WP-ORG Main Image
View a eulogy for Vane Quentin Bates, USMA '55, who passed away on June 22, 2013.

Vane Quentin Bates

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Rich Miller on July 1, 2013:

WE REMEMBER QUENT (A story for his children and grandchildren by Rich and Mary Ann Miller)

When we were cadets at West Point we were assigned to companies (100 man units) by height. Short guys, like me, were called "Runts". Tall guys, like Quent, were called "Flankers". Runts seldom had a chance to get to know Flankers unless they played on a varsity level athletic team or joined a club. Runts went to class with other Runts. Runts thought it was beneath them to associate with Flankers. However, I got to know some Flankers by playing football and lacrosse .... not bad guys, at all. But Quent played varsity basketball. So I would never have met him, except we both had good grades in social studies. During the summer of 1954, one cadet from each company was sent on a special trip to Europe. There were twenty-four of us lucky ones. We escaped the rigors of infantry and artillery training that summer in exchange for being wined and dined by colonels and generals of the various commands we visited in England, France, Germany and Austria.

Quent and I hit it off together during this trip. I recognized a guy with the "Right Stuff" and was happy to hang out with him. We spent our free time sightseeing and getting to know the locals. Good looking Quent was a magnet to pretty girls and I was happy to help him entertain them.

Back at West Point for our final year, I didn't see much of Quent until we selected our branch of service. In the spring of 1955 we both decided to join the Corps of Engineers. Selection was based on class standing. The top guys in the class got to choose first. The last guys took what was left, usually infantry (these are the guys who often become generals). Our good grades paid off. We got our first branch choice and further we were able to pick our first Army post after we attended the Engineer Officer's Basic Course (Ft. Belvoir, VA) and Airborne School (Ft. Benning, GA). Quent and I decided we would pick Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. We made plans to buy a sailboat when we hit the islands and lead the care free life of bachelor, 2nd lieutenants.

My life as a happy-go-lucky bachelor ended before I reached Hawaii. Mary Ann and I had plans to get married after she finished college at the University of Michigan. That would place the wedding in 1956, a year later. However, during the summer and fall those plans changed. She decided it wasn't a good idea to turn me loose on a sailboat in Hawaii with Quent Bates as my mentor. We married in December 1955 and I arrived at Schofield Barracks with a new bride and no money for a sailboat.

Quent was understanding. He invested his sailboat money in a sporty green MG convertible and became the most eligible bachelor lieutenant in the 65th Engineer Battalion, 25th Infantry Division.

We were stationed in Hawaii almost three and a half years and got to know Quent really well. Our first apartment was near the beach at Waikiki. Quent and I decided to become spear fishermen. We bought masks and flippers at the PX and made Hawaiian sling spear guns. One of my favorite pictures is of us posing on the beach, weapons in hand. Mary Ann reminded me of the day we caught our first fish and proudly carried it to her on the beach. We asked her to cook it for our dinner. I don't remember how it tasted. It was five inches long.

Sometime later, Quent showed up at our quarters on post and declared we were going SCUBA diving. He had two tanks and a pair of weight belts in his car. In those days, no training or certification was needed to rent the equipment. Now days, divers also wear an inflatable vest, like a life jacket. Now days, when you are about to run out of air, you put the remaining air in the vest and can easily swim back to shore. We thought we knew all that was needed to know because we had seen a popular TV show where the actor Lloyd Bridges was always swimming around with his air tanks, having fun and making bubbles. The day of our first dive, we got Mary Ann to come with us. Her job was to wait on the beach and watch us swim out to sea with our rented tanks and weight belts. All went well for forty five minutes. We dove down among the corals and schools of fish, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. It was like being a bird, flying under water. Then we ran out of air, about three hundred yards from shore, in the ocean. We had the cumbersome tanks strapped to our backs and our weight belts were trying to sink us. The waves were splashing over us as we struggled back to shore, making it hard to get a breath. I don't think the idea of dropping belts entered our minds as we tried to swim back. We earned less than three hundred dollars a month. Paying for a lost weight belt was out of the question. We made it, but without any energy to spare. Mary Ann and I eventually became SCUBA qualified. We give Quent credit for getting us started.

Quent introduced us to a number of girls he was dating. He decided the best of the crop were found among the Pan American Airlines stewardesses who made regular trips from the Mainland (what we in Hawaii called the United States) to Honolulu. One day he showed up with a pretty blond girl, named Anna. We immediately knew she was "the one".

We remember introducing Quent and Anna to cheese fondue, sitting on the floor of our termite infested quarters at Schofield. Pay was a little skimpy when we were lieutenants. We were still too poor to have many chairs. Quent decided to take his talents elsewhere and left the Army when his service obligation was met in 1958. He and Anna were married and started the Bates dynasty.

As everyone knows, Quent was the world's best fly fisherman. In 2005, about fifty years after Quent taught me how to spear fish, he decided to teach me how to fly fish. We met on Treasure Cay, in the Bahamas. The Bates were visiting the Vitties and we were bumming around the islands in our sailboat (Yes, Quent and Rich finally went sailing .... but, not quite as planned when they were cadets). Quent decided I should learn to catch the elusive snook, which love the clear shallow waters of these islands. I really didn't want to learn. I like to eat the fish I catch and snook are too bony to eat .... but, anything to humor my old friend. We spent a couple of hours wading in the warm water, casting our lures. We could see the fish lurking, just out of range, and waded deeper and deeper, until the water was over our waists (his waist ... my chest). Finally, under Quent's expert instruction, I saw my bait disappear and the tip of my rod jerked downward. We landed the only catch of the day. Just as in our days of spear fishing, it was five inches long. This time, we didn't ask Mary Ann to cook it.

Quent left the Army in 1958. The Army lost an outstanding officer who embodied the ideals of West Point ... duty, honor, country. At his funeral his classmates joined me in saying, "Well done. Be thou at peace, our dear old friend."

Previous Eulogy   Next Eulogy
admin

West-Point.Org (WP-ORG), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, provides an online communications infrastructure that enable graduates, parents, and friends of the military academy to maintain and strengthen the associations that bind us together. We will provide this community any requested support, consistent with this purpose, as quickly and efficiently as possible. WP-ORG is funded by the generosity of member contributions. Our communication services are provided in cooperation with the AOG (independent of USMA) and are operated by volunteers serving the Long Gray Line. For questions or comments, please email us at feedback@west-point.org.