James Walter Staudaher

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Millicent Ward Whitt on September 13, 2010:

James Walter Staudaher, Cullum # 20284, USMA Class of 1955 Died August 25, 1957, from a fall while mountain climbing on Mt. Grosse Waxenstein, Garmisch, Germany, aged 26 years. Donald Culross Peattie has said, "Life is adventure in experience." This was true of the life of Walter Staudaher, whose adventuring interest ranged widely over all experience that came to him. He was born in Bozeman, Montana, MAY 26, 1931, the son of Mr and Mrs. Fred M. Staudaher. Walter attended Bozeman schools, graduating from Gallatin County High School in 1949. In high school he was active in athletics and also in scouting, which took him for the first time across the sea to the World Boy Scout Jamboree in France in 1947. During vacations he tried his hand at almost anything, selling papers, ice cream, shoes, working on the section gang. Even in those early days, his lively feeling for adventure led him to take with friends a seven-day canoe trip down the Missouri, from Lewis and Clark's historic rendezvous at Three Forks to Great Falls. After graduating from high school he attended Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. While at Washington University he received his West Point appointment, entering as a plebe in 1951. At West Point he was a member of the ski team and the academy choir, and also won the West Point debate award as a first classman, in consequence of which he was presented with a watch by the Swiss consulate. In Bozeman Walter was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, the Frank B. Lewis De Molay Chapter, and Elk's Lodge No. 463. Upon his graduation from West Point, he was assigned to the 127th Engineer Battalion. After Summer leave with his parents in Bozeman, Walter was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, in the Fall of 1955, and in January 1956 was transferred to Munich. In June, 1957 he voluntarily transferred to the 2nd Abn Btl. 502nd Infantry in order to broaden his military background. In October of 1956 he was given the unusual opportunity of traveling as aide to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dr Frank B. Berry, on an inspection tour of hospitals in the Near East. Joining the Mission in Paris, he traveled with it through Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Libya, taking a deep, analytic interest in all he saw and heard in each country, keeping full notes of his impressions. Both before and after this intensive trip, he continued to increase his knowledge of other countries during his tour of duty in Germany, enjoying ski and mountain climbing trips on leaves in Switzerland and Austria, as well as travel in Italy. At the news of his tragic accident, the editor of his hometown paper wrote in an editorial: "He possessed the happy faculty of friendliness and graciousness; he had the adaptability of being able to fit into any group. His conversations with older men interested them as much as it did the companions of his own age.... His discussions were marked by a breadth of viewpoint and a grasp of fundamental facts seldom found in a youth his age." Another older man wrote similarly: "He had a keen, inquiring mind, and insight, balance and judgment to a degree unusual for one of his years. I daily found it a stimulating experience to engage him in discussion on all sorts of topics." One commanding officer said: "His military bearing and sound judgment marked him in the eyes of both superiors and subordinates as a truly professional soldier." His Bozeman minister said: "Some live so long...yet live so little. Others lives seemingly are so short...yet they live so much." He left many who loved him. Among these were his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Staudaher, Bozeman Montana; his grandmother, Mrs W. S. Buzard, Yakima, Washington; his sister, Mrs Roy Pezoldt, Portland, Oregon; his brother, Fred M. Staudaher, Jr. Utica, New York, and friends who will not forget him. Millicent Ward Whitt Assembly, Spring 1958

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