Class Notes 1980Ed Ruggero
2 January 2001PO Box 18
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-566-1253
The mailbag was a little thin this time out, as I’m sure everyone was concentrating on holiday cheer.
Carol & Vince Brooks sent a holiday letter from yet another new address (12 moves in 18 years of marriage), this one at Fort Stewart. As if moving weren’t enough of a challenge, last summer Carol also took her comprehensive exams for her Ph.D in orthopedic physical therapy. She has three years to complete her dissertation and has been continuing research in her new community. Vince took command of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division in July of 2000, which means it took him just under twenty years to work his way back up to being a brigade commander. Vince spent most of September, October and November deployed, and he took his soldiers on an all-expense paid vacation to the Mojave Desert in November. Carol writes, “It’s been a fast pace since Vince took command . . . but hey, who wants to be bored?”
Doug Adams took time out of his study of the law to report that he and Debra Lewis hosted a holiday party in DC that was well-attended by friends, classmates and neighbors, including Donna Alesch Newell, Collin Agee, Alden & Lisa Rhein, Bob Morris, Robin & Bob Carrington, Ed & Mary Jo Weinberg, Mike Greer, Ed & Joanna Shanahan, Bob Davis, John Luce, Jeff & Erin O’Connor Misner, and Chuck Horn.
In my last column I reported that Dave & Lorie Brown are happily reunited in Arlington after a year at different posts. Brownie is enjoying his job in the Defense Security Cooperation Agency because 1) it is not in the Pentagon, 2) he has a window, 3) he gets to travel to Europe. He says the downside is that he is in charge of no one but himself, “and all of you who know him . . . know this is a big task.” Lorie enjoys her work as the Chief Nurse of the Pentagon clinic, which includes such highlights as losing the Chief of Staff’s medical records. Her office beats Brownie’s cubicle because, in addition to a window, it has a door.
Borg & Ann Siburg sent a year-end summary from Scottsdale. My favorite part was the description of a family road trip to New Mexico. “Picture this. It’s 5:30 AM, 1 hour into our ten-day trip, and the van dies (transmission) on the highway. Tow trucks don’t carry 5 kids and two carseats . . . one rental van later we had a great trip.” I guess it’s only my favorite part because I wasn’t there. Ann writes that Borg “went to his 20th reunion . . . where they all compared expanding waistlines and receding hairlines.” She does give him proper credit for running a half-marathon the week after the reunion, his first since 1984. While most of their family activities revolve around the very busy children’s schedules, Borg & Ann enjoy running together. “We can actually carry on a conversation without getting interrupted.”
Tom & Cheri Wilhelm write from Garmisch, Germany, where they have enjoyed life “more than should be legal for any middle class American.” In addition to enjoying the local area and teaching at the Marshall Center, Tom has been able to pursue a “serendipitous sub-career” in the field of conflict resolution. “The results of my humble insights, in true academic form, have been provided to various disinterested parties and in obscure journals.” Self-deprecation aside, Tom—one of our class’s ambassadors--has been working with the parliament in Tajikistan, helping them write “more effective federal legislation in a gambit to strengthen their position in relation to the Executive Branch—the perennial problem of the ‘democracies’ in Central Asia.” Maybe it’s just me, but I’m in awe of what so many of our classmates have accomplished out in the wide world, for while Tom was working to stabilize this slice of what he calls “Kipling’s Great Game Board,” I managed to clean my garage. The big news for 2001 is that the Wilhelm family leaves “for a different slice of the paradise pie: Ultan Baatar, Mongolia.” Tom says that this is not “Outward bound for old Army officers . . . . I want to continue my first-hand study of the havoc and outright murder that the Harvard Hordes have wreaked on transition societies, preside over the death of liberalism, and try that Mongolian BBQ I’ve heard so much about.” And on this trip, he says, Cheri will “finally cinch sainthood.” In 2001, I’m going to clean my garage again.
On a personal note, the Wilhelms were kind enough to share their hospitality with my wandering, back-packing son, Colin, when he landed in Germany. They even had a cake for him, as he arrived on his nineteenth birthday. Colin was mightily impressed to see Tom conduct Marshall Center classes in German, English and Russian. Tom said he had no problem picking Colin out on the train platform, as my son was bent under a huge backpack. “He looked like you did twenty years ago in Ranger School,” Tom told me. “Same load, same grin, more hair.”
Kathy Silvia writes that one of her favorite reunion memories is of her Beast squad’s recounting twenty-four year old plebe poop, verbatim, on the way to lunch on Saturday. Kathy had a conversation with a plebe guard that went something like this: “Do you know why you’re standing here today?” “No, ma’am.” “So that in 20 years or so, YOU can be standing where I am . . . Do your best to make it, because it feels incredible!”
Geoff Lea sent photos by e-mail. Unfortunately, Assembly only handles digital photos that are spy-satellite quality. At any rate, the pictures show a pair of huge, 1970’s style stereo speakers which were remodeled to hide . . . a bar! “What I did not realize,” Geoff writes, “was that a number of people in F4 also purchased this brand [of speaker] because they thought I bought them for their superior audio performance.” Geoff says he built the speaker/bar when he was sitting room confinement for having a motorcycle, “but that’s another story.”
Tom Sole sent an e-mail from Paris, where he is the Director of Engineering for the American Battle Monuments Commission, overseeing seventeen cemeteries in England, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France. The Sole family has spent more time overseas than in the US (I assume he means since 1980), but plans to return in the next couple of years. Tom says it was fun trying to explain our so-called presidential election to the French.
I know the class will join me in offering congratulations to Walt Thomas, who just finished his training for promotion to Captain with American Airlines. I asked Walt how the course was, and he said, “Not fun.” The simulator work, in particular, was pretty grueling. Even though everyone knows it’s a simulator, “when the fire alarms go off and the bells start ringing and the plane bucking, your adrenaline and heart rate shoot right up there.” As a frequent flier, I have to say that I’m glad to hear the training is not easy. As Jim Becker—who is also responsible for thousands of lives—once told me about flying commercial airliners, “I get paid to keep it boring for everyone in the back.”
Keep up the correspondence. Your friends and classmates want to hear from you and see your photos.
Cheers,