And so Captain David Hughes, wife Patricia, and 1 year old  son David arrived at West Point during the Academic Summer of 1955. 

 

To our joy we were not only authorized on-post Housing, but also in one of the two story, 1890s wooden buildings right on Thayer Road south of the Academic Buildings and the looking out eastward over the Hudson River. Beautiful view.

Now of course that building had housed 1 First Lieutenant and his family on both floors - the entire house in the 1890s.  Now it housed two Captains and their families - one upstairs - we Hughes's - and one downstairs. (by the time we visited the post in the year 2000, the same building housed two Majors, and their families)

Beggers can't be choosers. We were delighted. We had an outside deck, were high above the road that went between the Headquarters and Academic heart of West Point, and the Thayer Hotel and the South Gate a mile away. 

So here it is "Quarters 9B" at West Point which would be our home for the next 3 years.

Actually, this picture is taken in 2004, when I returned officially for the 3d time. The upper deck was not screened in in 1955- it was open. Nice in the summer, pretty chilly in the winter.

And in case you wonder what a stairs-climb we had to get to our high up upstairs quarters, in fact we never came in or out that front way, but from the rear, which is just a few steps up from ground level, with a road just a few paces behind the house, and with our garage across the alleyin the rear.  

 

Rear view. To the side of the house was a very large grassy area - our 'yard.' Twas a great place for very young David to play in as he grew up from 2 to 5 years old at West Point.

 

 

Settling In at USMA

So while Patsy set up our new home - our third in 3 years - I started the routine of English Department briefings and orientations all instructors go through before Academics start in the fall.

 

 

As was the usual case for new English Department instructors, I was assigned to teach Fourth Class - or Plebe (freshmen) - English.

Such classes were held every school day, at either 1PM or 2PM depending on which half the Corps was scheduled at each time.

Of course that was the first hour after the noon meal - lunch. The question was whether the cadets in class would doze off.

Now the reader should understand something not obvious, but rather significant, in the way West Point selects and puts instructors before cadets. As I detailed in my relating how I reacted and to officer-instructors when I was a cadet, this time I was the teacher.

 

West Point's Unique Educational Philosophy

 

The goal which underlies the whole philosophy of  West Point as a 'Military Academy- is to endeavor to graduate soldier-scholars. Not just Soldiers OR Scholars. And that is one of the primary reasons - which held true for the majority of the 200 year tradition of West Point until recent years - that in the vast majority of cases the Instructors in all academic subjects, have been commissioned military officers, and preferably graduates who held at least a Masters degree in the subject, and were competent teachers of that discipline whatever their military rank or length of service. The principle exception was in Foreign Languages, which had some civilian instructors.

That philosophy has changed - as much by the urging of the Board of Visitors as by internal reflection since the 1980s - that civilians should be West Point instructors too.

But there was a good reason for relying on very well educated (and most often talented in-their-field graduates as instructors), turning over every 3-5 years. Not the least of which was the fact that most instructors were not just lifetime-appointment older scholars, but backed up by a cadre of younger and energetic officer 'soldier-scholars'.

By selecting officers/graduates in their first 10 years or so of commissioned service - meaning they had served 'in the Army' in the field (whatever their branch of service), and thus knew and were experienced in the hierarchy of military service - including if the timing was right - having served in the Army during time of war, they would bring a perspective to the academic topic, a civilian could not. For after all, West Point is there to provide officers to lead American soldiers and other officers in time of war. So instructors become role models for cadets, even if they are teaching a Liberal Arts discipline.

I do not care for that recent change - permitting civilians with no military experience to instruct cadets - for it dilutes the 'example' and model for  cadets being taught by graduates who themselves are 'scholar- SOLDIERS' and not just academics. So when I taught cadets for 3 years 1955-1959 I provided, in my person, that model of Soldier-Scholar.

For a number of reasons, that Soldier-Scholar model in my person had an interesting effect on impressionable cadets I taught that did not end when their 'English Courses' were done. In fact for many of them it lingered and came back 50 years later.

Sonnets and Silver Stars

The first emphasis for the Plebe English classes is in writing. The target was to teach how to write good Expository prose - with many graded and marked up writing assignments right from the beginning. The plebes dove in. And the reading assignments, as one would imagine, were on Style. I dimly remember that 'Strunk's classic 'Elements of Style' was a primary book to be read and consulted by cadets struggling to master written English.

