Robert Frank Pheiff

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Chuck Ewing on July 11, 2002:

I met Bob after beast barracks when company assignments tossed him and Dan Troyan and me into a room together. I was too busy even to think about it then, but I later came to see that not much in this life is stronger than the bonds formed among plebe year roommates. We mucked through the shared privation, the dread of Firsties, the demands of the Tenth Avenue crowd, the rare thrill of ducking the Boodler soiree, all the gross agonies and wee triumphs of plebe year. After the first week of academics, I figured Bob would be gone in a month. I made that judgment on the way he squawked every tasking -- to his roomies -- throwing his hands up and declaring all at an end. But the month went by and he was still there, laughing at a lot of things that didn't look very funny to me. The fulmination was just prelude to function, and function he did. Night after night he closed his books while I was still out in the hall, but he was never in trouble, never got turned out, and though he made a great show otherwise, he wasn't even worried. It took me a long time to recognize that this wasn't hard for him at all. Whatever it was, Bob could cut it, and when I got turned out at Christmas he was one of those who came to help. One of the highlights of graduation leave was the gathering at that great old hotel in Allentown where I joined Dan and Chick and Ken and a squad of others who helped marry Bob to his beloved Anne. The cruelest thing is that our paths never crossed again. The sweetest thing is that I get to remember him as he was on that blissful day in the summer of '55. Wiedersehen, Bob.

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