Last Men

On grassy, wooded Trophy Point high above the Hudson at West Point one afternoon last week, the U. S. Military Academy's graduating class of 250 sat tense in full-dress uniform, rank on solemn rank. Parents, friends, generals flanked them beneath the trees. Under a flag-draped marquee at the base of the Battle Monument,. Wartime Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker rose to warn of the world's unrest. Then he stepped down to hand out the white, ribbon-tied diplomas.

"Cadet Charles F. Tank." Amid polite applause the class's honor man stepped up. saluted smartly, got his diploma and a handshake, marched back to his seat. One by one other cadets marched briskly forward to answer their names. When the 249th diploma had been handed out, the last name was called: "Cadet. John B. Richardson Jr." Up went the mightiest shout of the day, rolling away down the river valley. At commencement time every U. S. school & college delights in singling out for honor the winners in its four-year race. West Point and Annapolis, however, keep from the beginning a point record of each cadet's, each midshipman's scholarship and conduct. At the end his class standing can be computed with an adding machine. Each academy releases to the Press a complete list of its graduating class, with ranking. West Point hands out its diplomas in that order. As Cadet Richardson of Gibson Island, Md., trim, erect, redhaired, marched forward his classmates jumped up, whooped, hallooed, tossed their caps in the air, heartily thwacked his back as he returned. He was, for the day, the scapegoat on whom all their sins were piled. They knew, too, that "Goat" Richardson had hung on for his commission iong after a lesser man would have given up. He entered the Academy in July 1928, was dropped a year later for deficiency in French. By August he was ready to take and pass another examination, be readmitted. In 1931 he fell ill, had to drop out for a year. Then he came back and plugged away until he was a cadet sergeant and ready to graduate. In the hullabaloo over "Goat" Richardson no one bothered to notice a trim, erect, red-haired Army officer standing back among the onlookers. He was Lieut.-Colonel John Buchanan Richardson Sr., assistant adjutant of the Third Corps Area. Near Ville Savage, France one August day in 1918, as a major in command of the 306th machine gun battalion, he was covering a charge by the 308th Infantry. Suddenly he saw one company, led by an inexperienced commander, waver and fall back under the enemy's fire. "With great gallantry and utmost disregard of personal danger" Major Richardson leaped forward, rallied the faltering company, led it through bursting shell to victory. Major Richardson received the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Legion of Honor, the Victory Medal and three clasps, the Croix de Guerre with two palms, the Montenegro Medal of Bravery, the Solidaridad of Panama. That helped to make up for the June afternoon on Trophy Point in 1904 when he, too, marched up to receive his class's last diploma.

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