Early Years and West Point cont'd

EP 870-1-65
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Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________

Lieutenant Colonel Jessie Fishback and his manner and the fact that I was catching up with

the fourth-class system and getting along there with my squad leader allowed me the time to

now understand I did need to pick up a math book, did need to look at it, needed to do the

exercises and do the homework. When taps played at 2015, our lights went out. So, I would

go out in the hall where there was a 50-watt bulb at the ceiling. I could sit there and try to

squint at the text, and thus be up for another hour and a half and then be tired the next day. I

mean, it was a self-unraveling kind of thing. All that began to go away, and I started to get

my act together. By the end of the year I had moved up to the 1st section in mathematics.

So, to finally answer your question, the math I had in high school prepared me for math

there, but I still had to do the homework and do the work for it. English was a similar

situation. French I was never prepared for. I had taken Latin in high school. Everybody had

said that was wonderful upbringing, got you ready for anything. It didn't get me ready for

French. By the end of the two years, I finished about 100 out of 101 in French. Several of my

classmates who'd stood higher than I were found deficient in French and left West Point. The

101st was a roommate of mine, Bob Blocher. The two of us worked together and got

ourselves through, primarily by memorizing everything we could possibly memorize and

going into the final exam, oral or written, with passages committed to memory. We could

pull out parts of our memory if the right question came along and replicate the answer or give

a very short oral talk about some aspects.

Did you have to stay at West Point for the first 8 or 10 months, or did you get a chance to go

home?

At that time we had no time to go home from the day we entered, 1 July, until the following

year when we could leave for our summer vacation as a new yearling or thirdclassman. We

had then what was called" Plebe Parent Christmas." My folks and brothers came to West

Point to spend the Christmas holidays.

So, there's a real break with civilian life in lots of different ways.

Oh, yes.

Including a break with your family, at least for that first year. So, the second year and after,

then, things are pretty dramatically different, I take it. Once you get through that first year.

They remained austere. At that time we still had very few weekends away; we got 2, I think,

the second year; 4 the third year; 12 in the senior year. Those have been liberalized

considerably today. Academics remained as tough. I mean, I had French the second year, and

it was just as bad the second year as the first year.

So, it remained rigorous and austere, but we didn't have to grapple with the fourth-class

system. It was a happy day when I stood there for the recognition ceremony during

graduation week and all the upperclassmen that had me up against the wall all year came by

and shook my hand and introduced themselves with a first name and--