Frank M. - Texas

Frank has quite possibly the most impressive resume of anyone I've ever personally met: Valedictorian of his high school class, Valedictorian of his class at West Point, two Masters Degrees from MIT, and a PhD from Southwestern Seminary, ya know, just to name a few. (Wow!!) But what's most striking about him is his humility. Frank is a gentle, wise man who is known more for the way he loves those around him than for the accomplishments listed on his resume. I was completely honored to sit down and chat with him.  Below, you will find a story about his times, good and bad, while he was at West Point. 

~ Claire

While I was at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, I got an appointment to West Point from Senator Richard Russell. He was a friend of both my father and my mother. My grandfather had been a probate judge in Georgia, and I’m sure the Senator was friends with my family because of that.

I didn’t know anything about West Point. It had never been mentioned to me as a possibility when I was in high school because even my high school counselors knew nothing about it. Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis had been football heroes in 1945, and I would listen to the Army games on the radio. But that’s all I had ever heard about West Point. I didn’t know anything about it till I went to the prep school at Stewart Air Force Base. Then I found out more about it than I wanted to know.

Frank at Air Force Basic Training

They shipped me to Stewart Air Force Base in New York for West Point Prep School. I was there at the Prep school for almost a year, from October till I had to be at West Point on July 5^th.

My experiences there were interesting. We were in New York so when we had weekend leave we could go down to New York City. We got to see a lot down there. I always contribute each year to the U.S.O. because they had a U.S.O. place in New York City where you could go in for one dollar and get a cot and spend the night there, as many nights as you wanted to spend there, for one dollar a night. It was pretty close to downtown, and you could see anything you wanted to see in New York City: the plays, Broadway, Greenwich Village, all the hot spots. The most interesting time was when we were on the show The $64,000 Question. One of my friends got on it. He said, “I’ll split the winnings with you,” but he didn’t win much.

When I came home on leave from prep school, before going to West Point, that’s when I met my wife, Nancy. I had a friend named Spug (his real name was Earnest, but we all called him Spug). He introduced me to Nancy. I was kind of reluctant to go with her at first because Spug’s reputation was not real good for the kind of ladies that he would like to go with. But I was pleasantly surprised because she was just… It was love at first sight. What Spug had in mind, though, was that we would pick Nancy up along with another gal, and then we would switch. He had tried to date Nancy before, but Nancy’s dad wasn’t having anything to do with Spug. He thought we were going to switch, but I said, “No, I’m not switching with you. I got the one I want right here!” We went to the drive-in movie and had a good time together. I don’t even remember what movie we saw because my mind wasn’t on the movie.

Nancy was just great. When I finally had to go to West Point, it was hard to leave her. She wrote me a letter after I left. I wrote her back and told her that I had lost a quarter to a friend because she had written to me. I had bet my friend that she wouldn’t write to me, but she did. I was always bashful around girls at that age. When I wrote her back I told her, “I meant what I said on the phone last night.” I had told her that I loved her, even then, but I wasn’t going to say that in the letter. I just wrote about the things that were happening on the train, how there were nine of us going to West Point at the same time, things like that. That was the kind of letter I wrote. Later on, I wrote it differently but that first time I didn’t want to say too much because I really didn’t know how she felt. We continued to exchange letters; I’ve got a carton full of letters that we wrote while I was in West Point.

Frank receives the Star Award

My mother died in January of my first year at West Point, when I was 20. She had an addiction to codeine, which she started using because of migraine headaches. Her doctor got her kind of hooked on the codeine. Back home, there was this place that I never would have allowed them to put her in if I had been home. It was supposedly a place where she would go and they would cure her, one of those rehab centers. I’m sure what happened was that they restrained her and she had a heart attack when she was in there. I don’t know that for a fact because I wasn’t there, but the only thing that I can think of was that they restrained her and that’s what killed her. The American Red Cross had got ahold of me up in New York, told me what had happened, and flew me home. I cried all the way home on the plane. I always contribute to the Red Cross and the U.S.O. because of the ways that they were there for me. Nancy never met my mom, but she was at her funeral.

Frank and his mom

My time at West Point varied: there were good times and there were bad times. We had to pull guard duty on the weekend when we wanted to go on weekend leave. That was not good. When you dated up there, we called it “dragging”. We had to figure out what we could do and what we couldn’t do. We couldn’t just stand around and kiss; one of the rules was that you could not have a show of affection. At one place, below the plain at West Point, there was a path that went underneath there and up the Hudson River. It was called Trophy Point. Right below Trophy Point, there was a little path with a rock on it called Kissing Rock. We could go down there and kiss, but that was the only place you could go.

Frank and Nancy

I finally convinced Nancy to move up to New York my junior year in 1953. In the fall of 1953, during my senior year at West Point, Nancy and I went to the Ring Hop where we got our rings. I was glad that my time there was almost over. February 21, 1954 we announced our engagement, but that was just a formality; I had really proposed to her a long time before that. I had proposed to her in 1951 and gave her a ring, my mom’s old wedding ring because that was all that I had. We were at Nancy’s mom and dad’s house. I just got down on my knees and asked her, “Would you marry me?” and gave her the ring. She said yes. It was such a happy day for me.

Frank graduates Valedictorian of his class at West Point

Pop was all in favor of Nancy and I getting married. He loved Nancy. Pop came up for my graduation. I graduated first in my class at West Point. That felt pretty good. I graduated on the 8^th, then Pop, Nancy and I drove back to Georgia, and Nancy and I got married ten days after graduation, on the 18^th. 

Frank and Nancy's wedding