And of course one learns how to write by rewriting. So for many a class I collected their papers, marked them up, awarding grades that ranged from below passing 2.0 to excellent 3.0. And then made them do it over again if they dropped lower than 2.3 or so.

Additionally, all we officer-instructors, as a matter of policy, wore our uniforms to class. That fact did not particularly make an impression on plebes so long as the class was just on the mechanics of good writing.

But it was the minute when the English Course was in reading and then writing and writing about English literature that the soldier-scholar point got driven home to impressionable plebes.

I seemed to have made a strong impression on cadets in my class that stayed with many of them for a long time. When I entered my first plebe cadet classroom, there were those cadets who thought of West Point as just the place where they were getting - besides a free military education - i.e. to become a scholar, or generally educated looking forward - after their obligatory military service - to success in a civilian job or profession. And war, except for a handful of very senior officers, is a young man's job.

 While there were yet other plebes, some of whom were excellent athletes or ones with a  motive to be a career soldier, sometimes from a military family, that thought they were there to make them only into an 'officer-soldier.'

It was when I, just a few years older - 27 - than the new cadets (who could enter West Point until they were 24) , came into the classroom, wearing my uniform with an Infantry Captain's bars, with a brace of very impressive combat ribbons - including a Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Stars and 2 Purple Hearts beneath a Combat Infantry Badge above my left breast from just one war - presenting me as a model 'soldier whose business had been in winning wars, specifically in my case the Korean War. 

So when I commenced to teach them, quote to them, and probe the depths and meaning of Shakespearean Plays and Sonnets - that the REAL synthesis  of 'Soldier-Scholar' at West Point - and thus the Academy's central focus, became apparent to all of them.

In essence I seemed to embody the cadet conclusion that  "If Captain Hughes with such a recent and real combat record actually knows, enjoys, and understands Shakespeare, I guess being a West Point graduate is more than being just a soldier. Or just a scholar.

 

So West Point aims to produce a commissioned Soldier-Scholar. I was one such product. And since I had shown, while I was a cadet, 10 years earlier an inborn (perhaps from my Welsh bard DNA) skill at writing and composition, even poetry, I was selected to go to graduate school to earn an academic Master of Arts degree, and then teach for at least 3 years at West Point. 

 

Ever since the end of World War II, where graduates had to understand, lead, and command, an 8 million man Army which had to be guided - and commanded by high rank West Point graduates in the broadest array of 'non-combat' skills and fields - management, economics, science, nuclear fission, industrial policy, politics, law, medicine, international relations, mass psychology, world religions, press, journalism, and media, the Army realized why it was in its interest to produce officers who were academically versed in one or more of those fields.

 The series of modern custodians of West Point's pedagogical philosophy - Superintendents, Deans, and Commandants knew that officers expected to rise in rank to the highest US Military office, needed to be very 'broadly' educated. Within which the Liberal Arts was as important as Math, Science, Law, Government or Military History.

I am not sure what lasting contribution I made to the Class of  '59 in English studies, but I sure got cadets to appreciate the importance of being a well read scholar as well as a good soldier-leader, as a West Point graduate.

Another Bundle of Joy

In time Patsy became pregnant again. Which pleased us both, and especially Patsy, who once before we were married said she wanted 'Lots of Kids'.

It remained to be seen how many 'lots' would be, but right here in the hospital just 100 steps from our home at the United States Military Academy at West Point, our second child would be born. A true labled 'Army brat' if there was one.

So, without fanfare or problems, Mary Rebecca Hughes was born, inconveniently, at 4AM on March 28th, 1957 - a year and a half into my 3 year instructional tour at West Point. 

 

 

 

 

More photos are at Married Life (7)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother Hughes Visits

My mother, Helen, still working in Denver and living alone, wanted to see her grandchildren. So we supported her travel out from Colorado, and she was able to make a nice visit to the growing Hughes clan at West Point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things really stuck in my mind happened during that 1957 mother's visit to us. She had her own room in our quarters, with a window that looked out across the Hudson River to the east of our home from high on our hill. Most days that was a lovely view in the sunshine. And she could see the sizable ships going up and down the Husdon either coming from, or going to, Albany.

