What's Up !

Here's to the "Solid Class of 1962".

It's amazing how some things you can't remember at all, and then there are some things you never seem to forget. For instance, I'll never forget that we were known as the "Solid Class of 1962". I don't remember how that came to be, but it seemed all right at the time... Looking back I remember Lt. Webber picking me up at St. Louis airport and the long drive back to Alton, IL.  I was already beginning to wonder if I made the right choice... I remember my roommate in "A" barracks my senior year was Frank Sauzer. Frank was an athlete and worked out all the time. He had bar bells under the bed and would work out almost everyday. Some days I'd come back to the room and the body odor was so bad I'd have to leave for a while... I can remember spending a lot of time with fellow cadets... I remember the look that Jim Kinney had...it was like he knew something that you didn’t. ... I remember Bud Erickson always running around with his little stats book and bugging me about when I was going to get the Senior Slate article in... it was always late. I always have been a procrastinator... I remember Jerry Morris at fullback and Dick Blankenship playing defensive cornerback... I remember Dick was probably the smallest guy on the team but I don't think he ever backed down from anyone... I remember Dick was our Cadet Corps Adjutant and I can still hear that crisp sharp commanding voice saying "COMPANIES... ATTENTION" ... I remember George and his brother Tom showing off for the girls on the trampoline on Sunday afternoons... I remember King's mom driving up in a sleek sports car on the weekends to pick him up for dinner. Sometimes he'd take another cadet with him... I can remember King and Erickson then and now... I remember many nights at the Senior Circle... I remember the night that Bodkin played Taps for one of our classmates. I don't think anyone went to bed without tears in their eyes...I remember how we used to give Clarke a hard time because he was so gun ho.... If I remember right, he wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. I don't know if he ever made it or not... I can remember Sgt. Dascher unloading a few blank rounds from a BAR in the classroom... I can remember our physics instructor The "Beav" blowing the top off of a tin can... I can remember my first year in "D" barracks when Purdon Thomas was barracks chief. Every time we entered their room we would have to recite the following. "I'm a rat sir, R sir, A sir, T sir. That's what I am sir, a damn rat sir. I'm so low I could crawl under the belly of a snake with my top silk hat on sir. I'm so low that I could chin myself on a curbstone sir.... Would you like to kick me in the ass sir." Then you would do an about face, and they would give you a little kick in the butt. You would do another about face and say " Would you like to do it again sir?" Normally they wouldn’t... I can remember Col. Moore sneaking around trying to catch us smoking or breaking curfew... I can also remember standing in the hallway outside our rooms, holding an M1 rifle straight out... Every time your rifle started to dip towards the floor, someone would hit you with their saber on your shin... and my favorite..."Get on those jet propelled kiddy cars and get busy". Anyway, I don't think anyone was ever hurt... I can remember lying in bed at night and listening to Radio Free Moscow... I can remember Col. Malone saying in Latin, Non illegitimus carborundum " Don't let the bastards get you down" ... I can remember the strange way Mr. Hilgret would write algebraic expressions on the chalkboard. He would start at each end of the expression and wind up in the middle with an equals sign using both hands... I can remember Gertie sewing me up after I was kicked in a Soccer game ... I can remember having to go to study hall a few times because my grades dropped... I can remember how much I hated Latin... and to think, I can't even remember what my wife told me ten minutes ago.

Please be sure and check out Chuck Forsberg's (the genius behind Radio Free Moscow) website. He has a lot of pictures from our 40th Class Reunion and the all-class reunion held in 2007. He also has links to MP3 audio clips from Radio Free Moscow and the Western Fight Song. Besides being the genius behind Radio Free Moscow, Chuck Forsberg's real fame comes in part from developing the YMODEM and ZMODEM file transfer protocols. ZMODEM is a file transfer protocol with error checking and crash recovery. ZMODEM does not wait for positive acknowledgment after each block is sent, but rather sends blocks in rapid succession. If a ZMODEM transfer is cancelled or interrupted for any reason, the transfer can be resurrected later and the previously transferred information need not be resent. I mean this guy is smart!

Click on the Western Military Academy link at the top of the page.