Paul Thomas Lenio

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Joe Franklin on May 10, 1999:

Many years ago Paul told me this story about his medical residency at Walter Reed Hospital. It was at the time that Gen. Douglas MacArthur was in his last days, confined to bed in his room in the VIP quarters. Residents were assigned to stay with the General in regular shifts, and Paul served on each evening shift, sitting quietly in the room as MacArthur slowly passed away. During the hours of Paul's presence, MacArthur tended to become restless, and he talked to the room, and to Paul, about the past. In fact, he began first with his early career, traveling with his Chief of Staff father to the Orient and meeting all the young leaders who would become his contemporaries in the Second World War. Paul said these sessions went on every night, in the lucid and descriptive speech for which MacArthur was rightly famous, and covered in precise chronology the entire career of this extraordinary soldier. Paul sat spellbound each evening during the many sessions as MacArthur spun out the most minute and fascinating details of a lifetime that spanned our military history through the first half of the twentieth century. When the General died, and the ceremonies surrounding his death had faded away, Paul recalled his evenings with MacArthur and realized that he had been the sole witness to a unique retelling of history that was nowhere recorded. He said to me, with great chagrin and humility, that he had failed to react and try to capture in some fashion these last ruminations of a towering figure in our history. It was so typical of Paul, in his understated and self-effacing way, to assume that there was more he should have done, for all the rest of us. I am grateful and proud to have shared a part of life with such a good and great man. Well done, Paul. Your classmate and admirer always, Joe Franklin

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