The picture below shows, besides baby Rebecca on our overlook Porch, the Hudson River below.

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But sometimes also, the whole scene was foggy, especially in the spring.

The Real West Point Rock 

One night we had all retired to our rooms about 9 or later, when we all could hear the fog horns on a large ship honking away on that narrow waterway. Nothing unusual in that.

But that night the fog horns seemed more insistant than ever, and I could hear my mother chuckling to herself over the sound so close by.

Suddenly the house shook and trembled - twice.

A cargo ship had gotten lost in the fog wandered over too far, hit and sheared off what is called the South Dock. A quite small dock with its pier sticking out into the river about 100 feet. Anchored in the bed rock that connected it to our house.

The ship's prow had ridden up several feet on the rock beside the river, and then slid back into the river.

Now if anyone doubted that West Point indeed sits on a huge - largely hidden - granite 'point' all they would need is a earthquake meter reading that night and they would have recorded the weight of a large vessel running aground on that granite mountain, and causing the ground to shake all the way - perhaps 300 feet higher - and higher behind our house to rattle it!

The accident did no great damage to the steel ships prow. It simply backed into the river, dropped anchor while the crew inspected the damage, and saw the wrecked dock in the morning, As we did, walking down to the Thayer Road level and peeking over the low stone fence down on the once-dock.

I really remember that night's proof of just how big. and long the granite "Point" was, and my mother's chuckle when she heard the mighty ship run aground after the fog horn.

Exciting night.

And proving that West Point is one very large Rock, perhaps a mile long, parallel to the river on its eastern side. Which placement produces the narrow twice-turning Hudson River channel down below the high "Point' from which cannons could readily directly fire at ships. Which 'Point" even the British Navy dared not challenge during the 1776 Revolution. 

 

 

 

 

But of course, winter sometimes snowed late. And the academic building, where I taught, reminded me that Cadet life and education goes on too.

 

 

 

 

 

Life on the Post

Now Life on the Post at West Point was pretty normal for Patsy and I and our still quite young David. With its Post Exchange, Commissary, Thrift Shop - always of interest to Patsy - and with a very stable population, life felt 'small town community' pleasant.

In our 1890s home, we were only a short walk to an Apartment building where those married families without children lived, and the Cadet and Post Library, or 'Grant Hall' - where friends or family of cadets could meet - and from where the parade ground was easily accessible. While car parking was always tight, Patsy could walk to the Plain and enjoy the frequent Cadet Parades.

Right below our home was Thayer Road that linked the Cadet area with the Thayer Hotel and South Gate, about a mile further south. Cadets who were to march in parades in New York or Washington DC often practiced by marching the mile length of Thayer Road. Very young David really enjoyed watching those practice marches right from the sidewalk across from our house - as he appears in the photograph below.

And always at 5PM, the Canon would boom, while a bugler played Retreat, and the high-masted flag would come down from less than a mile north of our house. All auto traffic was expected to stop within earshot of that daily ceremony, occupants exit the vehicle, and male military to salute while others put their hand over their heart.

Many a New York civilian family driving through the post on the main road that loops around the parade field and next to Trophy Point where the canon and bugler are, got caught in the stopped traffic, and somewhat alarmed everyone who then bailed out of their car and stood, sheepishly, as the flag went down.

They thus learned a lesson in military, West Point, and the 200 year long tradition of the end of duty day ceremony of 'Retreat.'

In the morning what were called 'The Hell Cats' - the drum, bugle section of the Academy Band played at 6:00 AM Reveille while the flag went up. All to get the Cadet Corps moving. But without a canon fired in the morning we could not really hear it in our quarters, down Thayer Road, as we could Retreat.)

Patsy was able, as soon as we got settled, to find where Cindy and Charlie Adams - also in the English Department - lived. They lived in rather obsolete set of frame quarters at the far end of the growing-population Post called 'The Gray Ghosts'. But even that was only 10 minutes by car away.

So Patsy and Cindy, with their children, often drove to antique stores, and local sights with their kids.

