to leave by the end of the semester and had an admission at Fordham set up. I wanted to be a doctor, but I also wanted to graduate from the Academy. I could not do both, and I still feel bad about it. However, it was the right thing to do.
My roommate Tom died of cancer in 2015, and my other roommate was killed in a plane accident a few years after graduation at Muroc Dry Lake.
In case anybody wants to know, I did have a few dates in my second year courtesy of friends whose girlfriends wanted to bring a friend along. Yes, I have been to Flirtation Walk. The girls called it Temptation Walk.
As I have said before, the Honor Code was everything. It was simple. “I will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate anyone who does.'' The last part is the tough part.
One Wednesday evening in February of 1944, Cadet John Eisenhower came down in full dress uniform. He went into the orderly room to sign out. He was asked if he had permission. John said yes and was not questioned any further. However, the Cadet in charge of quarters knew nobody was allowed out during the week. He was aware of the toleration clause, so he called the TAC officer and reported the incident. TAC officers were active-duty officers who looked after each company as sort of a mentor.
But the officer said John had received permission. It turned out that Dwight Eisenhower had come home secretly from England to confer with President Roosevelt and General George Marshall. Then, they had a special train for Ike to bring him to the Academy. He and his son had dinner at the superintendent's house.
It took guts to turn in the son of the Supreme Allied Commander. That Cadet who turned him in was to be the First Captain the following year, and later, he became president of Doubleday Publishing. His name was Bob Woods.
That story was told to me by my friend Doc Schardt, who I later met in Korea. He was John Eisenhower's roommate. The rest of that winter, John continually complained to Doc that his dad was not coming to graduation. John felt that with all his dad's authority, he should make the effort. John and Doc graduated in June 1944. While they were at baccalaureate service, the chaplain made a big announcement. It was D-Day, June 6.
Now John knew why Dad wasn’t coming.