In the fall of 1968, I was considering where to go to college the following September. I was ambivalent and not a strong student. To be sure dyslexia and lousy study habits did nothing to improve my grades. I thought about different colleges. I would pore over the college guides in our school library and often close the book with one thought. I am not competitive for the top schools. They were looking for applicants with good grades and some evidence that the student could succeed in a challenging academic environment. Yet, I was determined to be successful, and that included being a soldier.
Concerned I would not be accepted at a top college given my pathetic academic record, I was resigned to enlist in the Army—always my first love—and go to Vietnam to fight alongside other Americans whose patriotism I admired. I was too young and uninformed to realize that many of those serving in Vietnam at the time would have warned me away. But I was as firm in my predilections as I was unaccomplished academically. I’d made up my mind.
My father, an accomplished physician, was worried about my future. He knew that my performance in school was substandard. After all, he had entered the University of Richmond at 15 years old, would speak three languages, German, Latin, and Greek, and graduate when he was just 19. He would be a practicing doctor at 21. Indeed, so youthful in appearance walking the halls in Richmond’s Johnston-Willis Hospital that he grew a mustache to convince patients that he was truly a doctor, and not an orderly come to attend to bodily functions.
But I know my father loved me—his only son—and saw in me an ability I couldn’t see in myself. That, by the way, is a mark of a good leader, which I would come to learn and experience in the US Army. I had many mentors who saw something imperceptible to me. But my dad was motivated differently. I wasn’t his project. I was his son and he loved me despite my doltish avoidance of academic excellence.
Dad was not one to point to himself as an example. Never did he ask, “Why can’t you be like me?” Yet his record of accomplishments were family lore and hard to escape. So, escape I would try, even if that route went through the rice paddies of South Vietnam. I was ready. I wanted to serve. And I had made up my vacuous mind that I would.
I prepared my pitch. It was simple and to the point. “Dad, I’m going to enlist in the Army and go to Vietnam.” He wasn’t angry. He did not try to debate my unembellished proposition. Indeed, he was equally simple and to the point. “Son, you’re going to a place that begins with “V” but it’s not Vietnam.”
What I did not know at the time was that my father was thinking ahead and as determined as I was. He had a different direction in mind. His close friend Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) C. Pickett Lathrop III (US Army) was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). He had connections at the Institute and had discussed my future with my dad, including my misbegotten plans to head to Southeast Asia. Pickett took me to lunch and shared with me how VMI was just what I needed: a top college, strong discipline, uncompromising academics, and a path to a military career if that was my genuine desire. Then he said this, and it was hard to swallow. “Your father doesn’t have long, Scott. And he wants the best for you. Do this for him and you’ll never regret it.”
It was true. I knew my dad was terminally ill. Maybe that was one of the reasons I wanted to escape. I simply had no desire to attend VMI. Yet I did. I recall the day that my dad and Pickett took me there in August of 1969. I was unwilling. But I submitted.
Through the fall of 1969, and the early winter, my dad’s medical condition worsened. He died in February 1970 during the darkest and coldest days of my cadetship. My heart was broken. After his funeral, I resolved to leave VMI and take another path. When I returned to the Old Barracks where I lived, I was ready to share my decision with my “Brother Rats,” my classmates. But when I did, they were of one voice. “Scott, you’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here with us, and we’ll get through this together. We’re with you.”
This week I’ll celebrate with those classmates our 50th reunion of brotherhood. And looking back, it was the best decision I never made. Thanks, dad and “Rah Virginia Mil.”
1 Comment
Judith Glick-Smith · July 4, 2023 at 8:10 am
For some reason, I missed reading this when you posted, Scott. What a wonderful story. I didn’t realize that your dad was a doctor or that he died so young! I think he would be right proud of you and what you have accomplished.