                                         Early American History

The Academy itself had plenty of Revolutionary War Era historical sites, markers, and monumnts to see - though generally they were visited when we officer faculty members, who learned their history when we were cadets were around.

Especially the 'Old' Chapel and very old West Point Cemetery - which dated back to the 1775 Revolutionary War - was worth several visits.

One of the most interesting series of plaques is high on the wall of the Old Chapel. Each plaque contains the Rank, Name, and inclusive dates when that General was Commander of West Point.

There is a  Plaque which marks the time when traitor General Benedict Arnold  commanded West Point in 1776. BUT while the word 'Major General' is there, and his birth year, the NAME has been gouged out! No American Traitor, even though he commanded West Point, will be honored on This Post!

 

 

 

Sections by Merit and Progress

During the three years that I taught English at West Point there was great stress on grouping cadets by their relative grades - their merit in the subject - and assigning them and the instructors by such merit. All plebes were arranged into "Sections" 1 to whatever, with no more than 10-12 cadet-students per section, therefore per classroom.

In English, part of the purpose was to insure that plebes who were struggling to master expository writing - the core competance they simply had to master to an acceptable level - were grouped together in the 'lower' numbered sections, and their officer-instructor spent correspondingly more class time, writing assignments, rewriting graded papers time, and where needed 'coaching' time even outside class.

While cadets with greater aptitude - or having benefitted from better undergraduate education, tended to be grouped together, and their instructors could dwell on the more advanced skills of writing and studying superior samples of composition.  

 

Coaching Goats

Those cadets, whatever the subject, were called either 'goats' - lower graded work - or 'hives' - brightest and most academically successful. While there has been a long tradition of  cadets coaching other cadets - whether 'hive' roommates or others who, often to keep promising 'goat' athletes at the Academy whose collegiate team sports potential is greater than his academic ability - officer instructors - as a matter of self-determined duty sometimes spent large amounts of time coaching such cadets, irrespective of their other potential value to the academy.

West Point is one of the rare 'colleges' where professional officer-instructors spend large amounts of time individually tutoring on their 'own' time and without being compelled to by Department Heads - so long as that cadet shows a real determination to 'make it' through West Point and graduate.

Mindful of the subjects I struggled with as a Cadet, while excelling in English, I felt a strong obligation to help -coach - deficient cadets who were 'Turned Out' which meant that they were compelled to take a special Examination a week or later from the end of the Term in which they were below the grades required to continue on. If they passed that 'Turn Out' exam (normally graded by a different instructor - to retain objective standards to be demonstrated) they simply went on. Fail and they were expelled.

I worked with one such plebe during his nominal Christmas Leave (and mine) after he had been 'turned out' in English. Going to an open classroom, grading the paper I required of him, making him do it over and over and over. Doing everything I could to get his writing coherent. I even visited him in his barracks room where his two classmates were present. In short, I went all out for him while never giving him the slighest slack in his written papers. He had to prove his ability or fail.

It worked. He passed the 'turn-out exam.' He could continue to attend the academy and move on in his studies. 

Payback

I never even remembered his name as he and I went on, in 1955. I continuing to teach for two more years at West Point.

To my astonishment, 44 years later, 30 years after I had retired from active service, when I was Nominated in 2004 by a group of graduates to be made a 'Distinguished West Point Graduate' I saw that this same struggling plebe, who went on to graduate, serve a full Army career contributed his voice to my nomination.  

He wrote a long, and impassioned endorsement of my nomination on the basis that I typified what it means to be a 'West Pointer' including giving a damn how the lowest ranking cadet or soldier fares.

His letter was included in the final record of that successful nomination. He ended with:

"After writing four published books, several published articles, and after having my ability to present complex ideas in writing noted as one of my unique skills on twenty-five years of officer efficiency reports, I am concerned that if Dave Hughes were to read this, he would take out his red pen.

Court Prisk
USMA 1959"  "

He was right. But that incident typified how we, not just me, as West Point graduate instructors, took our job very seriously - with our focus on cadet academic progress, not on our academic accomplishments, or publishing, or academic promotion. And my combat record had nothing to do with the interaction between Cadet Prisk and Captain Hughes. It was all a matter of his learning to write, and write well if he was to become a comissioned officer in the United States Army. 

The West Point Academic way.